THE MAN WHOM GOD HAS APPOINTED
Acts 17: 30, 31
Isaiah 32: 1-8, 17; 33: 5, 6, 17
PAG I thought in our enquiry today that we might speak about the Man whom God has appointed. That Man is Jesus. Various features of this Man are spoken of in the sections read in the prophet Isaiah. He is “a king”, “Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness”; but He is referred to explicitly as “a man”: “And a man shall be as a hiding-place from the wind” and so forth. Now, righteousness has its fruit. If a king reigns in righteousness, we learn that “the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance for ever”. And then we come to see that where God’s Man has His place, we have a heavenly outlook: “Jehovah is exalted; for he dwelleth on high”, but that heavenly position has its effect on us at the present time where we are on earth. It says, “he” - that is God’s Man - “shall be the stability of thy times”. There is a great need of stability at the present time, and it is found in a Man, the Man Christ Jesus. Then there is what is attractive too: “Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty”. No doubt as that feature of beauty is seen, there would be what would call out assembly response to such a One. I hope that we can be encouraged together as we enquire about the Man whom God has appointed.
JL We ought to be. It is a marvellous, irreversible appointment.
PAG It is not an appointment that will be withdrawn. “God highly exalted him, and granted him a name, that which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow”, Phil 2: 9, 10. God’s appointment is irrevocable.
JL Not many of the things spoken by the prophet Isaiah are presented in the future tense, but I suppose we have to consider that we are highly favoured in having the presence of the Holy Spirit, who knows better than any the present appointment of Christ in glory.
PAG I would agree with that. The scripture tells us about “the habitable world which is to come, of which we speak”, Heb 2: 5. This Man, Jesus, will be the Centre of “the habitable world which is to come, of which we speak”, but there is no feature that He will have then that is not available to us now. That is why I thought we should be encouraged in reading these scriptures together. This is not a matter of some future appointment into which others will enter, but rather we can have the good of this blessed Man now.
AMcK I was thinking that He “loved righteousness and … hated lawlessness”, Heb 1: 9. That is the character of this Man who has been appointed, whom God has looked for.
PAG That is right; so there was a certain prominence given to Him on account of that: “Thou hast loved righteousness and hast hated lawlessness; therefore God, thy God, has anointed thee with oil of gladness above thy companions”. When the high priest is anointed (Exod 29) his anointing is distinctive beyond that of his sons. The high priest had his own distinctive place, and my exercise is that the Lord might have a distinctive place in our hearts.
AMcK It says of Him in Micah, “And this man shall be Peace”, chap 5: 5. It is not only that He will bring peace or establish peace, but He “shall be Peace”.
PAG So it is inherent in Him. When He says to His own, “Peace be to you” (John 20: 21), He was giving them something that He had Himself because it was inherent in Him.
NJH Is there an answer to the cross? That was where righteousness was established: so there could be no other man who could judge apart from the One that was on it.
PAG God’s righteousness is proclaimed at the cross in the shedding of the blood of Jesus. The cross answered to the requirements of God’s holiness, and the blood answered to the requirements of His righteousness. Everything was settled there and so He has a right to appoint this Man. He appoints Him not only because He is personally suitable for the appointment but morally fitted for it.
GBG You referred to the high priest. He has not glorified Himself but is called by God: “Thou art a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedec”, Heb 5: 6. He was called by God.
PAG That is most important. The Lord spoke of persons who “loved glory from men”, John 12: 43, but His glory came from God. The word is, “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God also shall glorify him in himself, and shall glorify him immediately”, John 13: 31, 32. All that would show that this is coming directly from God.
JCG The psalmist foretold this: “And I have anointed my king upon Zion” (Ps 2: 6), even though the nations were raging. I am trying to stress what you said about how we know it and understand it now. It would be protective for the saints, would it not?
PAG So John 7 tells us that “the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified”, v 39. That was the situation then. But now Jesus is glorified, and the Spirit is here, and what has been referred to in relation to the Spirit is of importance because “He shall glorify me”, John 16: 14. The Spirit is glorifying Christ in the hearts of the saints now.
JW It is quite remarkable that it is a Man. I was thinking of the scripture in Hebrews where it says, “For he has not subjected to angels the habitable world which is to come, of which we speak” (Heb 2: 5), but then it says, “What is man …?” (v 6); so it is a Man that is in control.
PAG Is that not wonderful grace on God’s part? He could have chosen to make Himself known in any way. It is His choice to make Himself known in relationships that we can understand, and to speak to us “in the person of the Son”, Heb 1: 2. The reality of the Lord’s manhood should lay hold of us, would you say?
JW That is what I thought.
JL In Acts we are told that the Man has been appointed in view of judging in righteousness, but it is a marvellous thing at the present time that “God has set forth a mercy-seat”, that same blessed Man, “for the shewing forth of his righteousness” (Rom 3: 25); He is connected with mercy rather than judgment.
PAG Romans teaches us that God has chosen to exercise His rights in mercy. We might think He could have exercised His rights in any way He chose and, being God, He would have had a right to do so, but He chose to exercise them in mercy.
EJM In 2 Timothy, Paul says, “The Lord knows those that are his” (chap 2: 19); then two chapters later he speaks about those “who love his appearing”, chap 4: 8. Is it a challenge to every one of us who claims to be His whether we love this appointment?
PAG I think so. And why do we love His appearing? Why should we do that?
EJM Justice will be done then. He has been rejected, crucified, “despised and left alone of men” (Isa 53: 3), but in that day He will be publicly vindicated.
PAG When we come together to break bread we “announce the death of the Lord, until he come”, 1 Cor 11: 26. We might think of the Lord’s coming as being the rapture but it also involves the appearing. Both are included in the thought of the Lord coming. He comes for us, but then He comes with us; and when He comes with us, He will be “wondered at in all that have believed”, 2 Thess 1: 10. He will be recognised in all that He has secured for God. The great thing about the Lord’s appearing is that the One whom we love will be given the place that is rightly His; but we can give Him it now.
JCG What would you say about “the proof of it”? Paul says “the proof of it” was in His resurrection.
PAG The proof is embraced by faith, I think. The proof of God’s appointment is that He raised Christ from the dead; the Father raised Him from the dead by His own glory; the love of God entered into that; and He showed His approval of Christ and what He had done by reaching into the grave to claim Him for Himself; but we have “the proof of it” by faith, do you think?
JCG That is good. It is very important that the lynchpin of Christianity is that Christ has been raised from the dead. It involves not only God’s power, but His love.
PAG Yes; otherwise we would be trying to put the world right. The world cannot be put right: the world lies under judgment. What God has is another Man in another world, and that is who the Spirit occupies us with. So that the resurrection means there is a whole system of things on the other side of death that cannot be touched by the features of this world.
RHB When was this appointment made?
PAG What would you say?
RHB I was wondering if it goes back to God’s original purpose, “to head up all things in the Christ, the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth”, Eph 1: 10. I would be glad to know what you think about that.
PAG The Lord was not appointed after God had decided if He was suitable; He was always suitable for that appointment, but He is appointed as Man. God was justified in what Christ was morally as Man here, but He was always suitable for the appointment; so there is what is consequent on what the Lord has done, “Wherefore also God highly exalted him” (Phil 2: 9), but, as you rightly say, the purpose was always “to head up all things in the Christ”, and as Colossians also says, “that he might have the first place in all things”, Col 1: 18. That was not a decision that was taken in response to circumstances; that was the purpose of God.
JL In Psalm 2, which has already been quoted, it says, “And I have anointed my king upon Zion, the hill of my holiness”, v 6. That was written before the work of the cross was undertaken by the Lord Jesus and those mighty accomplishments fulfilled, but we can see it was clearly established in the mind of God, and could be spoken of prophetically with authority in the psalm.
PAG So “the proof” that our brother has referred to took place after the appointment. He gave “the proof of it to all in having raised him from among the dead”. The appointment was made, and then the proof was given. Is that right?
JL It would seem so.
RHB It was a selective resurrection, “from among the dead”. We read in the gospels that the disciples were puzzled by that. They had the idea of a general resurrection, but “having raised him from among the dead” was something quite different.
PAG Yes. The Lord’s death was distinctive in that “he delivered up his spirit” (John 19: 30), and His resurrection was distinctive in that He was “raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father”, Rom 6: 4. His resurrection was distinctive, as were both His death, and His birth: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child” (Matt 1: 23) and “power of the Highest overshadow thee” (Luke 1: 35). His death was distinctive; His resurrection was distinctive; and His ascension too was distinctive: so everything about the Lord is distinctive.
AMcK Can you say something as to the background to this? It was Athens, given up to idolatry; Paul had seen all these shrines to the various gods and there was one “To the unknown God”, Acts 17: 23. That is the background to what he says here.
PAG That is why I would seek to emphasise faith as entering into this. There were shrines that could be seen. They were false in their own way, but they could be seen, but there was a God who could not be seen and yet He worked so that there would be some acknowledgement of Him. He wants persons to seek after Him and find Him; so we find God by faith and we appreciate Christ by faith. This is the time of faith.
AMcK That is helpful. I was wondering if it linked on with what was said earlier as to the Man. It is not an unknown God. “He is going to judge the habitable earth in righteousness by the man whom he has appointed”, and He is a Man who is known to us.
PAG He is! Think of the words of Mr Darby’s hymn:
There no stranger-God shall meet thee –
(Hymn 76).
Why is it not a ‘stranger-God’? Because it is a God whom we know in Jesus.
APG The reference to “the habitable earth” refers to men: He “enjoins men that they shall all everywhere repent”; so the glad tidings is for all men. In Athens, too, it is the Gentiles that it is being announced to.
PAG That is helpful; so this Man of whom we speak is appealing to men. God is appealing to men through this blessed Man, and He is appealing to men everywhere, “all everywhere”. There is no part of this earth that is not covered by the desire of God to have men in blessing.
APG So Luke particularly has that in mind in his gospel. The grace of God is towards all men.
PAG We were reading in Titus locally, “For the grace of God which carries with it salvation for all men has appeared”, chap 2: 11. It appeared in Christ. We were struck by the fact that it is has not appeared and disappeared; it appeared and it remains.
GAB The repentant malefactor says, “this man has done nothing amiss”, Luke 23: 41. He was really aligning himself with God’s choice, was he not? Another world opens up, and the Lord says, “To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise”, v 43.
PAG These are very important words, “this man”. There are certain things that we can only say of Christ. We cannot say them of any other man, but we can say, “this man has done nothing amiss”. That Man, as you are reminding us, is in another world: “To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise”. If we have the sense of God’s Man where He is, it helps us in relation to everything down here.
RHB Say more about that, because if we believe that He has been raised from among the dead it should promote enquiry as to where He is and the circumstances in which He lives, and if we love Him, we would want to know more about that.
PAG If we find Him where He is, we find what He is to God, but we also find what He can be to us. That is in part why I wanted to draw on Isaiah 32: “And a man shall be as a hiding-place from the wind”. There are difficult circumstances, but there is a Man who is available in these circumstances. He says in His appeal to Laodicea, “I will come in unto him and sup with him, and he with me”, Rev 3: 20. There is a Man who is available to us.
JL I read this verse two days ago and I wondered why God was pleased to use such a number of illustrations. Can you help us about that?
PAG If you look at Paul’s epistles, he brings out in each of them a feature of Christ that applies distinctively to the place or area to which he is writing. So he said in 1 Corinthians, “Christ Jesus, who has been made to us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and holiness, and redemption” (chap 1: 30); and in the second epistle he says, “in him is the yea, and in him the amen”, chap 1: 20. When he is writing to Galatia, he says, “he should deliver us out of the present evil world”, chap 1: 4. When he writes to Thessalonica he says, He is “our deliverer from the coming wrath”, 1 Thess 1: 10. Younger brethren should look and see how the Lord is presented in each of the epistles. It is the same Man. It may be said that the circumstances in Thessalonica were much different from those in Rome; indeed, they were, but it is the same Man. Would that bear on these different aspects of the way in which He is presented here?
JL That helps. One of the impressions I had was that, such is the infinite delight God has in this blessed Man, He would do everything possible to convince our hearts in relation to the range of His glories.
PAG And there is nothing that He cannot meet, because if you look at the examples given here, He is “a hiding-place from the wind”, but a storm is worse than the wind, and He is still available and He is still effective. Then, “a dry place”: one might say that if it is a dry place, you could move to another place, but then you come to “a thirsty land”. The whole land is thirsty, and yet He is still available.
JCG I have sometimes wondered if there may even be some prophetic reference to what happened in this dispensation. There were ten persecutions of the church, the assembly, and then the dryness of the period in which Rome took charge; but no doubt certain persons continued throughout because they relied on the Man that was the “hiding-place” through all these difficulties in this dispensation.
PAG We often ask where in the Scripture it says, as the Lord remarks on it, “He that believes on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”, John 7: 38. Actually, if you look in the Old Testament, the Scripture says it time and time and time again, just in different ways, and it is saying it here. It is telling us that God’s Man is the source of refreshment in every circumstance.
NJH How do you view “princes shall rule in judgment”?
PAG We know that a prince has influence, and I would say that if we have in any way come under the influence of God’s Man, we should be like Him. To put it simply - and I feel greatly challenged - is my influence like His? Have I learned from Him? “Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment”. In the world to come there will be certain arrangements - “be thou in authority over ten cities” (Luke 19: 17) and so forth, and no doubt that enters into this reference to princes - but at the present time our judgment should be consistent with God’s righteousness.
NJH Even in David’s reign there were persons who were dependable like Benaiah and the Cherethites and Pelethites, where they recovered God’s thought about rule and kingship in Israel, 1 Kings 1: 38.
PAG And when David subdued certain territories, he put garrisons; so he had persons who were able to maintain what was suitable to him in these places that he had taken, 2 Sam 8.
RG I was thinking back to the question about these various descriptions of the Lord. They have often been linked with the four gospels. We consider the fulness connected with the four gospels, and then at the end of John it says, if all the things that Jesus did were written “not even the world itself would contain the books written”, chap 21: 25. We are reminded that He is the answer to every matter that comes up, but then there is far more in the way of resource available, do you think?
PAG That is important. It is a wonderful thing to take account of the Lord and what He can be to us, but we have to carry in our minds too, a much greater thought, what He is to God.
RG I was thinking of your thought as to the Man. He becomes more and more precious to us as we begin to see what He is to God, His relationships with His Father: “my Father is greater than I” (John 14: 28); “My Father who has given them to me is greater than all” (chap 10: 29); but then He says, “that they may be one, as we are one”, John 17: 22. What is in view in this Man is that we might become like Him.
PAG There are very many touches in relation to what He is to God. As the Alpha and the Omega, He sets things on for God, but He completes them for God too, Rev 22: 13. It says in 1 Corinthians, “Then the end, when he gives up the kingdom to him who is God and Father; when he shall have annulled all rule and all authority and power”, chap 15: 24. He set everything on for God; “the last Adam a quickening spirit” (v 45) is Christ in resurrection opening up a whole new race for God, but He is doing it in view of completion, and that again would have a stabilising effect on our souls.
GBG The exercises we face might continue; so do you think it is only as having our affections engaged with the Man that we can go through these tests rightly?
PAG There was a time when He was in the boat and He said, “Silence; be mute”, Mark 4: 39. He brought the matter to a halt, but He does not always do that. There are exercises current amongst us, and this is not the place to speak of them in detail, but they have gone on; they have not stopped. We might ask the Lord to take them away, but perhaps He is teaching us something in them about Himself, and perhaps teaching me something about myself too.
GBG It has been rightly said we need to get back to Gilgal. We should never really leave Gilgal, should we?
PAG That is absolutely right. Gilgal refers to self-judgment. Now, we are speaking about the Man who bore the judgment. He had nothing to judge in Himself; He was perfect. But we have things to judge in ourselves, and if we are occupied with Him as God’s Man and God’s standard, it makes it all the clearer what needs to be judged.
DAB It says earlier in this prophet, “the mean man shall be bowed down, and the great man shall be brought low”, chap 2: 9. I notice here it speaks of “the vile man”. These are all features of the man after the flesh, but what you are stressing is the One who is of God’s appointing, and He really is to become supreme to us. Isaiah says, “Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils” (chap 2: 22); so we need to set man aside, ‘ordinary man’, as it says in the note in chapter 2 (note ‘n’), and have our affections and our thoughts and our minds centred on this blessed One who can be all these things to us.
PAG I think that. You have touched on these verses 5, 6 and 7. We live in a world - just to touch on this lightly - where what is vile is allowed and, indeed, it is praised at times: that is not God’s way. There is a time coming when that will be set right, and we should have courage that we are not required to go along with these things; they are not according to God. There is a Man who is pure and holy, and that is the Man with whom we are associated. That is the Man with whom we will be eternally, and we are not required to go along with these things.
DAB The prophet says, “Cease ye from man”. The power of the Holy Spirit is available so that the purity and preciousness and blessedness of the Lord Jesus Christ is filling our souls, and so we begin to take character from that Man, do you think? Is that what is to be seen in our gatherings, not what is of nature, but what is of Christ?
PAG That bears on what we have in verse 17, “And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance for ever”. What we see as we are together is the work of righteousness. One might say that the work of righteousness was done on the cross. It was, but it is to be carried on; the work of righteousness is to proceed among believers.
JCG Is it important therefore that our eyes should not be “dim” nor our ears failing to hearken? That is stressed as if there was a spiritual alertness. Our brother referred to the Spirit’s service to help us. If we see what is unrighteous, we should act in relation to it.
PAG We should. Indeed, we must; we have a responsibility. How we do it, the Lord will help us as to that. It is not that we spend the whole time looking for evil or dealing with it, but when it comes up, it needs to be addressed and the Lord will help us in relation to that. If we simply see that “the work of righteousness shall be peace”; we will understand that “the work of righteousness” will not be more dissent, more disorder; but rather that “the work of righteousness shall be peace”.
AMcK Can you say something about nobility? It speaks of it in verse 8.
PAG It would seem among other things that nobles were persons who made way for the Spirit,
Well, which princes digged, which the
nobles of the people hollowed out
at the word of the lawgiver, with their staves”,
Num 21: 18.
My impression is that nobility is not exactly an official position. The Bereans were “noble”; they searched the Scriptures, Acts 17: 11. Nobility seems to be a moral feature involving subjection to the Spirit and subjection to the Scriptures. There would be more aspects of it but these might be two. What would you say?
AMcK I thought it was very dignified, and what is seen worked out in the assembly at the present time, which is observed by the angels, should be what is noble.
PAG Nobility would mark persons who were in the good and enjoyment of sonship.
JL It is one of the things listed in Philippians: “whatsoever things are noble”, Phil 4: 8. It is amongst the things to which we are to give consideration.
PAG That is helpful. Say more as to your own impression of nobility.
JL Our brother asked earlier about the princes; you would expect nobility to shine out amongst the princes. It would be seen in persons who would reflect what is truly characteristic of the kingdom under the control of the King himself. You would expect to see noble features arising, would you not? We are to think about these things, the things that are characterised by nobility.
PAG The scripture says that “God made man upright”, Eccl 7: 29. That would be the expression of nobility, do you think? There are things that contort man’s being through wickedness, but “God made man upright”, and what He is looking for is that feature in us.
RG It says, “But the noble deviseth noble things”. That is not just a cut and dried matter. Do you think devising noble things would involve the activity of the Spirit among the saints? We have exercises and tests to face. Do you think the Lord would help us, as we are subject, to provide an answer? It is not expedient, and does not involve compromise, but an answer that would reflect Himself.
PAG That is right, and what is in my mind in the reference to “God made man upright”. He made man like Himself; He is in the image of God; and He expects us to be in accordance with that image. I wonder whether Paul’s epistle to Philemon is really an example of “the noble deviseth noble things”. There was something to be met there, but Paul met it with nobility. He did not insist on his apostleship but he met it in a noble way that would cause Philemon to accept what Paul was saying.
RG I do not want to take you further than what you have in mind at the moment, but do you think there is any sense in which “the all-various wisdom of God” (Eph 3: 10) might enter into this?
PAG Reference has already been made to the angels looking on. They take account of what proceeds. Certainly there would not be much between wisdom and nobility, you would think. A noble would behave wisely; a wise person would be noble. There would not be disparity.
AMB I was looking at these verses that you read from 1-8. There is a progression in them. We begin by finding need met: if there is a storm and wind and drought and thirst and so forth, we prove Christ as the One that meets our need and we can all relate to that. However simple our impression of Christ, He meets our need. Then there is “the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken”; so there is the beginning of an appreciation of this One. There is movement towards Him and appreciation of Him and things are set right. You get the thought of that in verse 4. And then in verse 8 we come back to the matter of nobility. There is something coming to light in the believer (and believers can take account of that in one another), that has its origin in Christ Himself. I think it is good to see that God has devised a whole sphere of things in which, in His grace, we come to have our need met in Christ, and we are led on to manifest features that have their origin in Him.
PAG We are not intended just to be spectators, but we are intended to be participators, and we are participators to the extent that we become like Christ; so “the noble deviseth noble things”. In that sense, we can now produce something that will be pleasing to God. Is that what is in mind?
AMB That is fine. We see that we have been given to Christ by God. “The Father loves the Son”, we are told in John’s gospel, “and has given all things to be in his hand”, chap 3: 35. Well, what are these “all things”? We are among them. We have been given to Christ and He brings us home to God. What a wonderful and gracious movement that is to lay hold of in our souls, the reality of it!
PAG And so God has given to Christ what is like Him, and of Him, and for Him, and we are brought in then to that sphere of affection, to which reference has already been made, in John 17, “that they may be one, as we are one”, v 22. These things would all have an ennobling effect on us.
JW I wonder if Paul was looking for what was noble in the Corinthians when he wrote to them. He brings in chapter 13 and he tells us there what love does not do, and what it does do. We have “the vile” and “the churl” and various features referred to in this chapter, but I wondered if what Paul brings out when he says how love acts would be what is noble.
PAG That is a very important injunction for us. We should always be looking for what is noble in the brethren because it will be there; we can be sure it will be there. If the work of God is there, then there will be what is noble. Even to an area such as Galatia Paul says, “Brethren, if even a man be taken in some fault, ye who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of meekness”, chap 6: 1. Earlier he had said, “O senseless Galatians, who has bewitched you”, chap 3: 1. It might be said that there cannot possibly be anybody spiritual in Galatia, but Paul anticipated that there would be.
CAMcK Do you think Paul was seeking to draw out what was noble in Philemon when he wrote to him through his influence? He said, “I Paul have written it with mine own hand; I will repay it”, v 19. He was looking for Philemon to be noble towards Onesimus, do you think?
PAG He was, but he did it by demonstrating nobility himself. There is very little point in telling somebody else to be something if I am not prepared to be it. If we are exercised to help one another, it is in showing these features that we will be helpful.
AB “Each one resembled the sons of a king” (Judg 8: 18): that would be very princely. Then it goes on to say, “They were my brethren, the sons of my mother” (v 19), something of the maternal feeling.
PAG That is helpful, and Gideon can recognise and acknowledge what they were. “These were my brethren, the sons of my mother”. Well, that is a wonderful thing to be able to say of one another: “They were my brethren”.
JCG Mr Darby’s hymn says:
And here we walk as sons, through grace
(Hymn 120).
That involves the dignity of the noble. I was thinking too of Numbers 21 where the nobles used their staves to make way for the Spirit. That would involve our experience with God, would it? We see it in divine Persons so that what is real and living might come to light; so there is,
Rise up, well! sing unto it, Num 21: 17.
PAG That is important. The action of the staves was to hollow out. I take that to mean that a noble accepts that the first order of man has to be displaced. Hollowing out is displacement, and if we are going to make room for the Spirit, there has to be something displaced in order for that to happen, and that is the first order of man.
KJW I think it has been said that a prince is someone who is great enough to be little, one who has that going-down mind that was in Christ Jesus. Does that help us in relation to what you are bringing before us? You spoke about the Man appointed. You did not read it but verse 18 speaks about dwelling “in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting-places”. That is what we get as we make way for Christ and having the going-down mind. We are not concerned about the things of the world; we have that stable area of things where Christ is free and the Spirit is free.
PAG That is helpful. Mephibosheth brings together these features that you are talking about. He was quite happy to give away all his goods; he was not interested in any of that; he would go down. He was misrepresented by Ziba; he did not complain about that; but he says, “Let him even take all, since my lord the king is come again in peace”, 2 Sam 19: 30. That is what mattered to him. One man and one dwelling-place: it preserves us from a great deal. I say that as feeling the test of it myself.
NJH Paul says, “if even in abundantly loving you I should be less loved”, 2 Cor 12: 15. He did not complain: He showed it.
PAG “Now I shall most gladly spend and be utterly spent for your souls”, 2 Cor 12: 15. Why? He knew God loved the Corinthians - so he was going to love them too. Like his Master, he was going to spend everything he had.
GAB Is magnanimity in forgiveness a mark of nobility? I was thinking of the man in Corinth who had been so wrong. The Corinthians were rather lacking in noble features in that they did not accept his repentance properly. The word is, “assure him of your love”, 2 Cor 2: 8. That is noble.
PAG It is, and there is an inexhaustible supply available: “Love never fails”, 1 Cor 13: 8. I do think that. “Her many sins are forgiven; for she loved much; but he to whom little is forgiven loves little”, Luke 7: 47. I have been forgiven much; so we can afford to display these features.
BWL Could you say something about “the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance for ever”?
PAG The Lord came in to His own in John 20 and said, “Peace be to you”. He said it twice (verses 19 and 21): the work of righteousness had been done and therefore peace was there. We know from the epistles “having made peace by the blood of his cross”, Col 1: 20. “The work of righteousness”, I think, creates conditions in which the presence of God can be enjoyed, and in which God can enjoy relationships with His people. We speak about Matthew 18, and things that may need to be taken up, but the section where we “tell it to the assembly” (v 17) closes with the Lord saying, “For where two or three are gathered together unto my name, there am I in the midst of them” (v 20); so “the work of righteousness” makes way for peace in the Lord’s presence. They are not disconnected from one another.
BWL There is the peace that has been established through the work of Christ, and that can never be altered, but then there is the side of things that continues. I was thinking about Phinehas, Num 25: 7. He is spoken of in relation to righteousness, and peace was established through it (v 12), was it not?
PAG Yes, and Phinehas took responsibility, and took action when he had to, and he was right to do so.
R-yB You mentioned in your opening remarks about “he shall be the stability of thy times”. Did you have something in mind about that?
PAG It is right to have a general impression of the glory of Christ. There are glories He has which are His because of who He is. However, there is what is available to us that is particularly applicable to the times in which we are, “the stability of thy times”. You can look back over the history of the testimony and say that it was easier when things were fresh and new; or it was more straightforward at the time of the recovery when Mr Darby and others were exercised to come out of the established church. And someone might say that things are much more difficult now. Well, “he shall be the stability of thy times”. It is the same Man all the way through; He does not change: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to-day, and to the ages to come”, Heb 13: 8.
RHB In the passage you quoted in John 20, the Lord went on to breathe into them, and then He says, “whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted to them; whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained”, v 23. They received the Spirit of the heavenly Man from Him, and it was in the Spirit they would be able to take up the difficulties that would arise in the testimony.
PAG Yes; there ought to be a direct link between the exercise of judgment and the Spirit of Christ. If the two become separated, there is likely to be trouble. It is the Spirit of the heavenly Man, and He puts remission before retention, so that the bent of our minds would be to remit. Of course, a point may be reached when things become fixed and we would have to acknowledge that, but the bent of our mind would be remission.
TWL I was looking again at this “stability of thy times”. It is not ‘stability of the times’; persons were involved. I was thinking earlier in relation to what you said about what Christ is for God, but then what Christ can be for us. “The stability of thy times” is personal for Him; it is personal for us too. If we hang on to Christ, we will be sustained to the end.
PAG Well, the life of the woman in John 4 was disordered: “thou hast had five husbands, and he whom now thou hast is not thy husband”, v 18. She was completely dissatisfied, and she goes from that to “Come, see a man who told me all things I had ever done: is not he the Christ?”, v 29. She had stability that she had never known before, and she had it in this one Man, and not only did she have it in Him, she was willing to speak about Him. There is stability and salvation in speaking about Him.
TWL Yes, and Paul does that in Philippians. He makes a list there of all the things that he counts to be loss and all the things that he has given up and so on, and then he clarifies it all “on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord”, Phil 3: 5-8. That is the appointed Man.
PAG And he shared the source of his stability and the place of it too: “for our commonwealth has its existence in the heavens”, chap 3: 20.
RB I was wondering if “the stability of thy times” is finding Christ at the right hand of God. Everything flows out from there; all our blessings flow from there.
PAG That is very good. If you think of how it is described in Hebrews: He “sat down in perpetuity”, chap 10: 12. There is not going to be any change to that, “sat down in perpetuity”, and yet in that place of glory is the One who is “always living to intercede for” us, chap 7: 25. He is thinking of us in that exalted place in order that we might be suited to be in that place.
JL Does that not add great importance to the Spirit’s present service? He occupies us with Christ where He is. If I look around, everything seems to be characterised by instability, but the focus of the Spirit’s service directs my heart to Christ where stability is at the right hand of God.
PAG Do you think that would really bring out these features spoken of here, “the riches of salvation, wisdom and knowledge”? These riches are with Him where He is, and we can have access to Him, and it takes us beyond our need.
JL That is very good. They are not only centred there but they can be drawn upon from there, can they not?
PAG So you come to Ephesians: “being enlightened in the eyes of your heart, so that ye should know what is the hope of his calling” - that is, God’s calling - “and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what the surpassing greatness of his power towards us who believe”, chap 1: 18, 19. It is all centred in Christ. There are great riches associated with what God has done and is doing through that blessed One.
JCG Hence the importance of what precedes “the stability of thy times”, “Jehovah is exalted; for he dwelleth on high: he hath filled Zion with justice and righteousness”, so that what you have stressed as to “Jehovah is exalted; for he dwelleth on high” shows that we need to be occupied with the heavenly Man there where He is. There is so much to distract down here but eyes should be heavenward, should they not?
PAG They should, and Zion would remind us of both the purpose of God and the sovereign mercy of God. God has had His purposes in a past eternity, but His sovereign mercy has been effective so that we might come into the good of these things, what He has centred in Christ.
NJH “And gave him to be head over all things to the assembly”: that is in Ephesians 1: 22. We are really united to the Man who has been appointed.
PAG We are. That may link with, "Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty”. “And gave him to be head over all things to the assembly, which is his body, the fulness of him who fills all in all”, v 22, 23. Christ is going to fill “all in all” administratively in a day to come that we have been speaking of, but He will have His fulness with Him. He will have His saints with Him; yes, but He will have His assembly, and she will share with Him. It is worth remembering what God says of the man and the woman in the beginning of Genesis 1: “let them have dominion”, v 26. She will share in that dominion with Him.
JCG Is it the sense in which the saints of the assembly complement for God what is in Christ? Is that how you understand it?
PAG That would be the thought of the counterpart. God says, “It is not good that Man should be alone; I will make him a helpmate, his like”, Gen 2: 18. The assembly is like Him; she complements Him; she demonstrates in a real and living way the features of subjection that are proper to the helpmate. “Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty; they shall behold the land that is far off”. Now, perhaps for Israel it was “far off”, but for us “the land that is far off” is separate from the world; it does not have anything to do with the world; it is “far off”. It does not mean we cannot be in it.
JCG Is this what we are able to enjoy after the Lord’s supper? I think increasingly we are beginning to realise the power of the Spirit to help us to see things, do you not think so? He comes in amongst the saints and manifests Himself.
PAG I do; so it says of the Lord that “he led them out as far as Bethany”, Luke 24: 50. We break bread in the wilderness, so Bethany in that sense was on the earth, but then He did not continue on the earth. In that sense He went to “the land that is far off”, but He takes us with Him; by the Spirit’s power, we are taken with Him.
JL There is a special opportunity at the Supper to “see the King in his beauty” connected with that sphere. We associate many other thoughts with the King - His power, His majesty, His control and so on - but “his beauty” is something very precious to us to be enjoyed at the Supper.
PAG It is, and I think it is a beauty that the assembly appreciates the most. Other families, no doubt, will have their place, and each will have some feature of Christ. There is no doubt about that because God is the Father of every family, but there is an appreciation of His beauty that is distinctive to the assembly, would you say?
JL I think so. There is a suggestion of that in the Song of Songs when “the king is at his table”, chap 1: 12. The assembly values His presence and the spikenard begins to flow forth in response to His beauty, do you think?
PAG You might say it is a spontaneous response: “My spikenard sendeth forth its fragrance”. It is a spontaneous answer in the souls of the saints to the beauty of Christ.
AMcK Although it is described here as “the land that is far off“, it should not be far off to us.
PAG That is my thought. It is “far off” in the sense that it has no connection with the world, but it is not “far off” for us now because the Spirit is here. If we think it is “far off” and we cannot reach it, we need to refer to Ephesians 3, “strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man; that the Christ may dwell, through faith, in your hearts, being rooted and founded in love, in order that ye may be fully able to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height” (v 16-18); not ‘what will be’ but “what is”.
JW I was thinking of the palmist in Psalm 45. He says, “I say what I have composed touching the king” (v 1), and then we get the touch, “upon thy right hand doth stand the queen in gold of Ophir”, v 9.
PAG That is good, and so there is appreciation of His beauty; what we have said of the fact that He “loved righteousness, and hated wickedness” (v 7) would all enter into the matter, “Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty”, but then it says, “And the king will desire thy beauty”, v 11. In the same way, as there is beauty in Christ, there is beauty in the assembly; she is His counterpart in that sense too.
NJH We view the Supper peculiarly for Christ. In other meetings, in His grace, He serves us, whether it is in temple enquiry in readings, in the gospel or in the prophetic meeting, but the Lord’s supper is peculiarly for Himself.
PAG That would be emphasised by Paul’s expression of it in 1 Corinthians 11, “For I received from the Lord, that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, in the night in which he was delivered up, took bread”, v 23. He committed it into the hands of Paul, because it was a matter of such prime importance to Him that He would give that instruction from heaven: we should pay attention to that.
APG When David was brought in, it was beauty that was spoken of: "a lovely countenance and beautiful appearance”, 1 Sam 16: 12. He was “anointed … in the midst of his brethren”, v 13. He was given the first place.
PAG And that beauty was not only outward but inward. Samuel had been rather occupied with what was outward, but David’s beauty was not only outward but inward: “but Jehovah looketh upon the heart”, v 7. It is something about Christ. He said He was “Altogether that which I also say to you”, John 8: 25. What He was outwardly and what He was inwardly were entirely consistent in every sphere.
Brechin
16th April 2016
List of Initials:
R Bain, Buckie; A M Brown, Grangemouth; D A Brown, Grangemouth; G A Brown, Grangemouth; R-y Brown, Grangemouth; R H Brown, East Finchley; A Buchan, Kirkcaldy; A P Grant, Dundee; G B Grant, Dundee; J C Gray, Grangemouth; P A Gray, Grangemouth; R Gray, Grangemouth; N J Henry, Glasgow; J Laurie, Brechin; T W Lock, Edinburgh; B W Lovie, Aberdeen; E J Mair, Buckie; A McKay, Brechin; C A McKay, Brechin; K J Walker, Dundee; J Webster, Fraserburgh