chapter one

Entering into the values of Pentecost

“Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the scripture hath said, out of his inner man shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believed on him were to receive: for the Spirit was not yet given; because Jesus was not yet glorified” (John 7:37-39).

1) The expectation of the Spirit

Reading: Psalm 24; Acts 2:32-36; 10:36-44.

That statement, “… the Spirit was not yet given …” surely carries with it some great implication in the light of all that has gone before connected with the Holy Spirit. There are eighty-eight references to the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament; there are twenty-two out of the thirty-nine books which speak of the Holy Spirit; the Spirit was given to the Lord Jesus, “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit”. In the Old Testament we read, “The Spirit came upon …” and then we are told, “… the Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified”. It evidently means that something much greater, much more definite, than had ever been known in relation to the Holy Spirit was yet to be.

Think of Samson, king Saul, Gideon, the workers for the tabernacle, and see the result of the Spirit of the Lord coming upon them. We might covet their experience, but when all are put together into one great story, with Ezekiel, and all the rest, you have still to read, “… the Spirit was not yet given …”. God made a promise to Abraham, and in Galatians we are told that promise is fulfilled in Jesus Christ “that we might receive the Spirit”. So we are brought by this statement to a tremendous expectation. That which was to come when John wrote this history, when Jesus lifted up His voice on that last great day of the Feast, was to transcend all that had been known of the Spirit and make it as almost nothing.

Surely the Lord would have us face the tremendous possibilities in the light of His Word and place ourselves right into this expectation — not of another Pentecost but of entering into the values of Pentecost, and in faith to believe that God means in this dispensation for His church something more than was ever known at most in the old dispensation.

2) Jesus glorified the ground in which the Spirit is given

“… the Spirit was not yet … because Jesus was not yet glorified”. It is all bound up with and related to Jesus being glorified. This is the key to everything; this explains the whole doctrine of the Holy Spirit, of the work of the Spirit.

It was on the last great day of the Feast of tabernacles that Jesus spoke about the rivers flowing from within as expressive of the Holy Spirit’s fulness. At the celebration of that Feast, for seven days water was drawn from the Pool of Siloam and poured out on the temple pavement. It was done in remembrance that over a perfect period God had maintained them in life throughout the wilderness journey. On the eighth day the water was not drawn, because that day represented the day of entering into the land in which there were the springs of living water, the fulness of life. In type Israel was now in the land, though historically they were far from that in spiritual experience.

The Lord Jesus steps right into the midst, gathers up the eighth day into His own person; takes the place of the land, the fulness, and says, “He that believeth on Me” shall, in effect, find springs, rivers within, flowing out, and “this spake he of the Spirit …”.

The glorifying of the Lord Jesus is, all-inclusively, God filling Him with all fulness. When the Lord Jesus returned, those heavenly messengers, waiting at the portals, commenced to chant:

“Lift up your heads, O ye gates;

And be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors;

And the King of glory shall come in.

Who is the King of glory?

The Lord strong and mighty,

The Lord mighty in battle.”

He is returning from the fray, and when He comes in Paul tells us God fills Him with all fulness. He had gone down, and emptied Himself of that fulness, to accomplish this great work, and then He returns and as the King of glory enters in the fulness is poured into Him. “It pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell”. That is the glorifying of the Lord Jesus. Because God did that, Peter says: “He hath poured forth this which ye see and hear.” The Holy Spirit is the fulness of Christ. Because He is at God’s right hand exalted, because He has filled Him and thus glorified Him, the Spirit can be given. So the land comes into view with Jesus glorified. It is all God’s fulness for His people.

a) Redemption accomplished

Jesus glorified means redemption is accomplished. That means that everything has been taken back to where God’s purpose was interrupted, and at that point a securing of everything against a further interruption. The Lord Jesus, emptying Himself, went right back to the point at which God’s purpose was broken in upon, took things up there, and from that point redeemed unto God all that which had been taken from God. Redemption is not that we get something back; it is God who gets something back. “Redeemed unto God …”. There are sinister factors behind man’s separation from God. For anyone not to see to God’s claims is to mean nothing less than robbing God. “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” It was the great universal “that” of which God was robbed. That is redemption; and what is so much more is the second half of the statement that there was a securing against a further interruption. The Redeemer is glorified at God’s right hand. If you can tear down God’s throne you can undo redemption. There is not one who has ever laid a hand upon that throne with any success. The work of redemption is settled in heaven. “Who shall separate us from the love of God?” “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors (it is superlative) through Him that loved us.”

b) A Man perfected

We notice again when and where the interruption took place, and what was bound up with it. Adam was made; not perfect but capable of being made perfect; innocent but not holy; capable of holiness (holiness always being positive not negative) by the exercise of volition Godward; put on probation, tested, failed. He never was perfected, and because he came short of the glory God could never give to that man the Spirit of life, eternal life. Jesus goes back to that point just before man failed, and there was let loose upon Him also in probation all those forces in the universe inimical to God’s intention for man. He met them through such years of suffering as we know nothing about. A little of it was seen in the garden of Gethsemane, and that was going on through His life. He met it all, overcame it, broke it. It exhausted itself upon Him, and by His own blood He overcame. He was made perfect through sufferings. as a Man — albeit Son of God — and as perfected Man He is glorified. God has given Him the Spirit, and He has poured forth this. The Holy Spirit is the great divine expression of the fact that God has got His end in a Man. So Man perfected, Man triumphant, received the Spirit of life. The Holy Spirit is given on the ground of Jesus perfected as Man and now in the presence of God.

c) Headship vested in the Son of Man

Jesus glorified means that He by God is set as Lord and Head of the new creation, and upon the basis of Jesus Christ being Lord and Head the Holy Spirit is given. That has some practical outworkings. That was the testimony at Pentecost and in its counterpart at Caesarea. At Pentecost Peter said, “God hath made him both Lord and Christ, being at the right hand of God exalted.” At Caesarea Peter said, “He is Lord of all.” On both occasions — two halves of one thing, the Jewish and the Gentile — the Holy Spirit fell. Jesus is Lord, and that spreads itself over everything. Inclusively it means that Jesus has got to be Head in our wills, our reason has to bow to His Headship.

The Holy Spirit is given when God has His end. The Holy Spirit is given when we enter into God’s end. God’s end is Christ. Redemption is accomplished. There is nothing that God has yet to do. Faith must joyously appropriate and appreciate that.

chapter two

The Holy Spirit, Faith, the Cross, Resurrection and Reigning

Reading: Psalm 2.

3) The crisis and process of the Spirit’s work

We have often said that in the Gospels we have the great truths which are afterwards fully expounded. In the passage in John 7, “On the last great day of the feast Jesus stood and cried … he that believeth on Me out of him shall flow rivers of living water …”, there is the majestic truth in relation to Christ glorified and the Holy Spirit’s coming brought to us in germ form. We need the whole Bible to give us the full value of a little fragment like this. We shall see that as we go on.

We have to seek to understand by the enablement of the Lord the Spirit, the basis and nature of the Holy Spirit’s coming and fulfilling His purpose, bound up in a crisis and a process.

The crisis and process of faith

The Crisis is the crisis of the Cross. Faith in a crisis and a process is the ground of the coming and operation of the Holy Spirit. It is faith engendered and then developed. The engendering of the faith is in a new birth, representing a tremendous crisis by which we are brought into oneness with God in all the fulness of His intention. The Holy Spirit then makes real and actual the fact that Jesus is the Author of faith (Heb. 12:2). Jesus glorified, the Holy Spirit coming because Jesus is glorified to engender or initiate faith; then by a process to perfect faith in relation to Jesus glorified.

Let us illustrate from the Old Testament. Genesis is the book of the foundation, so that great spiritual laws are represented by persons in that book.

Abel — the cross

Abel stands at the portal of divine revelation. Cain tried to get on by ignoring the Cross, but found only judgement. If we are to get anywhere in the purpose of God we have to come to the Cross, which means an end of everything of ourselves, where Christ becomes first and last, beginning and end; our only hope Christ crucified, not just for the forgiveness of sins but union with Christ in death to all that has come in through Adam. The end of the government of one personality and the beginning of the government of another; the end of one spirit and the introducing of another. The cross is the crisis, “I have been crucified with Christ”. The process follows, “I live by the faith of the Son of God.” Faith is the basis and the issue of the Cross. Abel brings in the cross as foundational to everything.

Abraham — faith

Galatians 3 tells us that the promise was made unto Abraham that in his seed all nations of the earth should be blest, and then we read, “that we might receive the promise which was made unto Abraham in Jesus Christ”. The promise is the Holy Spirit given on the ground of faith. In Abraham faith had a crisis and was a process; “By faith Abram (Abraham) … went out not knowing whither …” (Heb. 11). It was the end in the thought of God of everything in one realm, and the beginning of something altogether new. “Unto a land that I will shew thee”; beyond sight, beyond grasp, lying in the direction of faith’s venture upon God. Even when he got there it seemed a contradiction. Then it was a case of the development of faith all the way to the end of his life.

When Christ said, “He that believeth on Me …” He was universally rejected. It was a tremendous venture of faith to believe in the Lord Jesus. Abraham did no more than we can do, turned round and faced the path of faith. The Author of faith takes things up at that point and we can begin to move. The Holy Spirit empties of all that is not faith, all that obstructs the way of faith. But the Lord never weakens without the intention to make us know His strength.

Isaac — resurrection

He to whom the promise was made (Abraham) was found offering his only son in whom the promises were secured. Abraham believed that although he might slay his son the promises would be fulfilled all the same; God was able to raise him, for He could not break His promise. The promises are secured in resurrection. The prospect of everything is Christ risen. If He does not rise our faith in vain. The first phase of our union with Christ is union in death. The next is union with Him in resurrection. And in resurrection union we inherit the promises. The death will be worked out, but so will the resurrection, every fresh experience of death issuing in a fresh experience of resurrection.

Jacob — service

Jacob represents service. One half of Jacob’s history is service in the ingenuity, wit, cunning, craftiness, energy of the old man. Then he meets his crisis, and after that goes on a crutch for the rest of his life, and it is no more Jacob but Israel. “He that believeth on Me, out of him shall flow rivers of living water.” Service is Jesus glorified going on with His work by the Holy Spirit — not what we are doing but what He is doing.

Joseph — reigning

Everything from Abel to Jacob is gathered up in Joseph. Abel represents the Cross. Joseph knew death and burial in the dungeon. Abraham represents faith. In the dungeon, in the prison, it is marvellous how Joseph believed God. Isaac represents resurrection. Surely Joseph knew resurrection. Jacob represents service. Joseph”s whole story is one that he might be used to save life. The supreme feature of Joseph is that he was in the throne, glorified.

All this has to become true of us. There is a whole life, condition, nature, order of things in us personally which has to be ended in a crisis, so that from that point we have to say, I cannot! There must be an acceptance of union in Christ’s resurrection, as alive from the dead. Then we definitely repose faith in Him to see to the process, to work this out to its full and final end.

chapter three

Union with Christ

Reading: Eph. 1:22-23; 4:15-16, 5:23; Col. 1:18; 2:19; 1 Cor. 12:13.

4) The one body, the one object of the Spirit’s operation

The Holy Spirit’s work is to constitute such a union between believers and Christ Himself as to be in the nature of one body. The Lord Jesus remains Himself apart but for all practical purposes through this dispensation, and for great practical purposes in the ages to come, Christ and His members form one body. The value of that is that where the church is in true Holy Spirit representation there is Jesus as the glorified Son of God in all the values of His having been glorified. When two or three men full of the Holy Spirit visit a place and come into any situation as guided by Him, it should be as though Jesus Christ in all the fulness of His having been glorified has come there. When the apostles went from place to place, men spoke of them as the men who had turned the world upside down, but there was another intelligence behind those men who recognised that it was Jesus that had come there. To break new ground as led by the Holy Spirit means that hell takes account, not of you, but of the fact that Christ has come in the power of the Holy Spirit, and the movement of hell is on such a scale and with such intensity as is not at all necessary to overthrow poor mortals such as we, but it is a movement from the depths to meet Jesus Christ glorified. The Holy Spirit has come to make the church like that.

a) The government of Jesus Christ

“And gave Him to be head over all things to the church which is his body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.” Headship means government and administration in the hands of the Lord Jesus, to be expressed in the church by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the Holy Spirit must bring the absolute supremacy of Christ into the church; that is, we must be filled with the Spirit in order to have the government and administration of Christ in the church. Being filled with the Spirit means that everything else is put under, made completely subject to the Holy Spirit.

Human judgements, calculations, ideas, reasons, ambitions, motives, impulses, everything that comes from ourselves has to be made subject to the Holy Spirit. That is not an easy matter. Jonah was a prophet, and God spoke to him; but Jonah, man of God, prophet, had a prejudice which rose up in the presence of a divine commission and caused a deadlock, almost a disaster. Peter was an apostle, a man who had the Spirit, yet he said, “Not so, Lord.” He had the book of Leviticus before him which spoke of clean and unclean things, and he could have said, I stand here upon the Word of God. He had failed to see the change of dispensation. He needed the illumination of the Holy Spirit upon his religious tradition, to be delivered from it as an earth-binding thing.

b) The unity of the saints

The Headship of Jesus Christ means unity. A terrific battle goes on over unity, or fellowship. It is well to notice that when the disciples were not filled with the Spirit they did not continue in fellowship. That is the story of the letter to the Corinthians. “How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity” (Psalm 133). Fellowship, or unity, is the expression of Christ glorified. The enemy will do anything to frustrate an expression of that along the line of unity.

A Holy Spirit filled church, even though it be in representation by a few members of Christ, is a mighty spiritual force. The power of Christ glorified is present. That is why the enemy does not want a footing for this vessel of testimony in any new territory, and is always seeking to break its testimony where it is.

Spiritual power is not feelings; very often when it is most in operation it is not recognised by the senses. Deeper than human perception something is going on which is terrific in this universe. We want the power, to use the power, to make our work a success. That is why God weakens, empties, breaks, pulverizes His vessels before He can use them most. God so hides His work sometimes that we do not know anything has happened until a very long time afterwards; but where God has Holy Spirit filled vessels His power is there.

The fulness of spiritual life, growth, increase, enlargement is a fellowship matter not an individual matter. “Building itself up in love”. Fellowship is the basis of building up, increase. It is not congregations of Christian people, but something very much more positive.

chapter four

Fulness of the Spirit

Reading: Eph. 1:22-23; 4:15; 5:23; Col. 1:18-19; 2:19; 1 Cor: 12:13.

We are at this point concerned with how the government of Christ as glorified and as Head, and unity in the body, are bound up with the baptism and fulness of the Spirit; and how that baptism and fulness are necessary for the Headship of the Lord Jesus, that all that it means is really to be expressed in the church.

We take an illustration. Here is a large vessel full of water. We let it stand for that sphere or circle signified by the phrase “in Christ”. The water filling the vessel is the Holy Spirit. I take a number of small vessels, representing those who are in Christ, and put them into the large vessel. Suppose these small vessels are empty and open. They will be filled with the water. They are filled in and they are filled with.

Supposing these vessels were set in motion. They would all begin to move together in the same direction and all at the same time, because they are filled with the same water and are encompassed by the same water. For some to move one way and others to move in the opposite direction would be breaking the law which operates, and be a contradiction. That is the nature of the oneness of the body. It is the oneness of one Spirit into which we are baptized, by which we are filled.

Supposing some of these vessels were already preoccupied; that is, with something else in them. They would be plunged in with the others, be moved with the same impulse from without, but it would not be true of them that the thing is in them.

There are a lot of believers like that. They are in Christ, the Spirit is about them, they are saying the things that others say, imitating what others do; they seem to be governed by the same Spirit, but the Lord may know that in some cases it is purely an external thing.

Supposing some of these vessels are sealed. They may be empty, but that is not the point. They have not got anything but they are closed up. When they are plunged in to the large vessel they simply come up to the surface. They may move round with the momentum, but they are so light that they move to the edge of the vessel and cling to it, they part asunder, have no balance. They are simply on the surface of things, unrelated. Any little movement will get them going in any direction. They never get down to the depths. There are many like that, who never come into living relationship with that in which the work of God is being done, and they are moved very easily.

How necessary it is for us to be open to the Lord for all His will and way, without any kind of reservation that stops the infilling. How necessary it is to be empty of every other thing, so that the Lord has a free, clear, full course. When it is like that you have the unity of the Spirit which is the body of Christ, and that body, so one by the Spirit, is the elect instrument for all the full purpose of God.

The Headship of Christ is back of this unity of the one Spirit unto God’s purpose, and that Headship, therefore, demands an end of all personal interests, even in spiritual things. We must hold everything spiritually in relation to the body, the church, the whole vessel. The Spirit works to get rid of everything that is personal in our relationship to the Lord and His interests.

On the other hand, there is real gain in recognising that nothing is personal, that all personal elements have been set aside. Then the fulnesses of Christ are brought in and there is the support of the whole. It is the body making increase with the increase of God; the fulness of Him. It is all on the ground of “holding fast the Head, from whom all the body fitly framed groweth …”.

Always be ready to let go to the Lord, as Abraham let go Isaac, so that Isaac should not be Abraham’s but God’s; should not be earthly but heavenly; should not be of time but of eternity. To be in that position is to open the way for great blessing.

Remember that the church is the anointed body. Isaiah 11:2-3. speaks of the anointing resting upon Christ and upon Him as Head of His body. Under that anointing the body comes, so that all that is involved in the anointing of Christ is to become actually expressed in and through the body.

One of the most valuable things is that believers should have that Holy Spirit fellowship in the body for the government of their own lives. Many who have acted personally without that fellowship have involved themselves in a situation in which there was no way through for themselves, their lives, their service. That was the result of immaturity. Oh, the value of fellowship of the Holy Spirit in the saints which governs individual movement, checks individualistic activity, brings balance, saves from extremes. The body is for that very purpose.

chapter five

The Holy Spirit and Supernatural Life in Christ

Reading: Heb. 2; Isa. 11:1-2; 61:1.

5) A supernatural people constituted on a divine level

Isaiah 61:1 speaks of the anointed Prophet. Isaiah 11:1-2 speaks of the anointed King. That means that the anointing is God joined with Him. Jehovah is, so to speak, linked with this One, this glorified Jesus. This means that the deepest and truest things about Him are supernatural.

This same Spirit is the Spirit which fills the church. The same anointing that rests upon Jesus glorified rests upon His body. Thus the deepest and truest things about Christ’s members are supernatural. That is comprehensive. We will now seek to break that up that we may understand this better.

The Lord is seeking to bring us to recognise afresh the greatness of that which is made possible, so that we shall move in and take hold of God concerning it.

The miracle of the new birth

John 3 shows us that the commencement of the life of a child of God is a supernatural thing. New birth is a miracle that only God can perform. There is something there a long way above the highest achievement of which man is capable. God is bound up with that life by reason of its being a child of His.

The miracle of satisfaction

John 4 shows us the next step. With the woman at the well it is a question of satisfaction for the whole life. The Lord Jesus speaks of an indwelling life, an indwelling Spirit, which is the end of all dissatisfaction and the beginning of a rest which ends all labours for satisfaction. The Spirit dwelling within brings a divine and supernatural satisfaction that can never be reached in the realm of nature.

Alongside of the water we turn to the bread. The disciples came back and asked Him to eat, and He said, “I have meat to eat that ye know not of.” The Lord wants us on the level which is higher than the highest level of this life, this world of nature.

The miracle of sustenance

John 6. The chapter is taken up by the Lord Jesus Himself, and points on to the miracle of a life, a church with all its members fully sustained in relation to heaven, in a world and on an earth where there is no heavenly resource at all. This church is a heavenly thing, and can only be kept going by heavenly things. It must have heavenly food. In starvation conditions down here Jesus by the Holy Spirit becomes the daily sustenance, and it is a miracle. The Holy Spirit has come to perform that miracle every day.

The miracle of stewardship

John 7. Here we are called to be ministers in the House of God, to serve the Lord. There is demand laid upon us. There are others all around who are needy, those who cry, Give us water for we perish! And the Lord has put us in a position of responsibility. It is impossible for us to meet the need in our own strength, and anything we could do would be as nothing in comparison with the need; yet it is possible when the church is filled with the Holy Spirit: “Out from him shall flow rivers of living water”. That is ministry out from the House of God. It is the miracle of ministering life in abundance in this world of spiritual death. It is possible first of all because Jesus is glorified, and, being glorified, he has sent the Holy Spirit to make the church a vessel through which these rivers may go out to meet the need. We should accept nothing less than that. It is our calling.

The miracle of resurrection

John 11. Here is the consummation of the spiritual life of the child of God. The consummation is not the tomb, not grave clothes, not tears and funerals; it is resurrection.

Let us see the real meaning of the Holy Spirit coming to put the members of Christ upon the higher plain of God’s ability; to bring to the place where all the limitation and defeat of our human ability, capability, capacity, no longer hinders us from anything that God desires.

The spirit of wisdom

Isaiah 11:2 says: “The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him.” Wisdom is the power of comprehending the secret things of God. “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither indeed can he know them … they are spiritually discerned.” This wisdom carries beyond every human handicap, limitation of nature, and brings to the place where we are given capacity by the Holy Spirit for comprehending the secret things of God; therefore a supernatural knowledge is for the church to know the Lord, to know the things that are in the heart of the Lord.

The spirit of understanding

Understanding is practical wisdom. It is that sagacity, ability to discern the right thing to do and the right word to speak in any given or particular situation or time. The Lord Jesus had that understanding by the anointing. The anointing brings us into that.

The spirit of counsel and might

That means a clear purpose and strength to carry it out.

The spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord

it is very necessary that knowledge and the fear of the Lord should go together. The fear of the Lord is that humility, subjection, obedience, regard for the Lord, honouring of the Lord, which governs the use of our knowledge.

“… his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord; and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears”. The fear of the Lord is the glorifying of God, bringing God into His place of honour and glory, and keeping Him always there. It is not using knowledge to bring ourselves into prominence, or to bring other people under.

We sum all this up thus: The Lord’s people are called to be, in the deepest and
truest things of their life a supernatural people, not bound by their human limitation. The anointing of the Spirit is given to lift on to a divine plane, so that the Lord’s people are here as an expression of what is true of God. It is a miracle, it is supernatural; it is
that which brings into view Jesus glorified — the Spirit given.

chapter six

God’s Glory in Christ and in the Church

Reading: Heb. 9; Exodus 25:8; Eph. 2:19-22; 3:20-21.

6) A sanctuary for God

The Holy Spirit’s coming is to constitute a sanctuary for God. Here is the glory of God in and upon Jesus as glorified made to dwell in a sanctuary, which is the church. That gives us a true conception of the church, what it is for, what it is called to live up to by the grace of God, what we must all make our main object — that God in Christ may dwell within and be glorified in us. That is the church; that is the church’s vocation; that is the church’s privilege. So that Jesus glorified and the Holy Spirit have in view a sanctuary for God.

Christ the Head, His priestly people and spiritual maturity

In Exodus 24 we are dealing with the things which are basic to the habitation of God in the Spirit. Into the mountain certain are called, and in relation to it God shows His pattern of the heavenly sanctuary. “And he said unto Moses, Come up unto the Lord, thou, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel …” (Ex. 24:1). Three groups ascend the mount: Mozes, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu and seventy of the elders of Israel.

Moses alone goes into the presence of Jehovah as the head of the Lord’s people, the mediator of the old covenant. The first great feature in the sanctuary is the Mediator, the Lord Jesus, as Head of the Lord’s people (Heb. 9:15). The Lord’s people derive very much from the fact that there is One in the very presence of God who is the one Mediator between God and man, Jesus, who ever lives to make intercession for us. In spite of our weaknesses, failures, imperfections, we are maintained on the way while our hearts are towards the Lord. It is due to the fact that there is One there who is saying continually, in effect, I have prayed for them that their faith fail not. Let us take stronger hold upon that.

In Aaron, Nadab and Abihu we have representation in priestly ministry among the Lord’s people. Their being there says that the people of God are a priestly people in this world, that they are related to that great priestly ministry. Aaron, Moses brother, in spirit-principle is in relationship with the mediator, and the family comes in in his sons.

The church is called to exercise a priestly ministry towards this world; that is, to speak of those values which are in precious blood, in redemption, in atonement, the way to God through the sacrifice and offering of His Son. That characteristic of the Lord’s people is represented in these three. The church is suffering want, and lack, and is in weakness and poverty for want of a priestly ministry of a spiritual kind. We have to take our priestly ministry far more seriously, and recognise that that is the appointed order; it is a part of the divine economy, something established which God will not overlook. It is the expression here in this universe of the great High Priestly work of the Lord Jesus. It is Jesus glorified manifested in the church by the Holy Spirit in priestly activity. Priestly ministry means bearing on the heart before the Lord His people, in faith and assurance that He will through that ministry have regard unto them. The Spirit makes intercession. Christ, who is the Advocate on high, has His Advocate within; He who intercedes on high also intercedes here. The Spirit Himself makes intercession according to the will of God. “The Spirit helpeth our infirmity …”.

The seventy elders speak of spiritual perfection in responsibility in divine order. Numbers represent something in the Word of God, though we must always be careful not to become fanciful in our interpretation, but here is something which is borne out by so many things in the Word of God. seventy is simply a combination of seven and ten. Seven is spiritual completeness; ten is spiritual responsibility.

Elders mean that you have got away from the novice, from spiritual infancy where responsibility cannot be taken in this sense, and you come to maturity. That is God’s thought for His people. The elders are people who have come to the place of taking the interests of God to heart seriously. The letter to the Ephesians brings the church into view, the vessel of those purposes, the instrument of those purposes, the full thoughts of God. They are not thoughts of an hour, not thoughts of a dispensation; they are thoughts of all the ages, which embrace the universe. Are you prepared for the Holy Spirit to do that work in you which is essential to make you what God desires you to be as of that sanctuary? He must, to do that, take you in hand and deepen you to bring about spiritual maturity unto spiritual responsibility, to trust you through His grace with His riches. He wants to bring His people to His fulness, to bring them to have the knowledge of all His thought. To come into that there must be that ministry in the sanctuary of deepening, and maturing. That ministry can only be fulfilled as there are those who are being deepened continually in the hands of the Holy Spirit. The need is a tragic need. It will only be met as we commit ourselves to the Holy Spirit to do that work in us which will fit us to take responsibility and be able to be entrusted with those great riches for the Lord’s people.

The new dispensation of the Spirit

“And Moses rose up early in the morning …” (Ex. 24:4). Rising early in the morning signified two things: a new day and energy.

It is a new day, a new dispensation. That is borne out by the fact that when God brings in His church at Pentecost it is a new dispensation which is characterised peculiarly and supremely by the church; it is the church dispensation. With the church God has brought in a new order, a new economy, and the necessary on our part is to recognise and grasp the pre-eminent characteristic of the dispensation in which we live. God’s whole thought for the dispensation is bound up with the church as a heavenly body. It is the nature of the dispensation to gather out from the nations a people for His Name, and to mark a separation in them. It is not the day of the earthly Kingdom, not the day of the earthly church, but the day of a heavenly people, a heavenly sanctuary.

A man who rises in the early morning is an energetic man as a rule. Here is devotion, and energy in relation to God’s purpose, nothing careless or indifferent. Here is a man that is caught with something that has become with him a new thing, a new day, and he is up early. Listen to the man who is spiritually the embodiment of the principle we are seeking to enunciate: “Striving according to His working which worketh in me mightily, to present every man perfect in Christ”. “I would have you know what great conflict I have for you … and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh”. There is nothing personal about this. This is divine interests in the saints, devotion to the Lord’s concern, that every man should be presented perfect in Christ.

The altar and the twelve pillars

“… and built an altar under the mount, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel” (Ex. 24:4).

The altar is that which marks the division between death and life. If there had been any approaching of that mount without the altar there would have been death, but, coming to that mount by way of the altar, it was life. The altar is always a type of the Cross. On the one side there must be death to all that is of the flesh which is not of God in man by nature. On the other side the death upon us by nature has been taken in that mighty death of His and proved itself to be a death-conquering death for us, so that through the cross we live and draw near to where God is. Here they are told to stand “afar off”; nevertheless there was coming into proximity.

A pillar in Scripture is always a symbol of testimony. Jacob set up his pillar. A pillar was set up on the border of the land. The number twelve represents a testimony to the fact that all Israel is standing for the full will and thought of God. The church stands for the testimony that God wills all His people to come to this. The testimony in our hearts is that God’s thought for all His people is the fulness of Jesus

Christ, nothing less than that. We stand for that. We would therefore seek to have all the people of God in view for the fulness of Christ in devotion.

Young men offering sacrifices

“And he sent young men of the children of Israel, which offered burnt offerings, and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen unto the Lord” (Ex. 24:5).

Again it is a matter of energy. Young men are brought forward in the Scriptures as the symbols of energy. These young men speak of the energy which is in these sacrifices and offerings; the tremendous energy that lies resident within the atoning work of the Lord Jesus — the burnt offering; the tremendous energy that lies in the reconciling work of His Cross — the peace offering. We have to recognise that the precious blood never loses its power, the mighty work of our Lord in atonement and reconciliation is a mighty thing, and the church has got to have the might of that maintained in spiritual energy.

All these are the things which constitute the sanctuary of God.

Concluded