Ephesians 2: 18-22

2 Timothy 2: 19-26

JDG  What was in mind was the thought of naming the Name of the Lord as related to the expression of God in His house in the setting of the local assembly.  I thought we might look at Antioch and Ephesians to see how things worked out in the lives of believers in those days, and then come on to 2 Timothy to see how Christianity works out in our lives as naming the Name of the Lord.  We can go into the detail as we proceed.  Firstly, those persons who heard the word of the Lord in the area of Antioch; then those who heard the word of the Lord in Ephesus; and how our lives are to be changed as the Name of the Lord comes into our lives, not only individually but as naming that Name and finding some expression of the assembly in its characteristics in our own day.  That is what was in mind.

JMcK   So it is interesting in chapter 11 in verse 23: “and exhorted all with purpose of heart to abide with the Lord”.  It seems that their whole lives were affected by their profession.

JDG  The background to the passage was that there had been persecution on the occasion of the death of Stephen and brethren had been scattered and then there was a new movement.  The Lord Jesus was establishing Christianity in the power of the Holy Spirit on the earth.  He Himself is at present in glory and He was so when these disciples heard this word, but there was something down here that He was going to establish.  It has been pointed out by others that Judaism was set aside and now He is establishing Christianity.  There are some earlier interesting passages in the Acts but it would be too much to go into them all today.  So I thought we would begin in this part where there is the setting up of a local assembly in a place, which has become the pattern for the dispensation in which we are.  So, as our brother points out, they announced the glad tidings of the Lord Jesus to them, v 20.  Now that is very fine.  It is good to be enlightened about the place of the Lord Jesus as a Man in heaven and to have a link with Him as our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, but He would point out to us that He has something down here that will glorify His Name.

JMcK   So the preaching of the Person is very important, is it not?

JDG  The Holy Spirit has come here as indwelling the saints.  The Giver of the Holy Spirit is the Lord Jesus Christ, although the blessed Spirit came down at Pentecost; there was only one outpouring from heaven of the Holy Spirit of God, and it spreads from that point to other believers who come into it.  The One who gives is Christ.

MJW  Is it the truth of the kingdom that is being established in view of the assembly by acknowledging and professing the Name of the Lord?

JDG  The truth of the kingdom involves persons and involves a certain kind of person.  The Lord Jesus says in John’s gospel at His trial: “My kingdom is not of this world; if my kingdom were of this world, my servants had fought that I might not be delivered up to the Jews”, chap 18: 36.  The persons of the kingdom are distinct persons, are they not?  They do not belong to this world.  They do not fight according to this world.  What do you say?

MJW  I am really trying to get what is in your mind by the naming of the Name of the Lord.

JDG  Christians are persons in whom a change has taken place in their lives.  Conversion is a real matter.  It is not just an acknowledgment by name of the Lord Jesus Christ, wondrous as that is, but as you confess the Name of the Lord Jesus truly, a change has taken place in you.  You become “partakers of the divine nature”, 2 Pet 1: 4.  So what comes to light in the persons in the book of the Acts as they set up assemblies, and are gathered together to the Name of the Lord Jesus, is that love is working amongst them; not philanthropy, not the love of men, but love that derives its fruit in God.  Would that be right?

AEM  Is something of that seen in Barnabas?  The way he exhorts them “with purpose of heart”. I was thinking of what you were saying, that there is something concrete in view.  This is not just a random exhortation to movement, but there is a real objective, is there?

JDG  Barnabas is first brought to our attention in chapter 4 of the book of the Acts.  It says there in verse 36: “And Joseph, who had been surnamed Barnabas by the apostles (which is, being interpreted, Son of consolation), a Levite, Cyprian by birth, being possessed of land, having sold it, brought the money and laid it at the feet of the apostles”.  That was not philanthropy.  That was movement because of a change in the man’s soul in becoming a partaker of the divine nature, and so he acts accordingly.  So he is a Son of consolation and he remains that and in this chapter he comes to light as the same kind of person.

IMcK  Say something as to the widening out of the gospel here.  The first preaching seemed to be just to the Jews alone at the end of verse 19, but then there is great expansion when these others, Cyprians and Cyrenians, speak to the Greeks also.

JDG   That is a new movement, one for which we are very thankful, that the word of the Lord was not restricted to the Jewish nation now.  In the Old Testament times God worked with the Jewish nation and set other nations in relation to the Jewish nation so that blessing might flow to man.  Israel failed and thwarted God’s thoughts as to that immediately, but here Christ is in glory, the Spirit has come down, and is establishing something that is to go beyond the Jewish fold.  “And I have other sheep which are not of this fold“ (John 10: 16); that is not of the Jewish fold.  He had other sheep.  We belong to that and this is the first movement of it and what comes to light is remarkable vitality in the power of the Holy Spirit in the persons thus received.  Barnabas was “full of the Holy Spirit and of faith”.  You can be assured that the teaching that took place, particularly with Barnabas and Saul, would stress that thought.

JMcK   Although the outward circumstance that prompted the widening out was the Saviour of the Jew, the real reason was the greatness of Christ.

JDG  That is interesting.  It was in the divine mind.  Still in God’s faithfulness He presented the word to the Jews after they crucified the Lord Jesus.  He presented the word to them until the stoning of Stephen and then the matter was widening out now through that incident, but the Lord’s hand was in it to bring in the Gentile and to set up on this earth the expression of Himself in a place, in a local assembly.

BWB  So these persons were “added to the Lord”.  Is that the result really of naming the Name of the Lord?  It is a gravitational attraction in that way; they were drawn to the Person, do you think?

JDG  Yes, I was thinking that naming the Name of the Lord is not a casual matter.  It is a very sincere matter and a deep matter because it involves my committal to the expression of Himself here below in persons seen together in a place.  The expression of God is seen in persons.  The presence of the Holy Spirit and His activity is seen in persons; it is seen in believers; it is seen in you and me, or ought to be seen in us.

BWB  So in that way we find our place in the assembly.

JDG  That is right.  That is how we come into it.  The assembly is a great divine conception.  It is one whole matter, the matter of the assembly.  “I speak as to Christ, and as to the assembly” (Eph 5: 32) involves all the saints, but the expression of it for us is seen in local places.  That is what we can compass.  We may take account of the work of God in a universal way, in a certain objective way, and have love towards all the saints - that is the Ephesian situation - but the actual expression is seen in persons that I come in contact with.

JAT  Lydia did not assume a place.  She said, “If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and abide there”, Acts 16: 15.

JDG  That is the kind of person that is coming to life here.  We are also told what Lydia did for her business .and what the jailor did for his business before he was converted.  But it does not tell us what these persons here did.  What it tells us is what their life was.  What is my life?  Sure, we all work and earn our bread and that is necessary, but where is my life?  What is coming to light in this section of scripture is where the life of the persons is, and chapter 13 brings that out in a very distinctive way, where their life was.

JAT  It has been suggested, I believe, that the Gentiles needed to be brought in really to get the full thought of what was in mind in the assembly.

JDG  That would be right.  We will come on to that when we come to Ephesians: “For through him we have both access by one Spirit to the Father”.  That is Jew and Gentile, but we will come to that.  I thought in Antioch we should see the evidence of life coming to light, life according to God, life in relation to a Man in another world, but life in relation to His Name here below.

JMcK   So what is the force of “ministering to the Lord”?

JDG  I think that is the climax of being converted and set together with others in this place of Antioch.  We will take Antioch as it stands.  These persons were set together in Antioch, a varying company of persons, of different social status, but they had one common matter and that was the Lord and the Spirit as indwelling them.  So “they were ministering to the Lord”; they were exclusively taken up with Him.  Their hearts and minds and souls were absorbed by Him.  I was going to suggest it is not just the ones that are named; there are named persons as the Spirit of God brings out personality in the place; but they are set in the assembly.  So the whole assembly would be affected in Antioch by this gathering together to minister to the Lord and fast.  At least that is my thought.

JMcK   I wondered if there was something very positive in it.  It is not that the Lord was ministering to them.  It is that He was receiving something from these persons as thus together.  Is that right?

JDG  That brings to mind something I came across in the last several weeks.  Mr James Taylor was asked about Christians being in the Lord’s service.  Is it preaching the gospel?  He said, ‘No.  In a comprehensive way the service of God is the activity of divine love toward God, toward one another, and toward all men’, JT vol 1 p176.  That is what you have here: divine love in activity Godward and divine love in activity in the company, and it makes way for divine love in activity towards all men because the Spirit is free to name them to go out in service.

RDP-r  I wondered whether you could help us a little bit into coming into this.  I was thinking there are a lot of young ones here with us.  We want them to know what it is to name the Name of the Lord, and what it means as a result of doing so and in a sense how simple it is to do it.

JDG  That is the object of what is in my heart.  Perhaps we will come on to it in more detail when we come to speak of 2 Timothy because that has a direct bearing on us at the present time.  This that we are reading about was, you might say, in the springtime of the assembly’s history on the earth, and I just thought we should see how it began in relation to the establishment in a place of the expression of the local assembly and the persons that were added to it and how they continued.  It says in chapter 11 verse 26: “And so it was with them that for a whole year they were gathered together in the assembly and taught a large crowd: and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch”.  You can understand that their life was now in relation to the Lord Jesus and what He had down here in His saints, and they were subject to teaching.  It was not a crash course; it was for a whole year.  It brings out the agricultural thought: there was growth in them.  They “taught a large crowd” and then “the disciples were first called Christians”.  So there was an evidence of formation of Christ in them in accordance with the divine work that had taken place in their souls, new birth having taken place and culminated in the confession of the Lord as Saviour.  They had been made “partakers of the divine nature”; now they were in an atmosphere where they were taught.  Am I prepared for teaching?

GR  This is a different thought from naming the Name of Jesus.  Does it involve understanding of the truth and subjection to the Lord personally?

JDG  What was your thought in naming the Name of Jesus?

GR  Well, in Christendom there are many dear believers who will name the Name of Jesus, but you bring the thought of His authority and its bearing on them and they may be a bit lost because they do not understand the truth.

JDG   I think that is important what you have brought up.  It is not to be despised, to name the Name of Jesus.  We have the hymn:

         Jesus! how much Thy Name unfolds

                  To every opened ear!                    (Hymn 6)

We would not despise that.  There is a work of God in naming the Name of Jesus, the preciousness of that One.  He is the One who was crucified here.  But then naming the Name of the Lord involves, as you point out, that He has authority over my life.  Mr Darby has a hymn:

         Blest Lord, Thou spakest! ‘twas Thy voice

         That led our hearts to Thee

                  (Hymn 47)

and he speaks too in that song of another voice.  It is not a different voice, but it is the voice of Jesus as Lord that is leading him on from the simplicity of the Name of Jesus to understand that as Lord He has a place in my life of regulation.  Would that be your thought?

GR  Yes, surely.  I feel concerned as to the need of understanding the Scriptures.  There are some who say they have the Bible and they do not need anything else, but I would say I would understand the Bible very little if I had not got the gain of the ministry of the recovery.  It helps me to be intelligent as to naming the Name of the Lord and what it means.

JDG  That is what I thought in this passage in Antioch.  They were gathered together for a whole year and they taught a large crowd.  The crowd does not suggest too much of formation but it does suggest there was an ear for the teaching.  Do I have an ear for the teaching?  Do I recognise that I need teaching?  The Lord has given persons ability to teach.  Now, that comes out in this passage in a most distinctive way because Barnabas “was a good man and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith”.  But he felt, I think, there was need of further help and he had an acquaintance with Saul of Tarsus and he had an understanding that the Lord had given Saul of Tarsus something that he had not given to Barnabas.  So he goes away to Tarsus and he finds Saul and he brings him and together they teach a large crowd.  That is, there should be a recognition in my life that there are those who have ability to teach that I do not have and for us, we would say, much of it is written down in ministry that we would regard as being of the Lord.

DJW  Can you help us as to why the twelve are in the background here and the Lord takes up Paul particularly?

JDG  That is a big subject.  In the context of it the twelve were related to the initial work of God in Jerusalem and the immediate areas beyond Jerusalem, really in the area of the Jew, but the Lord had in mind to set up Christianity apart from Judaism and so He brings in this other vessel, Saul of Tarsus, to work out His thoughts.  But, in saying that, I read in Ephesians 2: 19, 20, just to touch on it as we are speaking about it: “So then ye are no longer strangers and foreigners, but ye are fellow-citizens of the saints, and of the household of God, being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the corner-stone”.  That would carry forward not exclusively the twelve, but it would include them, would it not?  It would not be exclusive.  There would be other apostles and prophets included there, but it would carry forward the teaching and is the Lord not very careful in the early days in the Acts to show that what was established in Jerusalem was not immediately set aside in relation to the work of God there, but the Lord was now establishing something to show that the assembly had nothing really to do with Judaism?

DJW  Does it connect particularly with the fact that Saul was affected by the light out of heaven?  It was Christ glorified, “a light above the brightness of the sun“, Acts 26: 13.  There was something really that eclipsed everything that had gone before.

JDG  Of all the apostles at that time he was the one who was clearest in his understanding of the revelation in relation to the assembly.  There was a distinct vessel apart from Judaism.  The Lord in His grace went along with the twelve at Jerusalem and did not in any way set them aside.  When the matter of the circumcision came up, the matter was not settled in Antioch; it was settled in Jerusalem.  That was divine grace to maintain “the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace“, Eph 4: 3.

RH  Is it affecting to be reminded that this thought of movement is not a historical one, it is a current one, one in which we have our part now through grace?  I was thinking really as to the thought that there are no national boundaries in God’s mind.  This thought is a comprehensive idea, is it not?

JDG  That was a large lesson that was learned at the time that these chapters were penned - what took place in Antioch! - there were lessons to be learned that there were no national boundaries.  The dear Jewish brethren had quite a bit of difficulty about having to do with Gentiles, and you can understand that because God had committed Himself to Judaism for centuries.  Now it was set aside in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus and they had to learn that and God was very gracious with them, but here where we started, it is really apart from Judaism, this local assembly in Antioch.

RH  Is it good that we should have these lessons rehearsed amongst us at this particular juncture?

JDG  That was in mind in reading this section, to carry forward what was in Antioch on into Ephesus, on into our own day.  Maybe we should go over to Ephesians.  One thing that comes to light when Paul comes to Ephesus, he finds twelve men there and the first matter he raises was the matter of the Holy Spirit.  You cannot have an expression of the assembly without the persons involved having the gift of the Holy Spirit.

JMcK  Is it so that the Spirit in His greatness could not be confined to the national boundaries, even as the Lord Jesus could not be? 

JDG  Say what is your thought about the Lord Jesus not being confined to national boundaries.

JMcK   Well, we said that the widening out was not simply a consequence of Israel’s failure but because of the greatness of Christ.  You can also say that because the Spirit, Himself being God, is so great, He could not be confined to what was in Jerusalem so the widening out is clearly of God and must be so.

JDG  That is right.  Divine Persons knew what was going to take place on the earth.  It has been said before there is no future really with God from His point of view.  He knows what is to be and He had in mind the development of the Christian assemblies, particularly in the western world.  We cannot go into all the detail in the book of the Acts, but chapter 16 shows that the Spirit of God had in mind to come westward into Europe and to establish the light of the assembly in places and cities in Greece and in Italy or Rome, and here He comes into a place that is called Asia Minor, which is part of modern Turkey.

BWB  Was there something of this in Paul’s own commission as he recounts it in Acts 26, “taking thee out from among the people, and the nations, to whom I send thee“, v 17?  He was taken out of the Jewish nation altogether and sent really from the Lord’s own presence, do you think, in view of what was much wider?

JDG  That is right.  It is good to see that.  There was the expression of the mind of Christ in a man here through revelation.  That was Saul of Tarsus who became known as Paul.  That dear man had the light of what was in the Lord’s mind to set persons apart for the Lord in places in this world and how the testimony should progress from there.  So in this passage what I wanted to draw attention to first of all was the necessity of the Holy Spirit.  That is received as individuals.  In Acts 10 when Peter was preaching to Cornelius and his household, to quite a company there, it says in verse 44: “While Peter was yet speaking these words the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were hearing the word”.  There may have been others there but He “fell upon all those who were hearing the word”.  That was the activities of the Spirit in identifying Himself with those persons.

BWB  Would you say in that way God was justified in His sovereignty, as He always is, in taking up Cornelius and those with Him in that they heard the word and the Holy Spirit was free to fall upon them?

JDG  That is right.  The boundary of nationality disappeared completely.  The boundary of race disappeared completely; so neither nationality nor race is of any consequence in the assembly.  At Antioch there were mixed races, various races.

RDP-r    Peter says in Acts 10 of Jesus Christ “he is Lord of all things” (v 36), and the note says ‘Gentile and Jew’.

JDG  That is right.  That comes out in Ephesus too: “has broken down the middle wall of enclosure“ (chap 2: 14) and made them into one body.

JAT  So divine love cannot be restricted.  This is the heart of God involved in this enlargement and expansion.  It is really the heart of God that is behind it which must link with the sovereignty of His choice, in whatever He chooses.

JDG  It links with His sovereignty; but what comes to light in persons is the substantial results of a sovereign operation, and that is what was seen in these persons.  Their lives changed.  I read that verse in the middle of chapter 19 about burning the books to show that it had an effect on their whole manner of life.  Now we will come onto that in 2 Timothy in relation to ourselves but that is what happened to these Ephesian believers and also there is a basis there for separating the disciples from those who were argumentative, or contending.  It says, “But when some were hardened and disbelieved, speaking evil of the way“, chap 19: 9.  Paul did not continue with that.  He separated the disciples to an area where there was the thought of rule as suggested in the name of the schoolmaster.  It was the schoolmaster’s room, and he was able to teach them for two years.  Christianity is not just one meeting.  It is a commitment for life and these Ephesian believers committed themselves to a line of teaching day by day.  Paul says, “for three years, night and day”, chap 20: 31.  It says two years here but in chapter 20 it tells you “three years, night and day”, both in the assembly and the houses.  He was teaching.  That became their whole object in life, to be related to the Lord, to His people here below, and to divine love in activity in the saints.  Someone has said you cannot see the Holy Spirit.  Can you?  How do we see the Holy Spirit?  You see the Holy Spirit in divine love in activity in the brethren.  A few persons, meeting together, naming the Name of the Lord, owning His rights with love amongst themselves, is something that is far removed from this world’s system.

JMcK   So do you think what happened in Antioch in chapter 13 was part of Paul’s education, that is that having ministered to the Lord, the Spirit was free and He says, “Separate me now”?  Was that part of his education in view of the emphasis he was to put on it later?

JDG  Yes.  Paul did not say “Separate me”; it was the Spirit of God who said it.  He would say it through someone, but it was not through Paul, but the Spirit of God was free to say there, “Separate me now”.  First of all he had seen something of that in the city of Damascus when he was converted.  He saw something of an expression of divine love in activity when Ananias came and said, “Saul, brother”, Acts 9: 17.  What a word to a man who had been a persecutor and murderer of the saints and yet had met the Lord on the highway and was subject to Him from that day forward!

JMcK   So Paul was already aware or would have been of his own commission.  He had met the Lord, as you say.  He had been apprehended for greater things, but he was to learn that there was something in the assembly that was to set him forward in the presence of this divine Person.

JDG  His history is very interesting because it tells us in the Acts that from Jerusalem the brethren sent him away to Tarsus; and he never moved from there until Barnabas went and sought him out.  And then he stayed in Antioch until the Holy Spirit said, ”Separate me now Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them“.  He was moving in relation to what the Lord had here below in setting him forward on his commission.  That is a very beautiful circumstance that he waited until such times as the Spirit of God indicated it was time for movement. I do not doubt there was education for Saul in those waiting times. 

DJW  In referring to the Holy Spirit have you in mind that He is still here, completely, and perhaps 2 Timothy helps us to identify where He is free?

JDG  That would be in mind. Yes, the Spirit of God has remained throughout the dispensation.  The Lord said in John 14 verse 16: “And I will beg the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, that he may be with you for ever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive”.  Now I understand that scripture to mean that the Spirit would remain here during the dispensation.  He would always have vessels in whom He could dwell and throughout the dispensation He makes use of persons who are available to Him

GJR  One of the things we might fear is narrowness.  I was just thinking that after the disciples were separated, it did not lead to narrowness, but to the opposite: “And this took place for two years, so that all that inhabited Asia heard the word of the Lord”, Acts 19: 10.  It actually led to great expansion.

JDG  I understand that scripture is a basis for saying Ephesus was the candlestick.  What you have referred to was a public expression, “that all that inhabited Asia heard the word of the Lord”.  It was a public expression of what He had in His mind and what He could identify Himself with as expressing fully His thought in the local place.  Do you think that is right?  It is worth thinking about anyway.

         In Ephesus, there was an expression of “a habitation of God in the Spirit” about which we have been speaking.  In 2 Timothy we come to a day of public confusion and breakdown.  We cannot return to Ephesian days, but we can have the privileges of the Ephesian saints in a lowly walk and in humility as taking account of this second epistle to Timothy.  No believer needs to go on with evil, morally or ecclesiastically, that is in the church or the establishment.  No believer needs to go on with that because of this scripture we have in 2 Timothy.  I was thinking that in Antioch and in Ephesus and further back in Jerusalem they had named the Name of the Lord.  I think it was true that the saints as separating from what had marked them beforehand were naming the Name of the Lord, particularly in Antioch and Ephesus as coming into an understanding of it, greater than what the saints had at Jerusalem.  So we are here as believers in the Lord Jesus and we would have to say, these are broken days; there is mixture in Christendom.  There are many so-called churches and establishments and many believers going on with things such as the clergy, robes and crowns on men’s heads and all that, as well as wrong teaching.   As believers in the Lord Jesus we would say, Does that reflect the Lord Jesus Christ?  Is that in keeping with the One who says to Paul from heaven, “I am Jesus the Nazaraean, whom thou persecutest”, Acts 22: 8?  And you would have to say, ’I do not think so’.  “Yet the firm foundation of God stands”.  That is His foundation.  “The Lord knows those that are his”.  But what is the responsibility of a believer who names the Name of the Lord?  Everyone of us here as believers, are we naming the Name of the Lord?  It says, in this scripture, “and, Let everyone who names the Name of the Lord withdraw from iniquity“.  Now we may be alongside believers at work, etc. who are free to belong to associations, and professional bodies, and trade unions and other such things which involve membership of a corporate body.  Believers who have the light of the assembly as the body of Christ, and are governed in their walk by scriptures such as 2 Timothy chapter 2 and 2 Corinthians chapter 6 would have to say that such membership of worldly associations is inconsistent with being a member of the body of Christ.  The young people here are on the threshold of life.   According to the hymn that we sang at the beginning (228), we have taken up the highway of life, ’My song is ever - God!’.  What is my walk going to be through this scene?  Am I prepared to name the Name of the Lord at the present time?  What does it mean for me?  It meant for the disciples in Antioch that they separated from what they had been attached to before, heathenism and such like things, and the same in Ephesus.  They gave up their books of charms, they burnt books valued at fifty thousand pieces of silver, Acts 19: 19.  What am I going to do as naming the Name of the Lord?

RWF  Can you tell us why the name “Master” is introduced here?

JDG  ”Serviceable to the Master”: well, the scripture exhorts us in this setting, “in a great house” - what is the “great house”?

RWF  Well, that refers to the wide extent of Christendom, but the question is whether in naming the Name of the Lord, I acknowledge His sovereign power.  That is what the name Master implies.

JDG  Paul uses the simile of a great house, a literal great house, to say that in that house there are “not only gold and silver vessels, but also wooden and earthen; and some to honour, and some to dishonour”.  Now we know at the present time that the name “Christian” does result in reproach and persecution for believers.  In India there is persecution in certain parts of one of the states.  It was so in Iraq according to what has been made known by the media, regarding Christians.  “The Lord knows those that are his”, but the name “Christian” brings a certain reproach.  What is in question in this scripture is the Lord’s Name; what I may go on with as attaching to that Name, as naming His Name, and saying that He is my Lord.  Am I going to go on in my life with that which scripture says I should separate from?  He says, “If therefore one shall have purified himself from these, in separating himself from them, he shall be a vessel to honour, sanctified, serviceable to the Master, prepared for every good work”.  Well, that is what I would desire to be.  What would you desire to be?

RWF  Precisely that.  It is a positive thing.  What I mean is, we do not just, as it were, grow into it or flow into it; it needs the positive confession of His Name, positive action in separating.

JDG  What you have brought up is interesting because a week or two back in speaking about “prepared for every good work”, the scripture that came into my mind was in Ephesians 2 verse 10: “For we” - that is believers - “are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has before prepared that we should walk in them”.  That is the positive side of separating from vessels to dishonour, that you are available to the Lord and He has prepared things for you to walk in, but on the negative side, it may cost me something.  It has cost brethren that have gone before us trials and tribulations.  When I was a young man, one of the issues that came up at the time in Scotland was that brethren who worked in the mines were required to join a trade union, and they would not do it; and some lost their jobs.  In Loanhead where the meeting room now is in Edinburgh, the other miners went on strike.  There was animosity and anger in the place; the brothers stood firm and they lost their jobs.  That was naming the Name of the Lord.  So I would say to young people here, as you have careers in mind and other such like things, what does the Lord Jesus mean to you, and what does His Name mean to you?  You might need guidance and help, but there is a place where you will get it and that is amongst the people of God.  Salvation for the present time is keeping amongst God’s people.

DJW  So, does naming the Name of the Lord involve a public expression in testimony of what you hold to?

JDG  That is good to say that.  Naming the Name of the Lord is an expression in testimony.  So they say, ’Why will you not join this professional association?’, and you say, ’Well, I have named the Name of the Lord.  I belong to another body, the body of Christ.  I am a Christian and want to be free from other associations’.  Some persons will respect that.

DJW  And the Lord must honour that.  Practically I have proved He came in for me in those circumstances.

PJH  So enjoying being “called into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor 1: 9) is how we respond to that.  It is really the Master’s use of those who are serviceable.  We have found, ”But he that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit”, 1 Cor 6: 17.  It is the power of the Spirit that comes in there.

JDG  I am glad of your reference to “called into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord”.  There is only one Christian fellowship in the world, but scripture here is exhorting us in the midst of the public confusion that you have a right: you can name the Name of the Lord and separate from iniquity because you have authority in the Scriptures to do that.  You are not casting any slur on any other believer.  You are putting yourself right with the Lord.

PJH  And there is security in it too.  It is fit for the Master’s use.

JDG  There is salvation practically as walking in testimony here below for the Lord Jesus.  Young people have to face these matters, indeed we all do, but a good number here have proved, as our brother has said, the protection and care of the Lord, and the succour and support of the saints as being identified with what the Lord has here in places, persons walking in the light of the assembly.

JMcK   So the subject of this passage is not the judgement of evil; it is keeping myself from it.

JDG  That is right.  It is not ours to judge the churches or to judge a man’s ways.  It has been pointed out that if somebody comes to your door with wrong teaching, it is not our position to stop him going to the next door.  Our position is to clear ourselves from him and not encourage him on his way.  John’s second epistle says that, verse 10, 11.  You would not help a man who is carrying evil doctrine on his way, but it is not your job to go out and stop him from going along the street.  You clear yourself from the matter.

RDP-r    Does the Supper help us to be sustained in this naming the Name of the Lord, and continuing in it?

JDG  I think that is very attractive.  You meet together with persons with whom you can express fellowship in the Lord’s Supper.  That is unity in testimony.

RDP-r    We need to be kept fresh in our affections for the Lord and for one another.  To name the Name of the Lord historically would not preserve us as we go on day by day.

JDG  No, naming the Name of the Lord is an active thing that I maintain daily.  Every day of my life here while the Lord leaves me here I am naming the Name of the Lord and my pathway is consistent with that.  It is His honour and His Name.  You are fastening your flag to the pole, saying, ’I am here for the Lord Jesus and there are certain things I cannot go on with. I will steer my course in relation to the blessed Lord Jesus who is my Saviour and my Lord’.

JAT   So in Isaiah Jehovah is power for “them that turn the battle to the gate”, chap 28: 6.  There is that in it really, do you think?

JDG  Turning the battle to the gate is seeking counsel.  That comes out in the book of Ruth, that Boaz turned the battle to the gate.  He sought counsel and wisdom and testimony amongst the elders, chap 4.  So there is a place here where you will get help as to your exercises.  Young people want help and guidance: there is a place here where they will get it.  They will get it among the brethren.  They will get protection and care there that is not in the world.

JAT  Amen.  It was just that I was feeling that we need the help of the Holy Spirit when we take this stand.  The Spirit would be the verity and strength of the one seeking counsel, and the Spirit would be a help for anyone who would take that stand.  We do need the Holy Spirit to help us in this stand, would you say?

JDG  The scripture that supports your thought is in Peter: “If ye are reproached in the name of Christ, blessed are ye; for the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God rests upon you”, 1 Pet 4: 14.  How is it that young people can go against the streams of this world?  Another has said that it is the holy, unseen, unknown-by-the-world protection that enshrouds the believer. 

DBB  In the other scripture it spoke about him not contending; it says here: “And a bondman of the Lord ought not to contend, but be gentle towards all; apt to teach; forbearing”.  Could you say something about that?

JDG  I am glad you brought it up because I nearly read from verse 14, but we had read quite a bit, but this matter of naming the Name of the Lord is encased between two matters: verse 16: “But profane, vain babblings shun, for they will advance to greater impiety” and then this matter here in verse 23: “But foolish and senseless questionings avoid, knowing that they beget contentions”.  The believer is not going to be carried into that line of argument over scripture.  He sets the truth out in his person and his body and his actions.  As naming the Name of the Lord he takes a certain course and establishes that course positively.  Is that what you have in mind?

DBB  That is very good because it is what he actually is, not exactly what he says.

JDG  What we are speaking about as not having part in is negative but necessary, but the great matter is to see the positive side: “If therefore one shall have purified himself from these, in separating himself from them, he shall be a vessel to honour, sanctified, serviceable to the Master, prepared for every good work.  But youthful lusts flee, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those that call upon the Lord out of a pure heart”.  You come into fellowship one by one.  We come to the Lord one by one.  You come into fellowship one by one, and then we find companionship in which these matters; “righteousness, faith, love, peace” are in activity.  Our bond together is the truth, but love must be in activity.  If there are a few believers meeting together in love in activity, God can work there.

GJR  There are those that ”call upon the Lord”.  There seems to be a great humility attached to such persons.

JDG  Humility, yes, I would say so.  There is humility because you are a broken-hearted churchman, to use an expression that Mr Lyon used years ago.  You have not left other believers because you do not love them.  It is not hatred of your brethren; it is hatred of the things that they might be associated with even if they do not understand.  But humility is needed.  You would carry in your spirit the conditions in Christendom.  We were reading Habakkuk two or three weeks ago in Edinburgh.  Habakkuk is a man whose spirit was burdened by what was going on in Israel at that time, just as many a believer may be burdened at the present time by what is going on in Christendom, and what the teaching that is going on there is.  The Lord has shown to us the teaching that is in the establishment, particularly in Anglicanism at the present time, and the awfulness of it, and there are believers there and they are still going on with it.  But, thank God, we have been liberated from it and set apart, but you still carry in your spirit the burden and humility of what is associated with the Name of the Lord Jesus publicly.

         Well, these were thoughts we had.  I trust they have been of some profit.

Witney

18th October 2008