John 6: 68, 69; 1: 14-18, 29-34

1 John 2: 1-6; 3: 13-17

PM   I was thinking of the word that Peter says to the Lord Jesus, “we have believed and known that thou art the holy one of God”.  I wondered, dear brethren, if we might enquire together as to these two expressions, “have believed and known”.  I think if I had written this I might have thought it was sufficient to say that we have believed, but Simon Peter says, “we have believed and known”.  What great things the disciples had seen, Simon Peter among them.  This is in the setting when so much departure is taking place; similar to our own day.  John writes and presents the Lord Jesus as coming to a world in which He is rejected.  Matthew, as the brethren know, presents Him as coming into a scene where He is protected and Luke into a scene in which there is ground ready for Him to be received; but in John He comes to a scene where He is rejected.  “He came to his own, and his own received him not; but as many as received him”, John 1: 11, 12.  John proceeds to write in view of forming believers.  He says at the end of the gospel, “these are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life in his name”, John 20: 31.  He sets out the great principles, the fundamentals, of Christianity, beginning with the One who in Himself is God, Himself the Creator.  He says, “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us”.  What a wonderful movement, dear brethren, that the One of whom it says, “without him not one thing received being that has received being” (John 1: 3) should dwell among us.  We might just get some touch as to that.  And then he goes on to speak of the experience of John the baptist.  John the baptist, although not in this dispensation, saw “the Spirit descending as a dove”.  We have never seen that, of course, but John the baptist did; he saw “the Spirit descending as a dove”.  He had received witness to what the Lord was going to do in the dispensation of the assembly, that He would baptise with the Holy Spirit.  The great fundamentals upon which we can pin our faith lie in belief that God has come out in the Person, in One who is the Word, and He would baptise with the Holy Spirit.

Then in the epistle there is not only what is believed but what is known through experience.  We must come not only to rest in what we have laid hold of in faith but be in exercise of soul, go on to experience the knowledge in our own souls of these things.  I wondered if that might provide some enquiry together.

RDP   It seems that the matter of knowing involves some action on our part, some change.  I was thinking of those in John 4 who say, “It is no longer on account of thy saying that we believe, for we have heard him ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world”, v 42.  It is an interesting thing that there is a step on.  There are steps on in John, steps on from new birth to born of God where there is some response Godward: born of God seems to be movement on beyond the initial work of God, too, something in themselves.

PM   That comes to light, does it not, in that woman in chapter 4?  It is not only, might we say, that new birth had taken place but she grasps the greatness of the moment in which she was and the One who was before her, and reaches out to the great things that God has in His heart.  John’s gospel brings these sample cases to us.  In chapter 9, we have a man who lays hold of one thing, “One thing I know” (v 25), and the Lord opens up more to him.  I say that to those of us that are younger, and all of us: we are touching very great things.  We may know little, but lay hold of what you do know.  Hold it, do not let it go; and in exercise of soul the Lord will add more.  That is what He did with the man in John 9.  

JW   You have used the word ‘experience’.  When Peter says, “we have believed and known” is that a result of experience with the Lord?  In other places he has something by revelation, but this is something of experience with the Lord Himself and, referring to “the holy one of God”, does that require holy conditions?

PM    I thought that.  No doubt we are dependent on the Holy Spirit to work in our souls and that that experience may be known by us.  The Spirit of God creates and forms conditions in the heart of the believer in which divine communications can be made, but there must be a receptive condition.  Peter is one that exemplifies that, I think.  In Matthew 16, the Lord says, “for flesh and blood has not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in the heavens”, v 17.  Think of the Father finding delight in material in which He could make known His own thoughts regarding His Son.

DJW   It is interesting that the Lord says, “For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe”, John 6: 64.  I was thinking of chapter 3; it seems that Nicodemus came because of the signs.  We may be affected by a lot of external things but real belief is something more than being affected by signs, is it?

PM   It is; belief links us with the Person, and not just what He does.  It comes by faith, does it not?  We could not believe if we did not have faith.  Faith is a gift of God, of course, and we need faith to lay hold of what there is in the Person Himself.  We are in a day - and one feels this for the young brethren especially - and we are moving through a world, in which Christianity is fast being set aside as just a theory.  Someone said recently that it stops at the church door.  Dear brethren, it does not stop at the church door.  It is in persons moving here in the light of all that has come into expression in Christ, come right to where we are.  That is not a theory; that is a Person, living and glorious.  John says, “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us”.  In his epistle he says, “that which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes; that which we contemplated, and our hands handled”, 1 John 1: 1.

JAT   So could we say that God desires to be known?

PM   Well, we could, yes.

JAT   I think that is a good start really, that is His desire to be known.  He is thought of by many as a hard God, a God of judgment, but we know differently.  I am just thinking how God has been misrepresented, but this God desires that we know Him.  Paul says, “we have brought nothing into the world: it is manifest that neither can we carry anything out”, 1 Tim 6: 7.  But we will carry out the knowledge of God which is made known through Jesus as you are bringing before us.

PM   And He desires to be known in relationships.  Not just, if one might say, as being at a distance: “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us”.  It is a profound statement.

RDP-r     Should we add to what our brother says, that God wants to be believed?

PM   Yes, and to be loved.

RDP-r     Paul says, “I believe God”, Acts 27: 25.  That is a good start too, is it not? -  “For he that draws near to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them who seek him out”, Heb 11: 6.

PM   We need perhaps at times in our histories to come back to see that our faith is on bedrock, if one might say that carefully.  Not only principles, important as they are, but the great revelation of God Himself: everything must hinge on the greatness of the movements of God coming out in grace.  “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us”, and then it says, He was “full of grace and truth”.  Think of the fulness of what has come out in this Person, all that God was and all that God is was there in One who tabernacled amongst men.

BWB    Does what Paul says to Timothy help, “I know whom I have believed”, 2 Tim 1: 12?  I know it is Paul, and you are speaking about John, but they go along together, do they not?  Men had believed in Christ and companied with Him, but there is more than that; they got to know Him, and they would understand something of His affections and the greatness of His thoughts towards them.

PM   That is helpful, and whilst what we have here in John 1 is distinctive to the apostles, yet each of us ought to have something that we have come to in our own experience with our link with the Lord Jesus that we can say for ourselves.  It is not just what we have been brought up with, precious as that is.  We were speaking about this before the reading; many of us have the favour of being brought up in believing households where the light as to the gospel and the light as to the assembly has been held and cherished.  My exercise today is: have I made it my own?  Have I come to the knowledge of the Person in whom everything for God is centred and in whom everything from God has come forth, and have I come to appreciate for myself the fulness of what is available in the gift of the Holy Spirit?

RDP   Is the knowing essential in view of present salvation?  We were reading in the week of the children of Israel and their refusing of the testimony of the land, and God is quoted saying of them in Hebrews, “they have not known my ways”, Heb 3: 10.  They had had the light of it but they had never known His ways.  I think Caleb was one who believed and knew, was he not?  I just wondered if at the present time we need this matter of knowing in view of salvation for today.

PM   How do we come to know?  It says as to Israel, “we shall know, - we shall follow on to know Jehovah: his going forth is assured as the morning dawn”, Hos 6: 3.  How do we come to know?

RDP   I asked earlier whether the knowing is linked particularly and directly with the Holy Spirit.  The references you read are to the Spirit coming, and so on.  I just wondered if believing would be connected with the Spirit.  I wondered if there is a direct link with the Holy Spirit as to the knowing.

PM   I am sure there is, and this gospel helps us as to that and what the Lord Jesus says, does it not?  “He shall guide you into all the truth”, John 16: 13.  That is a formative action of the Spirit.  It is not just an enlightening action but a formative action, causing persons to come into the experience of what the truth is.  The truth is wonderful, but if it is to be effective in my soul it must be as I am formed in relation to it.  There is what is objective and we need what is objective, and we have that so fully in the gospels, and the Spirit brings it to us.  He forms the soul of the believer in relation to it, so that it is not just outside of himself, great as that is, but there is an answer formed in keeping with it in measure, in the believer.

AEM   So is the knowledge of this power of the Spirit very reassuring in the light of the conditions of which you spoke?  Simon Peter speaks of the “holy one of God” in the presence of Judas.  Therefore it is possible by the Spirit to know such a One, even in the presence of what is opposed.

PM   We are in those conditions, are we not, where there is opposition on every hand?  And we should not shut our eyes to the wily operations of the devil, publicly, in the scene through which we are passing.  But the substantiality of what we have is held in the affections of the believer by the Spirit.  That is why I have read the reference to the Spirit here in John 1.  It is almost as if John in writing this gospel says, ’I must give you the two great cardinal facts, that the Lord Jesus has come into manhood and the Spirit has come’.  Not only did He come upon the Lord Jesus in a distinctive way but he says, “he it is who baptises with the Holy Spirit”.  How did John know that?  He was looking on beyond his dispensation to the dispensation in which we are, in which persons were going to be formed and filled with the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Is that right?

AEM   Yes.  “Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world”, 1 John 4: 4.

PM   Yes, and there are persons moving through the scene of opposition and departure that are living in relation to another world.  I am if I am.

GR   I was thinking of Rahab the harlot; she was living in what we might call impossible conditions in Jericho but she had been affected in her soul by what she had heard of Jehovah and His activity, and she laid hold of that and there was something substantial there, Josh 2.

PM   That is very fine, because she was living in circumstances that were coming under judgment, and we are moving through a scene that is under judgment; but that was not what was occupying her.  She put the scarlet cord in the window because she knew, she had the assurance in her own soul, that Jehovah was greater than all that was around her and she lived in the enjoyment of that.  She was told to put the scarlet thread in the window when the Israelites were coming but she put it in straight away: she lived in the enjoyment of all that God was as moving in power in his people.

GR   It is good to have a window in our house with an outlook away from the city, is it?

PM   Yes, we do not want to be looking over this world that is under judgment, but to have our eye on what God is doing and what He is effecting and has affected, because what He has done stands.  There is so much that is passing in the scene around us: “the world is passing”, John says, “and its lusts” (1 John 2: 17), but the believer has in his soul that which is permanent, and has the light of what God has effected already.

MJW   Faith does give us certainty, does it not?  We can say that because God says things they are certain, and therefore we know them just from faith; but we need to remember that what we have to do with are realities.  They will be actualities soon but they are realities.  It is good for us to bear that in mind, so that we can say from faith that we know, but then the things we have to do with are spiritual, but real.  Does that help?

PM   It does help, and what you say is important, because I am not in any sense wanting to set aside or belittle the belief of what God has presented in Christ and in the Spirit; that is why I began in this chapter.  We must lay hold of what God has presented from His own side.  What He has presented is full and is complete and is perfect, and the believer can lay hold of that and rest his faith in it.  As we said earlier, it is like bedrock upon which the believer rests his soul.  The whole of our salvation, the whole of our being taken up for blessing, and given a part in the assembly, rests not on our appreciation of it, but upon what God has done from His own side; and we can grasp that through faith.  But to come into the gain of it, and to make it our own livingly, requires the operation of the Holy Spirit in the soul. 

DJW   The two on the way to Emmaüs help us, do you think?  They had a great exposition but they said, “Was not our heart burning” (Luke 24: 32); that is formation, is it not?

PM   Yes, and what was the result of that?

DJW   They gravitated to where the truth was enjoyed by others.

PM   Immediately it says, “they returned”, Luke 24: 33.  They appreciated immediately that if their heart was burning within them, there was a circle in which Christ was loved, and that is where they belonged.

DJW   Their hearts had been burning, and I was thinking that no amount of discussion would have convinced them otherwise.

PM   What a journey back that was.  It had been a slow and painful one while they were going away, and they went back with a light step in the knowledge that Christ was risen, and that everything that had been foretold in the Old Testament was there embodied in that blessed Man who had appeared to them on the way.

RDP   It is a remarkable instance because, not only were their hearts burning and they knew Him, but He made Himself known to them and suddenly they knew which way to go.  Without being told, they turned round and went back to the company.  One of the tests today is what we should do, where we should go, how we should act and so on, but those two persons had been wandering.  They were true believers, they had companied with Him, but their direction was all over the place.  It became purposeful as they came to know Him.

PM   And is that not how we find our part in the company?  It has often been said, has it not, and it is true and we prove it I think, that we do not find the Lord through the company but we find the company through the Lord?  I find my place in the company in which I am through my own link with the Lord.  Some of us who are a bit older now have had to ask these questions in our experiences.  We were not all that old when we had to make decisions as to which company we would be in, and the decision reached was not on a basis, ‘Well, I thought this company might be better than that one, or this company might appeal to me more than this’.  That was not the basis of the decision that the brethren reached.  The basis of the decision was in exercise with the Lord to find where the Lord was.  Where is the Lord in the midst?  That was the exercise, and the Lord is where the truth is held.  That is what those two on the way to Emmaüs found: that the Lord was where the truth as to Himself was held and cherished.

RDP   We do not find our way through logic, putting together facts, or picking up opinions.  The only way you get Christian direction is as you have to do with the Lord Himself, yourself; is that right?

PM   It is, and each one of us has to come to that.  I was brought up in a Christian household, and I thank God for that wonderful privilege, but eventually each one of us has to come to it, ’Why am I where I am?’.  I remember as a boy that that used to be asked often in a reading.  We had an old brother and he used to go round and ask. ‘Why are you where you are; why are you where you are?’.  We never answered, but it put exercise in your soul, and that I think is something that each one of us has to come to in our own experience.  Why am I here?  It is not to put any doubt as to whether I should be somewhere else but to give me the certainty that the path on which I am treading is the path that the Lord would have me to be.

AEM   What underpinned the recovery of those two people on the way to Emmaüs was a Master who “made as though he would go farther”.  I am just thinking that the decision that you are speaking about is not one we have to make alone.

PM   No, we make it with Him.  There is nothing that can replace our link with the Lord in relation to any exercise or any matter through which we pass.  We have to work it out in our own exercise with the Lord.

DJW   Our brother referred to Caleb.  It is interesting that he was in the minority; two out of maybe two million.  God says of him, “But my servant Caleb, because he hath another spirit in him and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land”, Num 14: 24.  God must support what is of Himself even if the majority have gone a different way.

PM   What touched Caleb was the fruitfulness of the land, was it not?  It was not just that he thought it was better than the wilderness; it was the fruitfulness of the land that held his affections.  He proved it himself.

RWF   Is it like the contemplation of His glory? 

I suppose John was referring to himself and the disciples in using that expression, “we have contemplated his glory”, but it is open to us to do so.  It is the glory as He is and where He is, do you think?  It is not just contemplation of Him - and I speak with care in saying this - but His glory.  I wondered if that connected with the fruits that we are speaking of?

PM   Yes, and what a glory it was.  A glory that they had never seen before, “a glory as of an only-begotten with a father”, John 1: 14.  Here it was in a divine Person, here in manhood.  Moses had not seen it, David had not seen it, great men as they were, and yet it waited to be known; as John says, “... dwelt among us”, “glory as of an only-begotten with a father”.

JAT   John has said, “He was in the beginning with God” (chap 1: 2), but He was God, and then He took on this position so that we might be able to contemplate Him.

PM   Yes; “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us”.  He became what He had never been before.  He became flesh; it does not say He became man or even that He became flesh and blood: He became flesh.  One divine Person came into substantial conditions, so that John says in his epistle “our hands handled”, 1 John 1: 1.  What we are speaking of is not a theory.  Christianity is not a theory; everything centres in One who came into conditions which were substantial, and in becoming flesh came into substantial conditions that go right through.  He remains a Man, a glorious blessed Man.  John is referring to what was substantial in one divine Person coming and tabernacling among us.

JAT   It says, “the Word became flesh”, not that He was asked to become flesh; we might say reverently it was His own initiative, so that He could be near enough and tabernacle among us.  It was really God who was there; it was Jesus Himself that could be contemplated.  It is very attractive, over against what man thinks of God and the distance between God and man: this is the nearness into which God has come.

PM   I think what you say is right, that God has come.  Paul says, “God has been manifested in flesh” (1 Tim 3: 16); what a wonderful thing that is.  If one might speak reverently, it was not a part of God, but God was there manifested in flesh.

KM   Maybe it has gone by, but as to the two going to Emmaüs, it was not commendable that they were marked by certain unbelief, but it says about them, “Was not our heart burning”, Luke 24: 32.  God could have removed all that kind of thing, opposition and unbelief and so on but he allows it to go on; but it is combustible.  It means that by experience we know we are marked by unbelief sometimes - quite often, more often than we should be, but that is combustible.  We should receive things as they are.  We are affected by things that are in the world, and things make us have a tendency towards unbelief, but that burning only comes about by the work of God in our souls, and it makes us burn all the more brightly, do you think?

PM   I think so; what you say is interesting, I had never thought of it like that before, but the unbelief soon melted and what remained was the warmth of the knowledge of the One who had broken the power of death and was the centre of everything for God.  Think of Him opening up the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and the prophets, think of the opening up of these passages, all concerning Himself; and those two persons would say, ’We have never heard anything like this before: we did not realise that it spoke of One who would go into death and secure everything for God and hold it for God’s pleasure eternally’.  But He held them, and that I think is one’s exercise today, that He might hold us in the captivating power of His Person, that He might hold our hearts and hold them in relation to both what He has effected through His death and rising again and what He is effecting even at the present time.  He shall baptise you with the Holy Spirit; no one else could do that, but He does it Himself.

GJR   “For of his fulness we all have received”, can you give us a touch on that?

PM   It is a remarkable expression: “of his fulness”.  We could not receive His fulness.  What is there is so vast in that blessed Person, but we have received of His fulness.  I think it brings out the nature and the divine attributes that came into expression in a Man, and we have received the benefit of and warmth and glory of His fulness.

BWB   The glory of the Person and all that belongs to Him is in no way diminished by what we may have received in that way.

PM   It could not be.  He is inexhaustible.  The greatness of Christ stands beyond compare.  We are saying these things and I trust something may lodge into the hearts of the young as well as those of us that are older; that we are speaking of One who is beyond compare, and all that has come into expression in that blessed Person could never be exhausted.  He is Himself in His person divine.  Is that right?

BWB   I am sure.  What is corrupt is sin in the flesh, and the Lord laid down that condition of flesh and blood but then in resurrection He says, “for a spirit has not flesh and bones” (Luke 24: 39); so the condition of flesh goes through as man.

PM    I would be glad of your help as to that because we are speaking of what is so great, but John does not say He came into flesh and blood conditions: “the Word became flesh”.  I think it is to give an impression to us of what is substantial in that blessed Person, not ethereal, but what came into expression was substantial, and there was what went right through.  There was what was terminated because of us but in Him there was what went through. The Lord Jesus did not come into “made of dust” (1 Cor 15: 47); that is the condition in which we are.

BWB   It says, “took part in the same, that through death he might annul him who has the might of death”, Heb 2: 14.

PM   Yes, and then Paul in the Philippians says, “taking his place in the likeness of men; and having been found in figure as a man”, Phil 2: 7.  These references - perhaps we tend to slip over them as we read - are very full of meaning.  The Lord Jesus did not come into the condition that was made of dust, but He came into a body that was prepared for Him that in itself was intrinsically holy.

RWP-r  These things leave Peter and ourselves without any alternative, do they not?  The revelation of the greatness of this Person means there is nowhere else to go to satisfy the work of God in our souls, is there?

PM   That is the question, “to whom shall we go?”. The question is not ’to which company shall I go?’, but “to whom ... ?”.  Questions come up, as our brother has said, in our day to day experiences but, where is the Lord?

MJB    You referred earlier to the fact that you and I had faced exercises in relation to divisions.  I presume you were referring to 1970 and 1972.  You and I had to face exercise that the younger generation in the ways of God have not had to face as dramatically as we did.  Can you help the young people as to it?  I think in our experience it established us; that is in my experience anyway.  I am not suggesting we should have another division to bring about establishment in the souls of the brethren, but can you help us as to the way things are established in the souls of the saints without such experiences?

PM   Well, I feel tested in answering that because I do not know that any of us could say we shone very much in the tests through which we passed; at least, I could not; but one thing was sure, that you went through it with the Lord.  You could not go to somebody else and ask what they thought, where they stood; that would not provide the basis of where you should be.  What it did was to cast you on the Lord.  I can remember those nights coming home from the office and all that was before me was the felt need of being in the Lord’s presence to know what His mind was and where He was at that time; and as you were in His presence He gave an indication, and the Lord does that.  He gives confirmation.  There is no one else that can do that.  The Lord does it Himself, and I would say that to younger persons: speak to the Lord about the exercises you go through.  If you have doubts, speak to Him about it.  One thing that came to me was a remark of Mr Darby’s.  Mr Coates says that someone asked Mr. Darby how much evil would justify one in leaving a company of Christians, and he answered, No amount of evil would justify anyone in separating from any company of Christians, but the refusal to judge the least bit of evil would justify separation, CAC vol 6 p187.  Now I think through wondrous grace we can say, even up to date, we have experienced in some measure the presence of the Lord, and that would make us very hesitant to even think of leaving a company.  What happened in 1970 was that we had to judge moral evil, and evil teaching and that involved our separating from a company that refused to deal with these things.  In 1972 we had to seek to maintain that a yoke with unbelievers was not consistent with fellowship.

DJW   Is that borne out by what you had read in 1 John 2.  It says, “And hereby we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments”.,  So really what helped us as to where the Lord was, was what He had given us as to His commandments.  We knew where He was because He was consistent with Himself.

PM   That is important because, as we said earlier, the Lord is where the truth is.  “He cannot deny Himself”, 2 Tim 2: 13.  We may be unfaithful and deny Him, but He cannot deny Himself.  He must be where what He has given is treasured, not only in the affections but held in the practice of those He loves; and where that is so that is the place for every believer.  I think we should just be clear as to that, that the ground on which I gather with the brethren in the locality in which I am is really the ground on which every true believer should gather.

DJW   A statement of Mr Jim Renton stands in my memory, that the Lord is more ready to make known His mind to me than I am to receive it.  That is the difficulty, is it not?  The Lord does not make things difficult for us, does He?  But He likes exercise; that is not exactly the same thing is it?  It is that you are with Him as going through the experience.

PM   Yes, and John says in this epistle, “And this is the boldness which we have towards him, that if we ask him anything according to his will he hears us”, chap 5: 14.  Now immediately the question is, ’Well, how do I know that it is according to His will?’.  I know it by keeping company with Him.  That is how I know what His will is.  You see, a wife knows her husband is at work and someone knocks at the door and says, ‘I am going to take the roof off your house and give you a new one’.  She says, ’That is not according to my husband’s will, because we talk about all these things, and I know him’.  That is how she knows his will, and that is the same for the believer.  That is how he knows the Lord’s will, by keeping company with Him and by keeping His word, and that is what we have in this epistle of John.

DJW   That is confirmed in John’s gospel chapter 7, is it not?  “If anyone desire to practise his will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is of God or that I speak from myself”, v 17.  The Lord is so ready to make His mind known to me, if I will only be ready to receive it.

PM   Yes, and if I have that desire to practise His will He finds His pleasure in unfolding all that He has under His hand and making it known.

RDP-r     There is a verse in Psalm 25 that has helped me in those sorts of conditions.  It says, “What man is he that feareth Jehovah? him will he instruct in the way that he should choose”, v 12.

PM   Yes, and then immediately it says, “His soul shall dwell in prosperity”, v 13.

RDP-r     There have been a couple of occasions in my experience when that Psalm has been the guide as to what we should do.

PM    I never knew that this would come up in this reading, but I think it is important to lay hold of, that the Lord has made His mind known in the scriptures firstly, and in the ministry.  He has made His mind known and it is the believer’s responsibility to walk according to that and to practise what He says. 

RWF   I think it is essential that we do fear Him.  We can make no progress without, but progress is of the essence to your enquiry, is it not?  You go back to John’s gospel that was written for believers that that “might have life in his name”, John 20: 31.  So we progress in our belief, but along with that there has to be progress in our knowledge.  We never reach a point in our lives when we can make no further progress do we?

PM   I find a lot of comfort from what the apostle says, “For we know in part”, 1 Cor 13: 9.  Think of the apostle, his intelligence in the mystery, what had been made known to him by the Lord direct from the glory, and yet he says “we know in part”.  We are on very dangerous ground if we think or begin to think we are the masters of the truth.  We are never the masters of the truth; the truth is always the master to us.

JBI   I was struck by reading in the week as to what Mr Darby says as to the word of God, that it judges me rather than me judging it, vol 32 p387.  I was thinking of what we are enquiring into as to having the Lord’s mind; am I subject to what He is saying, rather than thinking that I know what He should say?

PM   Yes, that is most important.  It “is living and operative, and sharper than any two-edged sword”, Heb 4: 12.  It divides between dark and light, does it not?  It divides what I find in myself that may be dark or light, may be according to the flesh or according to the spirit; it penetrates, but it leaves a quickening effect in the believer.  It does not just leave me exposed; it leaves a quickening effect and attaches my heart to the One whose word it is.

RDP   “Grace and truth subsists through Jesus Christ”: it is a most interesting note there in John 1: 17.  “Grace and truth” are two very wonderful things and, as far as the world was concerned, seeming to be opposites.  They subsist “through Jesus Christ”.  I think we shall perhaps come to that at the end, but everything is in Christ.  There are many things that are here to help us.  There is truth, there is ministry, there is history, there are our brethren and all these things but the thing subsists in Jesus Christ.

PM   And superseded all that had gone before.  The law was given by Moses, it was administered by angels; think how great it was; and yet “grace and truth subsists through Jesus Christ”.  All the mind of God and the resource from God was there in that blessed Person in order that men might come into the gain of it and be sustained in it.  How wonderful!

JAT   So Moses says, “If thy presence do not go, bring us not up hence”, Ex 33: 15.  He could not bear the thought of being without it.  We could say that today of the Lord’s presence, and Peter likewise who you brought before us.  You are bringing Christ before us, but it was Peter’s conviction to say, “Lord, if it be thou” (Matt 14: 28); he only needed to know that much.  I think that helped me in 1970 as to the Lord: “if it be thou”.  If we are going to leave His presence to follow a man or whatever, that is not the idea is it?  It is Himself.

PM   We only rightly reach the result of any exercise as we reach it with Him. 

PWB   Just to go back to the earlier question, which I think is an interesting one and perhaps links with what you have already said; do we really understand where we are and why we are there?  If you wait for a crisis before you really understand the truth and the principles of it, it may be too late.  The Lord is very gracious and if we are dependent I think the Lord would teach us.  If we have an ear to hear and the exercise and desire the Lord would teach us the truth, and then when exercises and questions come we have what you refer to as the bedrock on which we can rely.  Other influences and things are always there, but will not have as loud a voice as what we really learn from the Lord.  This is good to sober me.  It is not necessarily a crisis that drives us to it, but soberly to go through with the Lord the principles of the truth and the things that the Lord has taught us from the scriptures and to make them our own in our souls and time with Him.

PM   I think that is most important.  If we come to the bedrock in our own experience with the Lord, the crisis may never come; but if it does it will not be such a crisis to me if I am founded on what is firm and stable.  We do not want to go over sad history, because young persons have been preserved from it, but some of us were caught up in a drift that flowed fairly fast, and drew us away from a living link with the Lord; and the Lord brought us back to Himself.  If we are founded on the rock, and go through exercises and our experiences with the Lord, in going through them He becomes more precious and valuable to us.  We find that whatever storm may come, it is not as great as we might have thought it would be. 

RWF   If we do we love the brethren, if we are standing on that bedrock, we might be able to avert the crisis.  It is not simply that it might not come, but that we might well be able to avert it under the Lord’s direction.

PM   Yes, and hold the brethren for the Lord.

RWF   That is what I had in mind.  That really is involved in passing from death to life, is it not?

PM   Yes.  Those of us that are older have a responsibility in our local companies to minister and develop conditions which are apart from all that is around us, apart from the world, apart from all that is of man; but to minister to that which is of God in the saints in our local places in order that the saints might be held in relation to Christ where He is.  That is one way that we lay down our life for the brethren, is it not?

ADP   Caleb kept the land in his heart; yet he went back and spent forty years in the wilderness.  I should have thought Caleb would have been quite an encouragement during those forty years in the wilderness.  He kept it in his heart and at the end he says, “now give me this mountain”, Josh 14: 12.

PM    It is important that we move here as not confined by the scene of responsibility.  We must fulfil our part in the scene of responsibility but we fulfil it rightly as we are living in another world.  That is what gives colour to everything here.  If we live in the world in which Christ is exalted it will make us shrink more from the world in which He has been rejected, but it will not work the other way.  It must come that way.  It says as to the man in Psalm 1, “he is as a tree planted by brooks of water” (v 3); he is drawing his resources from another scene altogether, and that is what the believer is like.

JW   Does the verse earlier in John 6 bear on what we are saying?  The Lord says “As ... I live on account of the Father, he also who eats me shall live also on account of me”, John 6: 57.  I wondered if that would really help us; do we really live on account of Christ?  It is not the company exactly, although we value the company, but if we live on account of Him we shall be preserved, do you think?

PM   Now just help me, what does it mean, to live on account of Christ?

JW   We get the example in the Lord Himself: He lived on account of the Father.  As Man here He derived from the Father.  We really derive our life from Christ; He is our life.  I find it a challenge: do I derive my life from Him, completely dependent upon Him?

PM   It is a challenge, but the Lord Jesus derived everything from the Father.  It says, “he shall grow up before him as a tender sapling, and as a root out of dry ground”, Isa 53: 2.  He did not derive anything from this scene.  But not only did He derive from the Father, but He lived in view of what was for the Father.  The Father was His Object in everything.  He lived on account of the Father.

DJW   You could ask whether, if I took the Lord out of my life, I would have anything left.

PM    That is a challenge is it not?  As the Lord lived on account of the Father so feeding on Him builds up in us the constitution where we not only derive from Him but He becomes the Object in what we do.  We may bring other things in and say, ‘Well, if I do this and that and so on’, but it becomes very simple.  Is Christ the Object and is He the resource?  If that is so, my life here will be for the divine pleasure.

BIRMINGHAM

10th March 2012