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Companions of Christ and the Heavenly Calling

by T. Austin-Sparks

This series contains transcripts of the messages given in a conference in Aeschi, Switzerland in September 1963. The spoken form has been retained verbatim. Some of these messages were later published as the books "The On-High Calling" Volumes 1 & 2.

Contents

Chapter 1 - The Purpose of Companions

Chapter 2 - Who Are the Companions?

Chapter 3 - The Position of the Companions

Chapter 4 - The Satisfaction of the Companions

Chapter 5 - The Jewish Background of Christ

Chapter 6 - Some Titles of the New Dispensation

Chapter 7 - The Two Beginnings

Chapter 8 - The Old Jewish Background

Chapter 9 - Our Heavenly Calling

Chapter 10 - Companions Who See

Chapter 11 - Companions Who Hear

Chapter 12 - The Superiority of the Heavenly

Chapter 13 - Companions in Life

Chapter 14 - The Superiority of Christ

Chapter 15 - The True Vine

Chapter 16 - The Companionship of the Bride

Chapter 1 - The Purpose of Companions

Shall we proceed with our special line of meditation. May I just say a word about the nature of this ministry because the one object in view is the glory of the Lord Jesus; that stands over everything. But as to the method of the ministry, this is not strictly a time for preaching; it is a time especially for instruction in the things of the Lord. That means that there is a work side to it; it is something that we have to apply ourselves, and work in the Word of God. But when we have said that, of course, it is a time for exhortation and a time for encouragement in the spiritual life. Having said that, let us come to the Word.

In the letter to the Hebrews, chapter 3, verse 1: "Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling..."

Verse 14, "We are becoming partakers of Christ if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto the end."

Now, in accordance with what I said just now about working, we are going to work for a minute or two with one word. In the two verses which we have read, this one word occurs. In this translation it is the word "partakers": "partakers of a heavenly calling," "partakers with Christ". That one Greek word is translated into a number of other words in our New Testament, as here it is partakers and in two other places in this letter to the Hebrews it is so translated; chapter 6 and verse 4, and chapter 12 and verse 8. I'm not going to read all these verses or we should do nothing else for all the morning.

In Luke's gospel chapter 5 and verse 7 the same word is translated "partners". In the first chapter of Hebrews again, and verse 9, it is translated "fellows", "God hath anointed thee... above thy fellows". It is the same word: "above thy partakers, thy partners, thy fellows" and in other forms the word occurs quite a number of times in the New Testament. In Hebrews 2:14 it is "take part of". A number of times in the first letter to the Corinthians it is "be partakers of". Today in Hebrews 7:13 it is "pertain unto". You will see that in every case it refers to a relationship.

I have looked very carefully into this word and I have found that its true and deepest meaning is not given us in many of these translations. It ought to be translated into the word: "companions". So that what we ought to read is this: "holy brethren, companions of a heavenly calling... we are becoming companions of Christ if we hold fast". So, putting these two verses together, we are going, in these days, to be occupied with Companions of Christ and the Heavenly Calling.

Companions of Christ and Companions of the Heavenly Calling

This idea of companions runs right through the Bible. Behind everything that is official in relationship to the Lord, there is always a personal element. Remember Abraham, Abraham was a great servant of the Lord and he served the Lord very faithfully, but the deepest thing about Abraham was that he was God's friend. God spoke of Abraham as, "My friend". That carries with it this idea of companions of God.

Moses was a great servant of the Lord. The Lord often spoke of Moses as "Moses My servant," but we know that there was something deeper in it than that. God spoke with Abraham [should be Moses] as "a friend speaketh to his friend". There was a very intimate relationship between God and Moses, and Moses and God. In reality Moses was a companion of the Lord.

And what about David? We can say many things about David, but the greatest thing ever said was "he's a man after My own heart". And that is the meaning of a companion of the Lord.

Now, when the Lord Jesus came onto this earth, He chose His disciples and apostles on the basis of companionship. Call them disciples if you like - those who had got to enter the school of Christ and be taught; call them apostles if you like - those who were to be sent forth by Him. But the deepest thing in their relationship to Him was that they were His companions. Toward the end of their time He said, "Ye are they which hath continued with Me in My tribulation" - companions in life, and companions in suffering.

When we come to the church it is not some official, ecclesiastical institution; that's very cold, that is very formal, that is very distant. But when the Lord speaks about His church, He always speaks of it in terms of love, "the church of God which He purchased with His own blood... Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it". Perhaps we have got to recover this idea about the church, it is called to be the companion of Christ. Its deepest relationship with Him is a heart relationship - just to be His companion in life, in work, in suffering, and in glory.

Now, having said a word about the idea of companions, let us go on in the second place to think of:

The Purpose of Companions.

The Bible is a book of one purpose. That one purpose lies behind all its stages and all its phases. That one purpose lies behind creation. It lies behind Divine foreknowledge. It lies behind election. It lies behind the person whom God chose. It lies behind all the movements of God through the Bible. It lies behind all the figures and all the types. It lies behind the three main sections of the Old Testament: the section of priesthood, followed by the section of kingship, and then followed by the section of the prophets. Those three sections comprise the Old Testament. Behind everything in the Old Testament lies one purpose. In the Bible God is revealed as a God of purpose; ever moving in His sovereignty as governed by this one purpose.

What is this one purpose in and through all? It is centred in God's Son. In all things God has His Son alone in view. The "all things" is a very comprehensive term, but all is comprehended by God's Son. As we are going to dwell very much in this letter to the Hebrews, take note of this very factor at the beginning of this letter. The first great statement is concerning all God's past ways and methods: in time past God moved by this means and by that means, in this way and in that way, but at the end of those times He concentrates in His Son - He gathers all that up together and focuses it in His Son.

The Son of God comprehends the whole of the Old Testament and all of God's ways in the Old Testament. And then to emphasise that, this letter goes on through the first two chapters to bring the greatness of God's son into view. You know the wonderful things said about God's Son in the first chapter, here is the One who is above all others, who comprehends all else in the thought of God. So, God's interest in His Son is brought before us right at the beginning and the declaration is that God's purposes all centre in His Son. That Son is now known unto man as Jesus Christ, but the point here is this: having introduced and presented the Son, and having magnified the Son, the Holy Spirit through the writer goes on in this way (and there ought to be no break in chapters here), "Wherefore for this reason, because of this, because of God's purpose in sending His Son, because of the infinite greatness of the Son, greater than all others and all else, for that reason, holy brethren, you are called into companionship, companionship with God's Son and companionship in the heavenly calling of God's Son".

Now we come to our third point in this connection. There are two principles related to Divine purpose throughout the Bible. The first is what we have just pointed out: God works ever, and always, and only in relation to His purpose. The statement of the apostle Paul is, about God, that "He worketh all things after the counsel of His Divine will", and that will is centred in His Son. He therefore works ever, always and only in relation to His Son.

The Bible contains almost uncountable things... what a great mass of things there are in the Bible! Things which God created, and things which God used. And then what a lot of persons there are that God laid His hand upon; a whole multitude of persons. And then how many are the different ways that God used to realise His purpose - the ways of God are very many! The means that He employs... the Bible is just full of these things. Then we have God's blessings; God is very often found blessing people and blessing things.

On the other hand, there are the judgments of God, here are God's judgments and the Bible contains many of the judgments of God. But when we have said all that, (and of course we can never really comprehend all that, this book is always far, far too big for us) but when we have said all that, not one of these things: persons, means used, blessings, or judgments, or anything else, is a thing in itself. If God is a God of creation, if God chooses men, if God uses things, if God blesses, or God judges, He always does so with one object in view: He created all things for His Son. That is a definite Bible statement. He took hold of these persons with His Son in view - so in Abraham and through Abraham, we see God's Son. Well, let us be content with making the statement.

If God blessed, it was because that thing stood right in line with His Son's interests. If you want the blessing of the Lord, get alongside of the Lord Jesus, be wholly committed to the Lord Jesus. The Father never sees us apart from the Lord Jesus, it is in Him that the blessing of God is to be found. If the Bible has much to say about Divine judgments (and how much is said by the prophets about the judgments of God!) it is because things then were contrary to His interests in His Son. God always keeps His eye focused upon His one object; that "object" is His Son.

God wastes nothing. He is not just interested in little things as such, the little things become very big things with God when they're related to His Son. Are you a very little person, very unimportant? If you are vitally related to His Son, God looks upon you as very important. But it is not your importance, nor mine, it is the importance of His Son. You see this is true about any, any faithful school teacher. I suppose all of us have been to school and we have had our school teachers, and some of us in our school days we did want to stand well with our teacher. We tried to please them because we wanted to be happy with our teacher and we wanted to get all that the teacher could do for us. But my recollection of school masters is this: they did not have me in view! The only thing that they had in view where I was concerned was how their object was going to be realised: they had got to have good scholars who passed examinations and came out tops, and everything that they thought of related to that end. Sometimes they would be very pleasant to me, and then I thought, "What a good boy am I!" and sometimes it was the other way and I knew something about the judgment that the school could give! Now, this was not because they liked me or disliked me, what they really did like was the end when the examination came. So everything about me was looked at in the light of the one object. Now, I don't like to call God a schoolmaster, but the principle is the same: He is looking at us in the light of His Son, "How does that man or that woman answer to My thought in My Son? How much of My Son is there in that man or that woman?" Later on we shall see how God works on that ground, but know this is a principle in God's purpose that leads us to the second principle.

While God is a God of purpose, ever moving in relation to that purpose, going on no matter what happens, going on with His Son, working on the ground of His own sovereign Lordship and no man can prevent Him, He is going to reach His end. That is why He has given us the book of the Revelation. Before we reach the end He has told us what it's going to be like, His purpose is going to be realised; nevertheless, He keeps to this other principle, He always:

Retains Man in a Place of Responsibility.

He never lets man off from responsibility. Why is that? Because His purpose in His Son is to be realised in man - the great corporate Man in which Christ is to have His fullness.

Christ is not going to realise God's purpose alone. He will not be in glory as just one isolated unit. So we come back to our verse, "Holy brethren, companions of the heavenly calling..." we are made companions of Christ if we will hold fast. Paul says that "the church is the fullness of Him that filleth all in all". Hence there is a responsibility resting upon man, and there is no book in the Bible which emphasises that more than the letter to the Hebrews. In that connection this letter is one of the most terrible letters in the Bible. [Brief loss of audio at this point.] ...Come about in this letter it is going to be the thing which governs all our consideration through these things.

If God takes up a vessel in relation to His purpose, it may be individuals, or it may be a company of people like Israel, or like the men who God took up in the Bible; if God takes up a vessel in relation to His purpose and that vessel does not respond to God's will, God will pass by that vessel and find another. He will call in others to take his place. This is, in the greatest instance, what we have regarding Israel. God chose Israel to be the vessel through which He would bring in His Son. Israel was called and chosen of God in relation to His Son and His purpose in His Son. And what did Israel do with His Son? They refused the Son and therefore they refused God's purpose and God put them aside and passed on. Jesus said, "Therefore shall the kingdom of heaven be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruit thereof." Now, this is the very meaning of this letter to the Hebrews as we shall see. No one can say of Israel now, "They are the companions of God". Israel was once the companion of God and the companion of God failed God. What a lot of light this throws upon the Lord Jesus calling Judas amongst the twelve. Judas was one of the twelve, called to be a companion and the companion betrayed His Lord. Israel was called to be the companion of God and Christ, Israel betrayed the Son of God, and Israel has suffered the doom of Judas: a companion set aside, rejected, while God's going on with His purpose and bringing in others to take their place.

So this explains this one little letter to the Hebrews, the letter of the place and the greatness of Jesus Christ. It sets forth the wonder of being called to be a companion of Christ and then it makes it so clear what a terrible thing it is for those who are called to be companions, to fail the Lord. It says, "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation". You can never understand that phrase "so great salvation" until you understand the meaning of being a companion of Christ. Is there anything greater than being a companion of Jesus Christ? When you think of Who He is and when you think of all that God has purposed concerning His Son, and then to think that you and I are called to be companions of that Son of God... that is indeed a very great salvation! It is the "so great" salvation.

Well now, this morning we have spent our time just going round this one word, "companion". The New Testament is built around that one word, around the one idea of companions of Christ. Christ is first seen choosing His companions, and then He is seen teaching them by word and by deed, and then He is seen testing and sifting them.... Are they true companions? Or are they only associated with Him for what they are going to get from Him? You can have plenty of companions if you give them everything, if they can get all that they want from you, but what about the day when you can give them nothing but suffering and persecution, and everything that is against their natural interests? You can only offer them a place in the Father's house. So He sifted them, He tested them, and on more than one occasion it is said, "They walked no more with Him... from that day many of His disciples went away".

Companionship is something tested and sifted through adversity. If you have an extra lot of testing, an extra lot of suffering in your relationship with Christ, try to do this thing which we all find the most difficult thing to do: that is, He is seeking to have us as His closest companions in fellowship with Him not only in His glory, but in His suffering. So the relationship with Christ and in the gospels is on the basis of fellowship: oneness in life, oneness in purpose, oneness in experience, and oneness in discipline. Oneness in death, burial and resurrection. Oneness in His anointing; and then at last, oneness with Him in His heavenly glory.

I close this morning with this important word: we must realise that Jesus is repeating Himself in a spiritual way in this dispensation. When Luke wrote the book of the Acts he commenced with these words, "What Jesus began to do and to teach..." and Luke's implication is, "I am now going to write what He is going on doing and teaching". It is the same Jesus, He is doing the same work, and teaching the same things, but there is a difference; then it was by illustration in a temporal way, now it is the meaning of those things in a spiritual way. The meaning that was in the things then, is now in what He is doing with us in a spiritual way. If He opened physically blind eyes, He is now opening spiritually blind eyes and that's very much more important! Well, that's just an indication of what I mean, this same Jesus is going on with the same work in meaning now in you and in me! He is repeating His earthly life in a spiritual way. He is more on the line of meaning than of acts now.

Why do we say that? Well, when we were children we used to sing the hymn (and I think when we're grown up we often feel the same) we used to sing, "I think when I read that sweet story of old, when Jesus was here among men..." and then it finishes, "I should like to have been with Him then". Do you feel you would like to have lived with Him then on the earth? Is that the best thing that you can think about? Let me tell you: you have got something far better than that now! May I say Jesus is with us, but oh, on a much more wonderful basis than then.

We are called now to be companions of Christ, companions of the heavenly calling and His dealings with us perhaps are far more real because His dealings with us are spiritual and eternal, while His dealings then were only physical and for the time being. It is a good thing to look after people's bodies and to help them in this life, but there is something very much more than that, it is that heavenly calling, that which is eternal, that which will not pass as our life work when time is no more.

"Wherefore holy brethren, companions of a heavenly calling... we are made companions of Christ if we hold fast". All that is only by way of laying the foundation. As the Lord helps in these coming days, we shall build on that foundation.

Chapter 2 - Who Are the Companions?

Now I turn you again to those portions of God's Word which are the places of our consideration in this conference. In the letter to the Hebrews, chapter 3, verse 1: "Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling..." verse 14 "we are become partakers of Christ if we hold fast the beginning unto the end." We spent quite a lot of our time this morning with one word, it is that word that is here translated, "partakers". It is a word that is translated into a number of words in our languages. Here, and in some other places in this letter, it is "partakers". In another place in the New Testament it is "partners", in another place it is "fellows". But we spent our time in showing that the best translation of the word is "companions". So we translate: "Wherefore, holy brethren, companions of a heavenly calling..." we are become companions of Christ and we said that the New Testament gathers itself around that word. And that word can really be taken as the key to the whole of this letter to the Hebrews. Companions of Christ and of a heavenly calling.

Now we are going on from where we left off this morning. I'm very sorry for all those friends who were not with us because we cannot tell you all that was said in more than an hour this morning. We are coming to this letter to the Hebrews and that is its true title. In the oldest manuscripts it just has this title: to the Hebrews. But of course it was to Hebrew Christians. Now we want to understand the setting of this letter before we can understand its message. You probably know that in New Testament times there was a great conflict between the Jews and the Christians. A very great battle raged between these two. The apostle Paul, who himself was a great Hebrew, had a very large heart for his own people. You remember what he said, if you look at his letter to the Romans in chapter 9, and verse 3: "I could wish that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren's sake, my kinsman according to the flesh." He was prepared to let everything go if only his people would accept the Lord Jesus, so great was his desire and his hope for them, but he fought a losing battle for Israel. And if you will look at the last chapter of the Book of the Acts you will see Paul's surrender of that hope. Acts chapter 28 verse 28: "Be it known therefore unto you, that this salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles: they will also hear". So he says: "Seeing that Israel will not hear, we will give them up. I give up my great hope for them and I turn to those who will hear, so we turn to the Gentiles".

And then you come to this "letter to the Hebrews", and at the end of this letter you have the result of Israel's refusal. Hebrews chapter 12 at verse 25, the writer makes this appeal to these Hebrew Christians: "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not, when they refused him that warned them on earth, how much more shall not we escape, who turn away from him that warneth from heaven... And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that have been made, that those things which are not shaken may remain. Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken..." These words contain the final judgment upon the Hebrews who rejected Christ. That "shaking" referred to that destruction which was coming upon Israel in the year 70 A.D. When that happened, Israel was left without their country, without a city, without a temple, without a government. Everything was shaken until it completely fell - the result of refusing to hear "Him that speaketh from heaven".

It is in that setting that we have this letter to the Hebrews. On the one side it is an appeal, a final appeal, to the Hebrew Christians; an appeal not to go back from Jesus Christ. On the other side the letter is a great warning as to what will happen if they do. So you have to put this letter right into that setting: it is a letter set in a great crisis of spiritual life, and of course it contains an abiding message for all time.

Let us look for a minute at the three features which made up that great conflict and which led to that final division.

The first feature was Christ Himself: Christ as the Messiah, Jesus as the Christ. Of course the Jews believed in a Christ, for "Christ" is only the Greek word for the Hebrew "Messiah". And the Hebrews believed in a Messiah, but the trouble was that they would not have Jesus as the Messiah. And so, as was prophesied, Jesus became the Stone upon which they fell and were broken to pieces. It was a matter of the place that they gave to Jesus. Now you can see how this letter puts Jesus in such a high place, we are going to see that again presently. But Jesus as God's anointed Son, the Christ, was the Rock upon which they were broken. That is the first great factor in this great conflict and in the ultimate division.

And we must always remember, dear friends, that the test of everyone and everything is the place which it gives to Jesus Christ. If anybody ever comes to you and wants you to accept some system of teaching, they will have wonderful arguments, they will use a lot of the Bible, what are you going to do about it? You may not be able to meet their arguments, and you may not even be able to answer Scripture for Scripture, but there is one thing that will always go to the heart of the matter: "What place do you give to the Lord Jesus? Do you give Him the place of God's eternal Son?" And everything stands or falls on that. You can try that, and you will find that most of the false teachers will begin to wriggle on that: "Oh, we believe in Jesus as a great man, as the greatest teacher that ever lived and so on, but if you want us to believe that Jesus is God, we just cannot go that far". It is the place that is given to the Lord Jesus that is the test of everyone and everything.

That is the first factor in this great conflict in the letter to the Hebrews, and you will see why the writer uses the whole of the first part to magnify the Lord Jesus.

The second feature is what the writer here calls: "the heavenly calling". And you have got to put all the emphasis upon that word heavenly. You see, the Hebrews wanted an earthly calling: and all who are like them, even if they are called Christians, just want an earthly calling - a Christianity that belongs to this earth and this world; something down here. Well, we are going to enlarge upon that later on, but there is a tremendous significance in this little phrase 'the heavenly calling'. Oh, that is something very much more difficult, that is far away, that is up in the clouds; that is not down-to-earth, that is not practical, this heavenly thing. But everything was in that, and we shall see that as we go on.

And then there was this third feature: these Hebrews were prepared to be Christians, but it must be a Christianity after their own mind; it must be a Christianity that allows all the Old Testament system to continue. It must allow Moses to continue. It must allow all the law of Moses to continue. It must allow the temple to continue. It must allow all the Old Testament priests to continue. It must allow all the sacrifices to continue, "We are prepared to be Christians if you will let us bring over our Old Testament into Christianity. But if you say all that is finished and a heavenly system has taken its place, then we cannot have that". A Jewish system brought into Christianity, that is, a Christianity of ritual and form. Now do you see the force of this word companions of a heavenly calling? Companions of Christ? These companions of Christ are those who are constituted anew on a heavenly and spiritual basis. They are the ones who are responding to a heavenly calling.

Now we have come to the point of the transition from the natural and earthly Israel to:

The New Spiritual and Heavenly Israel.

This transition ought to have been in a Divine sequence, the one ought to have quietly given way to the other. The old ought to have made full place for the new. The old Israel ought to have died, been buried, and raised again in Christ and become the heavenly Israel - the companions of Jesus Christ - but they refused to have it like that. And because they refused to have it like that, they were set aside. God is just moving on with His purpose concerning His Son, and although many were called, few were chosen. There were a few of Israel who were chosen as the companions, while the many who were called, refused. And so they were set aside, and God moved in this transition toward His new heavenly Israel.

Note: they positively refused to move on to heavenly ground. They refused to move on to the ground of the heavenly Man. Hence, as a result, they went the way of Adam. Now here is a very interesting and instructive thing.

Adam was made by God. Adam was chosen by God. Adam was called by God into relation to His purpose concerning His Son, but when Adam was made, he was not perfect. He was innocent, but he was not perfect. You know the difference between being innocent and being perfect? Well, a little baby child is innocent, but would you say that it is perfect? No, it is not perfect. It has got to grow up, and it will only grow up and become perfect as it goes through all sorts of difficulties and troubles. We call them "growing pains" and that is the way of becoming perfect from an innocent child to a full-grown man. Adam was innocent, like a little child; very beautiful, no sin in him, but he was not perfect. He had got to come to spiritual perfection. He had still got to be made like God's Son. That is what he was created for. Now God put him on test; allowed him to be tested, and, oh, what a wonderful thing would have happened if Adam had gone through his testing triumphantly! From the innocence of a little child he would have become a spiritually full-grown man like the Lord Jesus, and we, the children of Adam, would have been very different people. But he failed in his test; he did not go the way that God had called him to go. What did God do? He put him aside and put a curse on him and said, "That kind of being can never satisfy Me. He has refused to go the way of My Son".

That is exactly what happened to Israel after the flesh. God made Israel, God chose Israel, God called Israel, and all with His Son in view. And Israel refused, refused to go God's way. Israel was tested as to Jesus Christ - the four Gospels are just full of Israel being tested concerning Jesus Christ, and they all close with Israel saying "No!" to God's way. So God did with Israel what He did with Adam: He put Israel aside and put a curse upon Israel and for these many centuries that curse has rested upon Israel. We will not dwell upon that any longer, it comes out again and again in our meditations.

Now in this letter, you see you have that possibility presented. To the Hebrew Christians, God is saying, "Do not refuse Him that speaketh from heaven". But here is the other side of the story: Israel positively refused God's heavenly calling. Just at that point God's eternal plan is revealed, that is, a heavenly people with a spiritual nature occupying a place in God's creation. That is what God eternally intended. He intended that before He called Israel, and He called Israel to be a people like that - a heavenly people with a spiritual nature.

I don't know how that breaks upon you as I say that, for me I see so much, that I despair of ever being able to tell you about it. I do not know what to say and what not to say; because I've only got ten days in which to say it. But the point is that just here, when Israel refuses, God presents His eternal plan; that is, this heavenly people of a spiritual nature.

Now, the whole of the New Testament is the body of truth which relates to this eternal will of God. Let's just look at that very hurriedly. We will take the four gospels (no, we're not going to study the four gospels; we are just going to look at them).

If you take up these four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, you get some general idea of what they contain, and then you stand back from that, you are able to see two lines of movement right through the four gospels; two movements running alongside of each other. On the one side there is the Jewish idea of the Messiah, the Jewish Messiah, the Jewish idea of the kingdom of God, and the whole Jewish system is there, running along here. Alongside of it, and over against it, there is something that is different: there is God's idea, and heaven's idea, of the Messiah. That is very different from the Jewish and it is always in conflict with the Jewish idea. There is God's idea, and heaven's idea of the kingdom of God, and it is very different from the Jewish idea.

There is the Jewish idea of the king - what kind of a king they want and what kind of a king they are going to have - that is running along one side through the four Gospels. Alongside of it and over against it, is God's idea, and heaven's idea, of a king: "Behold, thy king cometh unto thee... meek, and riding upon an ass". That is not the Jewish idea of a king, "How can a meek man riding on an ass overthrow the mighty Roman Empire? That is not our idea of a king... and we will not have this man to reign over us". You see the two lines running through the four gospels: the Hebrew idea and the heavenly idea. And that is the very meaning of the four gospels. When you get to the end of the four gospels, you have a Jewish idea rejected fully and finally by God and, on the other side, God's idea introduced and established forever. Two thousand years have proved that! That one idea of an earthly system is gone; there has been nothing of it for two thousand years. On the other side there is God's idea of His kingdom. That was introduced when Israel was rejected, and God has been going on with that for two thousand years.

We are here tonight because that is true; we have God's King; we are in God's Kingdom; we are under God's government. Well, that is what the gospels, the four gospels say to us. Of course, that is not all, but that is the general conclusion of the four gospels. Later on again we are going to see the details in the gospels, or, at least, in one of the gospels, which will shows how true that was. But these four gospels show the rejection by God of those who rejected His Son, and on the other side: God bringing in that which was according to His Son and establishing it forever so that the very gates of hell have not been able to prevail against it.

You move from the gospels to the book of the Acts, and in this book you have two features. First of all, you have the feature of transition from the old to the new. With God the transition is complete, but with His people it is made slow because they are not ready to accept it. The transition was slower than it ought to have been because James, the head of the church in Jerusalem, still wanted to have something of old Israel. And even Peter was very, very reluctant to abandon Israel and go right out to the Gentiles. And even dear old Barnabas was caught in that snare. Paul says, with grief in his heart, "Even Barnabas... even Barnabas". These who were of the old tradition were very slow to give up their tradition. But you see that God is going on: "James, Peter, whoever it may be, if you are not coming, on I am going on, and if you are not going on I shall leave you behind and find others." And because they were so slow, He brought in Paul - and Paul got things going! The transition was complete with Paul, and he was God's instrument of completing the transition. The letter to the Galatians is the instrument by which that transition was completed. Judaism received a fatal blow with that letter to the Galatians - that is, Judaism in the Christian church.

You pass from the book of the Acts and you come into the letters - what are called the "Epistles" - and what have you here? Just the full body of teaching concerning the heavenly and spiritual nature of the people of God. It is applied to a whole variety of connections. There is one state of things in Corinth, there's another state of things in Galatia, another state of things in Ephesus, and so on. But applied to all these different conditions is this one thing: it is God's intention to have a heavenly and spiritual people. And all the letters were applied to different situations with that one object in view. Every letter in the New Testament has something to say about this heavenly nature of the people of God.

Now, as I must close in about four minutes, we just arrive at the letter to the Hebrews, and this letter takes a very, very important place in this whole question, because this letter to the Hebrews is a summary of the whole New Testament. The whole meaning of the New Testament is gathered up in this letter to the Hebrews. Into this letter there flow many tributaries, making this letter the meeting place of all the revelation of God concerning His Son, Jesus Christ.

And so we close where we began. What is God's purpose concerning His Son? "Wherefore, holy brethren, companions of a heavenly calling... we are companions of Christ." Who are the companions of Christ? Those who have fully left the whole earthly realm of things and are joined to the heavenly Lord; those who have become God's spiritual Israel; those who have answered to the heavenly calling. Paul cried, when he was on trial: "Wherefore, oh king Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision". And if Paul was a great companion of Jesus Christ, it was because he had completely finished with everything but Jesus Christ. He says, "I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord". He was a man who was wholly on the ground of Jesus Christ, and wholly on the ground of God's heavenly purpose. These are the companions of Jesus Christ.

Now, later we shall go further with this and deal with many of the details which we have only mentioned in general. But I feel I must say this as I close this evening, there are many young Christians here and perhaps you don't know your Bible as well as some older Christians do, and you do not know all the Bible background of what I have been saying. I hope this will make you want to know your Bible better! But perhaps there is quite a lot that I have said that you don't understand. Now this is the one thing that I do want you to understand - you will come to understand all the other as you go on, if you hold fast your beginning firm unto the end. If you really do commit yourself to the Lord Jesus, you will come to understand, but that is not what I was going to say. What I was going to say is this: what I want you to realise is that you have a very much greater Christ than ever you have imagined. The Christ to whom you have given yourselves is a very great Christ. The call of the Lord which you have answered in accepting the Lord Jesus is a much bigger calling than you have any knowledge of. I just want you to go away with the impression: "My, I have come into something and this is big enough to fill my whole life."

So don't worry about what you don't understand, but do realise how great a Lord is your Lord, and what a great thing is the heavenly calling.

Chapter 3 - The Position of the Companions

We turn again to the letter to the Hebrews, with one word as our key to the whole letter. In verse 1, "Holy brethren, companions of a heavenly calling..." verse 14 "We are become companions of Christ if we hold fast the beginning firm unto the end". Companions of Christ and of a heavenly calling. As a subject we have pointed out that this is the key to the whole of this letter. This letter is an appeal for companions of Christ; an appeal for companions of a heavenly calling. And we have also said that this letter is a summary of the whole of the New Testament.

In making that statement, of course we provide you with a very large field of consideration. We simply have to say that all that is in the New Testament is gathered in some way into this letter to the Hebrews. Therefore, all that is in the New Testament is gathered up into this one thought: God is seeking companions for His Son in a heavenly calling.

Now this morning we are going to dig more deeply into this letter to the Hebrews, always with this one thought in mind: it is companions of Christ which are in view. Let us say one brief word about the point of view taken by this letter.

We understand that this letter was written and given to the Hebrew Christians at a time of very serious crisis. It was at the time when a whole system which had existed for many centuries, was about to pass away. The whole system of the Old Testament from Moses onward was about to pass away. After the writer had put down all that is in this letter, he put over it a quotation from the Old Testament: "Yet once more I will shake the heavens and the earth that the things that can be shaken shall be shaken and that the things which cannot be shaken shall abide." And in quoting that Scripture and putting it at the end of this letter, he indicated that that was just about to take place. And he proved to be right. It is evident that this letter was written just before the year A.D. 70. It may have been that already the Roman legions were gathering around Jerusalem and we know from history what happened. Jerusalem was besieged and destroyed. Not one stone of the temple was left standing upon another. The whole land was desolated. The priestly service ceased; all the functions of the temple came to an end. The whole country was put into a state of utter desolation and from that day onward, even till now, that system ceased to be. Because the Lord knew what was going to happen, and because in the Divine plan the time had come for it to happen, this letter was written. Always read this letter in the light of that great historic crisis.

That was the dark side of the story, but you notice that the letter is just full of that better thing that was going to take place of the old. We shall be dwelling upon that "better thing" as we go along. But as the people of an earthly calling were being set aside, this great letter of a heavenly calling was presented to them.

Now, before we go further with the letter, let us remember that its message abides for us. It would be a very blind person today who could not see that another such event is very near. There has been built up on this earth another great system of Christianity. It is very earthly as a system and, just as with the Jews in this case their hearts were very much bound up with their system, so in our time multitudes of Christians are just bound up with this historic Christianity.

I do not claim to be a prophet, but there is much in the Word of God that points to the time when this whole system will go. It is very impressive that in our lifetime we have seen this in a small way. When the churches have been destroyed, the congregations have been scattered, it has not been possible to go on with the old forms, and people have had to find the Lord for themselves without any earthly help; they have had to get their help from heaven and not from earth. In a comparatively small way we have seen this happen on at least two occasions. Of course you people in Switzerland don't know much about that, but the Lord has smitten the earth on two terrible occasions with not so many years between them and it is not difficult to see that that could happen on a very much bigger scale.  And that that event may not be very far off. Of course, we Christians speak of the coming of the Lord; that is our hope and that is our salvation: but we must remember that the coming of the Lord is going to be accompanied by this terrible judgment upon this earth, when everything that is not heavenly is going to be shaken, so shaken that it will just collapse.

And so this Letter has a real message for us. As it said to the Jewish Christians at that time: "Your whole system, in which you are so bound up, is going to pass away", so this Letter says to us today: "All the earthly system is going to be shaken, and shaken out of its place. But there is a better one coming!" God has some better thing. Well, that is the standpoint of this letter. I am sure we can see that it is very applicable to our time. We are not just studying a book of the Bible which relates to many centuries ago. God is the eternal God and He speaks to all time, but the message is intensified as we get nearer the end.

Well that, as I have said, is the standpoint from which the letter was written. Now we are going to see further this...

Transition from the Earthly to the Heavenly.

In the terms of the New Testament, and this letter in particular, it is the transition from an earthly, historic Israel to a heavenly, spiritual Israel. And so we are going to look at the beginnings of Israel in both cases.

Do you notice how the letter begins? It begins with one word: God. You can put a big ring round that word. God. Over the whole content of this letter stands God. "In the beginning... God." Everything in this letter must be viewed from God's standpoint, this is not to be viewed from man's standpoint, it is not to be viewed from the world's standpoint, from the earthly standpoint. It is God who is speaking, and all that is here is what God is saying. God stands over all that this letter contains, and no one is allowed to say that this thing is of man. As we move through the letter we have to constantly say to ourselves: "God is saying that! This is not the interpretation of man, this is God speaking." This great transition which is marked by this letter, is God moving forward. God is going on. God is in charge of everything. And the Letter says: "The companions of the heavenly calling are those who are moving on with God." So the appeal of the letter is repeatedly this: "Let us go on, because God is going on."

Now the whole of the old Jewish system was something which had settled down, and in a very real sense it had gone to sleep. Now, our brother said to us at prayer time this morning that God doesn't come down to us when we go to sleep. Of course he meant spiritually, not naturally. No, God is not the God of the spiritually asleep. The appeal to Israel was: "Awake, thou that sleepest!" That system had gone to sleep, it had settled down, it had become an end in itself. It was not moving on with God. That was the trouble in the days of the prophets. And this letter says: "God is going on. The companions are those who are going on with God."

Do remember this, dear friends, that a true, living Christianity is a "going on" Christianity. It will never stop going on, neither in this life, nor in eternity. It says that "Of His kingdom there shall be no end". So we begin with God, and we move on with God.

Now, this letter is God expressing Himself. That is in the very first statement in the letter: "God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in His Son." Here, then, we meet with a God who is expressing Himself. He is here declared to be a speaking God; He is a God who speaks, He is not a dumb God He is not a silent God. He is a God who has always been speaking and is speaking now. So, this letter right at the beginning, declares God to be a God who speaks. And then, to analyse it further, God is spoken of as being a God who speaks with a purpose. He is a God of purpose and He is speaking concerning His purpose. He spoke in times past "in the prophets by divers portions", He speaks now in His Son, and here are two very important things to note.

In times past He spoke in many parts, by many prophets, He spoke in many parts. He said this thing to one prophet and this thing through another. All the prophets were parts of God's speaking. No one prophet said everything. You can look into the prophets and see that every one of them had a specific aspect of God's message. "In many parts", is the word. Now His final speech in Christ is the gathering up of all the parts into completeness. God's Son is the complete speech of God - all the parts are brought together in Him. He is the full speech of God. That gives this letter a very, very big place, doesn't it? This letter says that now, here, God is speaking in fullness in His Son.

And alongside of that the appeal is "to give the more earnest heed", because this is so much fuller than anything that God had ever said before.

And then it says that in times past God spoke "in many ways", not only in different portions, but in different manners. Well, it would take too long for us to go back to the Old Testament to see all the manners in which God spoke. He spoke by a thousand different means; sometimes by words and sometimes by acts. The manners were indeed "diverse". But the statement here is that at the end He speaks in one way, one all-inclusive way, and that is in His Son. His Son is God's one inclusive way of speaking at the end. On the one side, no one is going to get anything from God apart from Jesus Christ now. God will absolutely refuse to speak other than in His Son. If you want to know what God wants to say to you, you've got to come to His Son. On the other side, we've got all that ever God wants to say in Jesus Christ. Now, I want to say that especially to young Christians.

You know, when we are young Christians we can get very conceited spiritually; I was no exception to this. After I had been a Christian for a little while everything was so wonderful. The Bible was so wonderful, the Lord was so wonderful, I went along and I didn't realise what I was doing but I was saying quietly, "hallelujah". I remember that my sister was walking at my side one day, I forgot she was there. I was having such a good time with the Lord inside, I said, "hallelujah"! And she looked up at me, she said, "It does do me good to hear you say hallelujah!" Now of course that's all right, but there was a foolish side to it. I thought I knew everything that was in the Bible. I would almost say that! I was in danger of becoming unteachable. I thought I'd got it all. I thought I knew it all. Of course, that's a mark of youth. As someone said about some words of David, David said, as you know, "I have more knowledge than all my teachers; I have more knowledge than all my teachers". And someone has said David must have been a very young man when he said that!

Well now, I'm not a young man any longer, it's a good many years since those days. I have been reading and studying my Bible all through the years, and I tell you quite honestly friends, that today this book is altogether beyond me. I would never come back to this letter to the Hebrews if that were not true. I have preached and I have lectured on this letter for years, but today it is far, far beyond me. Should I say this letter to the Hebrews? I would be more correct in saying: the Lord Jesus who is revealed in this letter. Yes, we have far, far more of God's speaking in His Son than yet we have come to understand. We have nothing apart from Jesus Christ, and we need nothing apart from Jesus Christ.

Now, we said this letter presents God as a God of purpose, and it goes on to show that God's purpose is centred and summed up in His Son. And that, at the beginning of the letter, is set before us in three ways.

Firstly, in the person of His Son. Just look at this: "At the end of these days hath spoken unto us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the ages; who being the effulgence of His glory, and the very image of His substance..." and so on. You notice that that whole first chapter is occupied with presenting God's Son. God is speaking concerning His Son, as to who His Son is. What a great Son this is!

And then it presents the Son in terms of redemption. "Having made purification of sins". That is just one phrase, but many chapters follow to explain what that redemption is. All these chapters on priesthood and sacrifice have to do with that one clause. Having made purification of sins... God is speaking in His Son concerning redemption.

And in the third place He is speaking in His Son concerning glory. The Son is the very effulgence of His glory, and this Son is going to bring many sons to glory, because this Son, having made purification of sins, has sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. He speaks in a Son whom He has now glorified and set at His own right hand, the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens.

But God does not cease to speak in His Son concerning the Son only. You will notice that in chapter two He brings man into this, and this letter has this wonderful message for man: that all that God has put in His Son is for man. God speaks in this letter of the finished work of Christ, the work which is made complete for man.

Now here is something that you and I must dwell upon. Personally, I am constantly brought to this: I have not yet learned thoroughly to believe what I believe in! I believe in the finished work of Christ, and yet sometimes I am just as miserable about myself as any man could be. And I am often almost at the point of giving up because of what a wretched kind of thing I am. If there is anything in this world that would cause me to give up the Christian ministry, it is myself. Do you understand what I mean? Oh, how we are discouraged by what we find in ourselves! And so, we don't believe what we believe in. We believe in the finished work of Christ, and that God puts all the finished work of Christ to our account. And God does not see us in ourselves - He sees us in Christ. He does not see us, He sees Christ in us. We don't believe that! If we really believed that, we would be delivered from ourselves and we would indeed be triumphant Christians.

Of course, that does not mean that we can just behave anyhow. We may speak wrongly and act wrongly, but there is for every true Christian a refuge - there is a mercy-seat. It has not got to be made; it is there, there is the precious Blood. The blood has not to be shed; it is shed. There is a High Priest making intercession for us. There is everything that we need. The work is finished, it is completed. Oh, we Christians have got to believe our beliefs! We have got to take hold, with both hands, of the things which are the things of our Christian faith.

But I know you have problems when I say that, "But what about this, this old man?" Unless you are one of those people who believe that sin has been absolutely rooted out of you, and that it is quite impossible for you to sin - well, if you believe that, the Lord bless you! I think you may be tripped up some day and find that there is an old man there after all. But leaving that aside, most of us do know that there are two things in us: there is the new and there is the old; there is the spiritual man and there is the natural man, and this natural man is a very troublesome fellow! What about him over against the finished work? This letter just tells you all about that, it says: "God dealeth with you as with sons", and God loves sons. Are you a child of God? Has there been in your history that deep action of new birth? Have you received the Lord Jesus? The Word of God says: "To as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to be the children of God". If you have received the Lord Jesus, you are a child of God. The spirit of sonship has come in and dwells in you.

Now this letter says that God loves His sons, and because He loves them, He chastens them: He child-trains them. Now, "no child-training", says the letter, "for the present is pleasant". God's dealings with His own family are not always pleasant, and when they are unpleasant there is a little demon sitting on your shoulder and he will whisper in your ear: "You see, God doesn't love you. He would not deal with you like this if He loved you." The devil is always out to turn the loving works of God into evil things.

Yes, God is dealing with us as with sons. It is discipline, and it goes against the flesh. The letter says: "It is not for the present pleasant". Indeed, the letter might have said: "It is very unpleasant"! "What son is he... What father is he", says this letter, "who does not chasten his son?"

Now, what I am saying is not easy to say, because I may be exposing myself to the rod. We have enough experience to know that we have to say some things very carefully, because we are often tested on the things that we say. But here is the statement that it is a totally unkind father who never chastens his child. Have you seen children who are never chastened or corrected? Those children are going to have a bad time in this world, people are not going to like them, and they are going to discover that people don't like them. Their parents have spoilt them.

This letter says that God's love is expressed in His using the rod to His children. God does not always put His good things, His best things, into a nice form. I heard the other day of a little boy who had to take some medicine, and it was not very nice. But his father said: "There are many vitamins in this medicine." And the little boy said: "Father, Daddy, why must all the good things be put into nasty things? Why can't they be put into ice-cream?" The Lord doesn't always put the good things into ice-creams. Sometimes the vitamins are in the nasty medicine.

Now that is exactly what this letter says. God is not condemning us when He deals with us like that. He is working to deliver us. God never delivers us by a sermon. If you think that these talks here are going to save you, you are making a mistake! These are only to explain what God is doing. God never, never saves by theory. You may read everything that has ever been written on Christian doctrine and still be the same man or woman. God's ways are very practical, and He teaches us by experience. That experience is sometimes very difficult, it is what is called here, "the training of sons".

Well, we are proving again what I said about never getting to the bottom of things. I have only just begun to say what I want to say about this one matter. But it will not be in the amount that I say that the benefit is found. We just take a little and take it to the Lord and apply it to our hearts; it will do its work. So I think that I'll just stop there for this morning. If the Lord wills, I will take it up there at that point again tomorrow morning, the evening will be on another particular aspect of this whole matter because there are a number of friends who can only be here in the evening. May the Lord just impress our hearts again with these things! God is still speaking in His Son, His speaking is in order to get companions of His Son - companions of this heavenly calling and the companions of Christ will go into the hard school and have to learn many hard lessons, but in so learning, they will come to understand how great is their inheritance in the Lord Jesus.

I may add this: My experience is, dear friends, that no one really has spiritual knowledge without suffering. I am not speaking about head knowledge. I am speaking about real knowledge of the Lord in the inner life. I do not know of anybody who has come into that knowledge apart from suffering. Perhaps that is a depressing thing to say, but there it is - it's a law in God's Word. "We have this treasure in vessels of fragile clay", and how poor this vessel is we learn through trial and affliction, but then we learn how wonderful the Lord is. The letter says: "Afterward..." (that is, after the chastening) "the peaceable fruits of righteousness". What a wonderful phrase: the peaceable fruits of righteousness! Those fruits come along the line of chastening by way of suffering.

So let us ask for that grace which the Apostle had, to rejoice in suffering.

Chapter 4 - The Satisfaction of the Companions

I have often been very comforted by the words of Scripture which say, "He remembereth our frame, that we are dust". And if the Lord remembers our frame, that we are dust, I'm quite sure that He would have me remember that.

We have had a heavy day today and there does come a time when we've just about had enough that we can carry. I feel, therefore, that this evening I should take perhaps a little lighter line and not go more deeply into the matter which is before us in these days, but just speak in a simple way in order to encourage the Lord's people in this heavenly calling.

I can remind you of the basic words, "Wherefore, holy brethren, companions of a heavenly calling". Then I'll turn you to the tenth chapter of the letter to the Hebrews, at verse 35, "Cast not away therefore, your confidence which hath great recompense of reward for ye have need of patience, that, having done the will of God, you may receive the promise."

Sometimes the companions of the heavenly calling get a bit weary and they need such words as these, "cast not away your confidence which hath great recompense of reward". Now, those words are all of a piece with this whole letter and its purpose. These Hebrew Christians were in danger of doing that very thing. They were in danger of casting away their confidence. There were various reasons for this, they had those who were all the time trying to persuade them to take an easier way, to be satisfied with something less than they were being called to... just to settle down to the historic religion, the religion of forms and creeds and symbols - without Life - all that which made up the Old Testament Jewish system.

These people were saying, "Why? Why are you  so troubled about this upward heavenly way? Be satisfied with just going to church when the time comes to go to church, and bringing your offerings at the time to bring offerings, and going through all the set rituals of the temple. Just be satisfied with this routine! Don't be so worried about this 'higher life', let go of all that and be content with an ordinary kind of religious life." And seeing that these people were having a very bad time from the world, that was a very real temptation. You will read in this letter that when they made their decision for the Lord Jesus, they suffered a great deal at the hands of the world. The world turned against them and they lost a lot. And that persecution had persisted, they were having a difficult time. And so the appeal to take it easy was a very real temptation. "Just do not go on", was the argument.

You notice how the letter comes in again and again, "Let us go on! Let us neither look back nor stand still". These were their perils, and so the writer gave them this word of counsel, "Cast not away your boldness, it has a great recompense of reward." But it's one thing just to say something like that, "Oh brothers, don't give up! Oh brothers, don't let your confidence go. Oh brothers, keep going on!" Well, that's alright, but it really isn't enough - you want something more than that. And so the Holy Spirit through the writer of this letter just shows the ground on which we should keep going on; the method of meeting a situation like this. And what is that matter? The matter that this letter presents: it is a wonderful fresh unveiling of the glories and greatness of Jesus Christ. You notice how the first part of the letter is just one glorious revelation of the Lord Jesus. And all this is said in order to get these people really satisfied with the Lord Jesus.

There's nothing like being satisfied with anything to draw you away from dissatisfaction. You know, it's a wonderful thing for a people to be seen to be satisfied with the Lord. It's a wonderful thing for those people themselves, but it's a wonderful thing for other people.

Now, I am going to give you a little bit of personal testimony, that is, if you will promise me one thing: that you will not think that I am trying to draw attention to myself, or that I think that I am anything very important. Those who know me best would never think that of me; no, I'm trying to be helpful by just touching upon some principles of a life of victory, something in my own early Christian experience. I think very few people have ever heard me say this before, but my hope is that it's going to especially help the young Christians here tonight. And if it applies to the old ones, well, you wear the cap!

When I was a young man in my late teens, although I had had a very godly mother, who had prayed much for me and from infancy had taught me about the Lord, there came this time when I was far from happy. I knew about Christianity, but I was not rejoicing in the Lord; indeed I was a very unhappy person.

I was living in the city of Glasgow and one Sunday evening, very unhappy, I decided that I would go for a walk. I didn't know where I was going, I just went out and began to walk down the street. After I had been walking for about 15 minutes, I heard some singing in the distance. And, as I listened, I heard that it was a hymn that I knew. I decided to make my way in the direction from which the singing came. As I got nearer and nearer, the singing became louder and louder. At last I arrived at the place where it was coming from. It was a place where five roads met and right in the centre was a great lampstand with five lamps. Gathered around those lamps was a circle of people and then a great crowd stretching in all directions. And these people in the centre were singing these hymns.

I began to forget that I was miserable as I worked my way nearer and nearer. Well, before the meeting was finished, I was singing! They were just very ordinary working people, men who loaded the ships, men who drove carts in the street, men and women who worked in the factories, but how happy they were! How satisfied they were! And it was just their satisfaction that went to my heart. They were rejoicing in the Lord Jesus.

Now, I wasn't anybody important, I was only a young man of 17 years of age, but these people were delivered from themselves because they were so occupied with the Lord Jesus! I was just living in my miserable self because I didn't know their joy in the Lord Jesus. Their joy in the Lord Jesus delivered me from my miserable self and turned me out so that I became satisfied with the Lord Jesus. Now, that's not all of the story, but that's a very good beginning. I'll tell you some more in a minute.

You see, you come back to this letter to the Hebrews and that is just the situation that you meet: people who were losing their joy. Perhaps they had lost their joy. There were days, this letter says, when they were full of joy in the Lord, and now it's gone. And the writer says, "Have another look at the Lord Jesus! Take your eyes off of yourself, take your eyes off of your troubles, have a look at Him." And then he gives this wonderful picture of the Lord Jesus. That's something to look at! And that is going to be the beginning of your salvation, the beginning of your salvation as Christians.

Now to go on with the testimony.

The Lord had gained the first victory along that line, and by the satisfaction of these Christians with Himself, had brought me to the same satisfaction. Now, shall I tell you that it wasn't long after that, that I was right in the middle of that ring giving my testimony! I'm afraid it was a very feeble effort, I was very nervous. I can't remember for the life of me what I said, but nevertheless, I let go and that was the second big thing in my crisis. By stepping into that ring and committing myself to the Lord, and giving my testimony, I was a completely released man. I had been all locked up in myself, just in the prison of myself, and that night when I spoke about the Lord Jesus, told somebody else, told all those people what the Lord Jesus was to me, I was completely released. From that day I went right on testifying to the Lord Jesus.

Sometimes I was speaking in as many open air meetings as five in a week. Now, don't think about me, think about the principle: you commit yourself, and let people know it, and you will be released. Tell other people what the Lord Jesus is to you, and you'll find it has a wonderful releasing effect in your own life. You know, this is a New Testament law, "if thou shalt believe in thine heart and confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus..." I know how elementary that is, but dear friends, there are times, even in the lives of advanced Christians, when they become silent; when their discouragements or their troubles close their lips and they again become all locked up in themselves. The only way of deliverance is to commit yourself, and declare yourself: "I am going on with the Lord! There's plenty of discouragement in myself, there's plenty of discouragement in my circumstances, but I am going on with the Lord by His grace." Say it! Let people know it, and it will be your way of salvation. So the letter says to these people: "Let us go on!"

Now, that is not all about the testimony, and the next thing is a little more difficult for me to say. Again, it is not because I think anything of myself, but many of you know that the Lord has given me a very wide ministry during these many past years in so very many parts of the world, by personal ministries and by written ministries. It's just gone out over a very large part of this world. The value of it I don't know and it is not for me to think anything about that; heaven alone will tell what the value has been. But this is my point: a faithful company of people whose lives were hard and difficult who were rejoicing in the Lord, was the beginning of this worldwide ministry.

My point is this: you never know how far reaching your faithful testimony is going to be! I don't know what happened to all those people. I lost sight of them in after life. I was preaching in Glasgow some years afterwards and I did see one little man in the congregation whom I recognised as one of those people at the open air meetings. I don't know what happened to them and I am very doubtful as to whether they knew what happened to me, but the fact is they were faithful in their testimony. It was not an easy thing to live in that city in those days. Their lives were very hard lives indeed, but they were faithful to the Lord Jesus and their faithfulness led to whatever value there has been in this worldwide ministry.

I don't want you to tell me what the value of Aeschi conferences is, but I have to conclude that you don't come here for nothing. These Aeschi conferences alone began in that open air meeting all those years ago in the city of Glasgow. My point is: friends, be faithful in your testimony and you never know what the fruit of it will be. You may never see that fruit, but it will be there.

"Let us go on," says the letter. We may not know in this life the value to others of our going on.

Now, my last word at this time is just this: that, of course, was a very simple beginning of the Christian life. At that time I just knew the Lord Jesus as Saviour and I was rejoicing in Him as my Saviour. The day came later on when the Lord showed me that that is only the beginning; that He does save us not just to save us, but with a great purpose in view; that there is a very great purpose bound up with our salvation. And that is just the burden of this letter. It is as though the Lord was saying to these people, "You were saved, you did rejoice in your salvation, but that was not intended to be everything. There's a great purpose unto which you are saved, a marvellous inheritance. Cast not away, therefore, your boldness which hath great recompense of reward, do not be satisfied with being saved. Set your hearts wholly upon the great purpose for which you were saved."

Now, that hasn't been a very heavy discourse has it? Very simple, but I feel, full of very important things. It may be that many of you here tonight just need that word. Seek that full satisfaction with the Lord Jesus, for as others see how satisfied you are with Him, it may just be the turning point in their life.

You know, dear friends, this is very practical. Today everything is being done to try to attract people, especially young people, to the church. They will have entertainments, they will have cinemas; anything to attract young people, and it's a poor business... these young people, if they are attracted, don't go very far with the Lord. They always want more and more entertainments, but if they are drawn because they themselves are not satisfied, and they see people who are satisfied, that will answer their need if they are able to say, "I came in because I saw how much of the Lord Jesus there was there; I saw how satisfied those Christians were with Christ".

Yes, Christ is the big Attraction, He is the big Satisfaction and it is the answer to this world's deep need. The world has all those other things; church cannot give the world anything of its own kind, but the Lord Jesus can go far beyond the world.

Well, you and I must pray that we will be an attraction for others toward the Lord Jesus. I think that's enough for tonight.

Chapter 5 - The Jewish Background of Christ

We are continuing in the way of this great matter which the Lord has sought to bring before us for these days. This evening we are going to lift out of the whole of this matter one section, but let me remind you of the all-governing truth which we are considering; it is what God is doing in this dispensation in which we live. We must be perfectly clear as to what it is that God is particularly doing at this time in the world's history, therefore, what it is that we, who are the Lord's, are called into.

The thing that God is doing in this dispensation is the formation of a spiritual and heavenly Israel and in doing that, He is repeating the laws of the old Israel in a spiritual way. He is following along the lines of His ways with the old Israel, but now on a heavenly basis, and not an earthly. He has left the earthly basis of the Old Testament and has moved onto a heavenly basis in the New. He has moved from the temporal to the spiritual, and the spiritual is far greater than the temporal. Now we are going to see this tonight in the gospel by John. This gospel is all one with the letter to the Hebrews, because it is just a part of the whole thing that the New Testament represents. But John's gospel is the embodiment of this matter of the spiritual Israel in a very wonderful way.

There are two things so clear in this gospel: one is the Jewish background of the gospel and the other is the spiritual background behind the Jewish. And that spiritual background is, in this gospel, being brought to the front and it is being made the ground for the whole dispensation.

Well, let us look at this. I don't know how far we shall get in this hour, I have sixteen marks of the Jewish background in this gospel by John. But I promise you that I shall just keep to the five and we will just take as many as is possible this evening. But we note in the first place, that once again, as in the letter to the Hebrews, the introduction is a presentation of God's Son.

In the new movement of God to the heavenly Israel, His Son stands right at the door. And we're all familiar with this wonderful presentation of God's Son at the beginning of John's gospel: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that hath been made" and there's more to it than that, as you see. The point is that God has founded the dispensation upon His Son. God's Son is the governing factor in this whole dispensation.

Now we go on to what I have called "the Jewish background of Christ". And the first feature of these sixteen which I have before me, is -

Jesus as the Lamb of God.

Verse 29 of chapter 1, "On the morrow he seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!" Verse 36: "And he looked upon Jesus as he walked and saith, Behold, the Lamb of God!"

Now, we know that the whole Jewish system was built around the Passover Lamb. The lamb was the very basis of everything in Israel: the passover lamb was the constitution of them as a nation and the passover lamb was the greatest governmental factor in all their history. It would be impossible to count the lambs that were offered in Israel through those many centuries. There would have been many millions of lambs slain; there would have been an ocean of blood from all those lambs!

And now John beholdeth Jesus and says "THE Lamb! This is God's Lamb! Behold, the Lamb of God!" distinguishing Jesus, marking Him out as the unique Lamb, the One Lamb toward which all the millions of lambs had ever pointed. And just as the Passover lamb was the foundation of the old earthly Israel's life, so we know that this Lamb of God is the very foundation of our whole Christian life. He is the foundation of this dispensation.

On that passover night in the upper room in Jerusalem, Jesus laid the foundation of the Church for this dispensation, in the Passover. And, while there are other features of the Church's life, the central feature is the Table of the Lord. Everything centres in that Table, everything gathers around that Table and everything issues from that table. If you had gone into any assembly of the Lord's people in any part of the world in New Testament times, you might have found different things in different assemblies, but you would have found one thing that was the same in every assembly, and that was the Lord's Table: the Lamb of God at the centre of everything.

We only make the statement this evening, and note that, right from the very beginning, God takes up the principle of the old and makes it the spiritual reality of the new. That which was earthly and temporal in the old Israel is now heavenly and spiritual in the new Israel.

That is the first thing about the Jewish background leading to the heavenly foreground.

Now we look again at chapter 1 of John, at verse 43: "On the morrow he was minded to go forth into Galilee, and he findeth Philip: and Jesus saith unto him, Follow Me. Now Philip was from Bethsaida, of the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found Him..." (now note:) "We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."

That is the first part of the Jewish background: Moses and the prophets, but we go on.

"Nathanael said unto him, Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see. Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, and saith unto him, Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile! Nathanael saith unto Him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee. Nathanael answered Him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art King of Israel. Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I said unto thee, I saw thee underneath the fig tree, believest thou? Thou shalt see greater things than these. And He saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye shall see the heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man."

Do you need to have it pointed out that there is quite a lot of Jewish Old Testament in that section? Moses and the prophets, Jacob and his ladder - it's all there. But Jesus is saying: "There is a transition from that old to a new, and that transition is in Myself. The prophets and Moses spoke of Me and the new Israel is centred in Myself - the Israel which is not the 'Jacob in which there is guile.'"

But, the really deep thought and truth in this part concerns -

The Closed and the Opened Heaven.

When Jesus said to Nathanael: "Thou shalt see the heaven opened", He was pointing to an entirely new dispensation. The one characteristic of the Old Testament Jewish system was a closed Heaven. You know that it was on pain of death that any man came into the presence of God in the old dispensation. What a terrible place that was, that mountain where God was! Thunders, and lightnings and earthquakes, that even Moses said: "I do exceedingly fear and quake". And so terrible was the sound, that the people dared not draw near, that even if a beast touched the mountain it died. The whole of that system of that dispensation was: "Keep out! Come in here where God is, and you will die!" Jacob said: "I have seen God, I must die". A closed Heaven - no way for the people into the presence of God. Everything said "Stay out!" and the people knew that. It was a terrible thing to come into the presence of God, it just meant death. The High Priest had to have very special provision to go into the most holy place, and in making that provision God said: "Lest he die". So the Jewish system was a system of judgment and death, a system of the closed Heaven. No way through for man.

But, says Jesus: "You shall see the Heaven opened, and a Way between Heaven and earth, between God and man, made clear; and I am that Way. By My own blood I will open Heaven". Therefore we can come to Him by the new and living way which He hath made for us in His blood. Jesus said: "I am the way... no man cometh to the Father, but by Me".

So that the second Jewish feature is a closed Heaven, and the second feature of the new Israel is an opened Heaven. And we are enjoying that tonight! We do not stand outside in fear and trembling, wondering whether, peradventure, we dare draw nigh... We can come with boldness to the throne of grace. Oh, this new dispensation is a better one! This, this new Israel has privileges which the old one never had.

That is what God is doing in this dispensation. He has done it in His Son, and many, many who have been shut out are now finding their way in. God has provided for all an opened way in His Son Jesus Christ.

We pass into chapter 2 of John's gospel, and in the first eleven verses (which we will not read) we have the account of the marriage in Cana of Galilee. You all know, or should know, the story. There was a marriage in Cana of Galilee. The mother of Jesus was there, Jesus also was bidden, and His disciples, to the marriage and then the wine failed. The mother of Jesus said to Him, "They have no wine" and Jesus put her back and said, "Mine hour has not yet come." The mother of Jesus said to the servants, "Whatsover He saith unto you, do it."

Then when Jesus knew in His heart that the Father's time had come (and that was a very important factor, remember that Jesus would never move on any ground whatsoever without the knowledge that His Father wanted Him to move and He waited for that) when He knew in His heart that the Father said "Yes, go on", He said to the servants, "Fill the water pots with water". And they filled them up to the brim. He said, "Draw out now and bear to the ruler of the feast" and they drew out and "bare unto the ruler of the feast and when the ruler of the feast tasted the water, now become wine, and knew not whence it was (but the servants which had drawn the water knew,) the ruler of the feast calleth the bridegroom and he said unto him, Every man setteth on first the good wine; and when men have drunk freely, then that which is worse. Thou hast kept the good wine until now."

Now, where is the Jewish background? We said yesterday morning at the Lord's Table, that the Lord's Table, amongst other things, was the time when the Lord instituted His marriage with His people. In the Old Testament it was a marriage covenant that was made in the Passover. Jeremiah referred to that when in chapter 31 and verse 31 he spoke of the day when the Lord took them by the hand and became a husband unto them; and that was on the Passover night.

Now Jesus knew what He was doing at Cana. Oh, how many times we have heard people talk about Jesus being of a social disposition and, therefore, He was quite happy to attend marriages! That might be true, but that is not the meaning here. Jesus was always acting on spiritual grounds. The marriage between God and Israel had broken down; Israel had violated the terms of the covenant of marriage with Jehovah. Israel had, as the prophets said, become an adulterous nation, they had gone unto other gods and they had broken their covenant with the Lord. And the marriage had broken down. Here you have it in Cana, in figure.

I don't know what was going on behind this, but we can judge from a lot of other things that God was behind this failure of the wine - because of the spiritual significance the wine just had to fail. It represented the old marriage relationship which had broken down, it had come to an end. There had got to be a new marriage and there had got to be a new marriage supper of the Lamb. One has broken down. The salvation of the marriage relationship between God and His people is in Jesus only. It was He who saved the situation here, and everybody knew that something very wonderful and supernatural had happened. This was not natural, this was not earthly. This was heavenly, this was spiritual, this was supernatural; so is that marriage relationship between Christ and His church.

There is a movement from the old Israel, who has failed and been put aside, to a new Israel which lives by this life of Jesus Christ.

We look again at the next thing. This is number four in the series. Verse 13 of chapter 2, note again: "And the passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: and He made a scourge of cords, and cast all out of the temple, both the sheep and the oxen; He poured out the changers' money, and overthrew their tables; and to them that sold the doves He said, Take these things hence; make not My Father's house a house of merchandise. His disciples remembered that it was written, Zeal of thine house shall eat me up."

Now note particularly: "The Jews therefore answered and said unto Him, What sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews therefore said, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou raise it up in three days? But He spake of the temple of His body. When therefore He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He spake this."

No need to point out the Jewish background! The Jewish background occupies the temple as its center, the temple in Jerusalem, for them that temple represented everything - and Jesus speaks of the destroying of that temple! He said in another place that not one stone should be left on another.

Well, what is going to take its place? Because God must have a temple! Jesus said, "I am the temple of the new dispensation. I am going to take the place of this old temple and I am going to be all that that temple represented, but in a fuller and better way... Was the temple the place where men thought that they would meet God? Men will meet God in Me in a more real way than that. Was the temple the place to which people went to be taught about God? They will learn more about God in Me than ever they learned in that temple. Was the temple the place where men went to worship God? It will be in Me that men will come into touch with God for worship".

And that leads us to that wonderful revelation which we have in the New Testament: the revelation of Christ and all His members being made:

One Temple for God.

Christ is our Temple, in Him we find all that ever a temple was intended to be. Oh, how people have gone astray about this! I go to many places that are called "churches" and the word is applied to the building. And when you hear people praying in those places they usually put it something like this: "We have come into Thy house today. We are glad to be in this place, the house of God." And they are talking about the building!

My dear friends, you don't need a special building to give God a temple:"Wheresoever two or three are gathered into My name, there I am". People gathered into Jesus Christ constitute the temple of God. It is not a special building, it is people who are in Christ Jesus. This is what God is doing in this dispensation.

And you know, a lot of people have lost their special building, quite a lot are not allowed to meet in special buildings. But they are gathering in two or three in some place hidden away and they are enjoying all the privileges of the house of God because the Lord is there. No, the temple now is Christ and those who are in union with Him. So He said, in this way which they didn't understand, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up". Christ in resurrection is the temple of this dispensation. I wonder if inside of Christ He was smiling when He said that, for He knew that He was just tripping them up; He knew what they would say: "Forty and six years was this temple in building". It looked as though He had deliberately misled them, but He was leading on to the nature of this new dispensation.

That's only number four out of sixteen. I have ten minutes left and I will just take another one.

Chapter 3, and everybody knows John chapter 3.

"Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews..." and you know the rest of the story of Nicodemus; I will not read it all now.

"The same came unto Him by night, and said to him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto Him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God! That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born anew. The wind bloweth where it will, and thou hearest the voice thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered and said unto Him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou the teacher of Israel, and understandest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, we speak that which we know, and bear witness of that which we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. If I told you earthly things and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you heavenly things? And no one hath ascended into heaven, but He that descended out of heaven, even the Son of man, who is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up."

But what have we got here in Nicodemus? Surely we have a representative of the old Israel! He is of the sect of the Pharisees and they claimed to be very representative of Israel. And he is a ruler of the Jews, so that he is indeed Israel in representation. He is a son of Abraham after the flesh; he is the embodiment of the seed of Abraham after the flesh.

What does the Lord Jesus say to him? In effect, He says to him: "You, a son of Abraham, an inclusive representation of the children of Abraham after the flesh, you - an embodiment of Israel, I look upon you, Nicodemus, as all the seed of Abraham after the flesh represented, I look upon you Nicodemus as all Israel present here tonight in you, and Nicodemus, in that representative capacity, you must be born again!" The seed of Abraham after the flesh does not stand in the Kingdom of God.

You know, that is Paul's argument in his letters to the Romans and the Galatians. They are not all Israel which are after Israel. There is a natural seed and there is a spiritual seed.

And Jesus was saying to Nicodemus, in his representative capacity, "The natural seed of Abraham doesn't stand. Israel after the flesh is no more. You must be born again. There must be a seed after the Spirit. In other words, there must be a new spiritual, heavenly Israel. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and there shall no flesh stand before God. "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Therefore I said unto you, You must be born again."

The new Israel of this dispensation is the Israel of the born from above ones. These are not sons of Abraham, but they are sons of God.

We are back at chapter one: "But to them that believe He gave the right to become the sons of God." There's a great deal of difference between children of Abraham after the flesh and children of God after the Spirit! And it is not only a great difference, it is an improved species; altogether a higher race: a heavenly people.

Well, with number five we must close tonight and go on perhaps, if the Lord wills, tomorrow night and see if we can get nearer to sixteen.

Chapter 6 - Some Titles of the New Dispensation

We are occupied at this time with that great thing that God is doing in this dispensation. He is constituting a new, heavenly Israel and preparing it for the day when its King comes and it will reign with Him forever. The members of this spiritual Israel are called, "the companions of a heavenly calling" - the companions of Christ.

The point at which we have arrived just now, is that in the constituting of the spiritual Israel, God is following the same line as He took with the earthly Israel, but with the one great difference: that with the earthly He followed temporal lines; with the heavenly He is following spiritual lines, but they are both one in principle. We have seen something of this, but we are going to see a little more of it today.

I think it must be perfectly true that this is what God is doing. The letter to the Hebrews is the great document of the transition from one Israel to another, and there are many evidences in that letter of this truth. If anybody has any doubt at all, there is one fragment which I think should settle all such questions. You look at chapter 12 of the letter to the Hebrews, and read the section from verse 18:

"For ye are, ye are not come unto a mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, and unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard entreated that no more word should be spoken unto them: for they could not endure that which was enjoined: if even a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned; and so fearful was the appearance, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake."

Well, that is the old Israel being constituted at the mount. The word is to us: "You are not come to that. That is not God's way of constituting His new Israel." "But ye are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable hosts of angels, and to the general assembly and church of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better than that of Abel".

I think that settles all argument! If we only had that paragraph in the New Testament, we'd know what the difference is between the old dispensation and the new, we'd know the difference between Judaism and Christianity, we'd know the difference from what they were in and what we are in.

But that is not all: that is only a part of the whole argument. I would have you note some of the titles that are in this letter which are evidences of this truth.

To begin with, we have:

God's Family.

We all know that Israel was looked upon by God as His family. To Pharaoh God said: "Let My son go". And the evidence is too much for us to even follow through, Israel of old was, in a certain sense, looked upon by God as His family. They were His children, and in a certain sense, He spoke of Himself as their Father.

Here, in this letter of transition from the old Israel to the new, that idea is carried over into the spiritual realm. Hebrews chapter 2, verse 10: "For it became Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both He that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one: for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare Thy name unto my brethren. In the midst of the congregation will I sing Thy praise. And again, I will put my trust in Him. And again, Behold, I and the children which God hath given me."

You will notice that that is a whole list of quotations from the Old Testament. Formerly, it related to the old Israel. Now that Israel has been set aside, but God is taking up in a new way this principle of family life in relation to Himself. His Son is "the firstborn among many brethren" and we are "children of God, through faith, in Jesus Christ".

Probably you have noticed that the very first idea of God was a family - the idea of family was born in the heart of God. This is not some official society. This is not some institution. The deepest thing in God's heart about us is to have us as His children, and you, who know the Bible, will be able to quote to yourself many passages, such as: "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him". We could build up a tremendous mountain of references to God as Father, and His people as His children. God could have made an organisation of people into a kind of society. He could have called some from this place and some from that, and then He could have given them the title of some denomination and said: "Now you are members of this denomination. You are formed into this organisation." But God never had any such idea. His idea is a family, and the Lord Jesus said that He came into this world especially to reveal God as Father - "I have made known unto them thy name... I have given them thy name". The name of God which was most on the lips of the Lord Jesus was the name "Father", and God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts whereby we say the same thing as the Lord Jesus said, by the same Spirit which was in Him, by which we say "Abba, Father".

Now that is, of course, very elementary, but there is a very great battle for this family conception. If some organisation gets broken up, we don't worry very much about that; not even if the United Nations breaks up we don't worry very much about that, but we are always filled with grief and shame when a family breaks up. We feel that there is something about a family which carries a very sacred idea. What a bad thing it is when a family becomes divided; when children are against one another or children are against parents, when the husband is against the wife and the wife against the husband and so on. And that is a mark of the devil's work at the end of the dispensation. There is nothing more terrible in our time than the break-up of family life. That is true isn't it? You may not know very much about that in Switzerland, but if you go to the United Kingdom, you go to America and to other countries, and you will see that there is a perfect landslide in this matter. The lists of divorces are terrible - the poor children who are left without father or mother because of the break-up of that relationship. This is a blow at the deepest thing in the heart of God, but it does not stay there.

The most distressing aspect of this whole thing is in the family of God. There is nothing more terrible in this universe than the break-up of God's family. The devil does not so much mind our denominations and our organisations, but he does object to this family business! It is God's most cherished idea.

I think it is one of the most precious things of times together like these. Here we are, representing quite a number of different nationalities. Many of us have never met before on this earth, we have not shaken hands with one another yet, but we are all rejoicing here together as a family. The family spirit is the most precious thing, and it is the very hallmark of the heavenly Israel.

I have often said, in speaking about this heavenly Jerusalem as it is presented symbolically at the end of the Bible, that it only has one street. Our hymn-writers have led us astray on this, they talk about the streets of gold. The Bible says there is only one street of gold. Dear friends, we have got to live on one street for all eternity! What do you say about that? How are you going to get on with your neighbours? Don't worry, it will be a very happy thing to live on one street; you see, it will just be a family. And when the whole family is just one, it is not a bad thing to live next door to one another!

Well, that's just a way of speaking about this; you know what I mean. This is a spiritual relationship: Father, big Elder Brother, and all-uniting Holy Spirit... "holy brethren, companions in a heavenly calling". It's a glorious thing to have companionship!

Well, I leave that there, this very first idea of God in the old Israel is carried over spiritually to the new Israel.

The second thing that you will see is:

The House of God.

Chapter 3 of Hebrews, and verse 5: "Moses indeed was faithful in all God's house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were afterward to be spoken of; but Christ as a son, over God's house; whose house are we, if we hold fast our boldness and the glorying of our hope firm unto the end".

Do you notice what that said? Moses indeed was faithful in all God's house, for a testimony of those things which were afterward to be spoken. When is the afterward? It is now. "Whose house are we". The house of God is something carried over in principle by God from the old to the new. Peter says that we are a spiritual house, but there is one thing that needs to be made quite clear here. When we use this word "house", we usually think of a place in which people live, and that is not the meaning of the word here. I don't know whether you can understand the change that I am going to make, but do you know the difference between a "house" and a "household"? A household is quite a different thing from a house. The household is two things: one is the people who dwell there and the other is the order that exists there. It is a house with a certain kind of order.

This is God's house, composed of His people who are under His order. You know God is a God of order. He is not only concerned to have things done, He is concerned to have them done in His way. It matters just as much to God how things are done as to whether they are done at all. God's house is a house which is ordered by God. Everyone in this household has to be in subjection to the Spirit of God; has to come under the headship of Jesus Christ.

Now, of course I could take the whole conference on the house of God, but if you look into God's ordering of the life of Israel in the old dispensation, you will see how particular God was as to what was done and how it was done.

On the day of Pentecost God's spiritual and heavenly house was brought in, and God had His own order. And you will see how in those first days of the life of the Church two things were happening. God was demanding that His order should be observed. Even the apostles had not come to fully recognise God's order. They were holding on to something of the old order. And when the Lord told Peter to go to the house of Cornelius, the Gentile, Peter said: "Not so, Lord. This is not according to the old order. I was not brought up this way. The old system says I mustn't do that. No Lord." But the Lord is Lord of His own house, and He made it perfectly clear to Peter that He had brought in a new order. This was a new Israel. Things have changed, the Cross has made the great change: "Call not that which God hath cleansed, unclean" - the Cross has dealt with all uncleanness and we are moving on a new basis.

Well, Peter came to see it. Of course, that was not the end of the difficulty, even for Peter, but I think that when we come to Peter's letters, we get to a Peter who has fully accepted the new order. "A spiritual house", says he, "offering spiritual sacrifices".

But I was saying that in the Acts we have two things: there is the movement of the Spirit of God concerning the new order, but there is the movement of the evil spirit against that new order. You have that terrible episode of Ananias and Sapphira, they violated the new order of God's house. They brought in their own personal interests, and Peter summed it up in this way: "Why has Satan filled thy heart to lie against the Holy Ghost?" For on that terrible day the new order was upset. Satan struck a blow at this new Israel, and to show how jealous God is for His heavenly order, see what happened to those two! God has therefore laid down the principle very clearly, and He is very jealous for His heavenly order and that nothing but trouble can follow if we get out of God's order. While God's order is suspended, everything is in confusion.

Well, that's enough about the house of God for the time being, "Whose house are we".

Then another conception, that is:

The Heirs of God.

That is introduced with the Lord Jesus Himself, in verse 2 of chapter 1: "Whom He appointed heir of all things".

In verse fourteen we are spoken of as heirs of salvation. In chapter six, verse seventeen, we are spoken of as "heirs of the promise". In Romans 8, verse seventeen, Paul says that we are, "heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ".

Now, in the earthly sense, Israel were to be God's heirs. The promise was made to Abraham that his seed should inherit the earth: God covenanted with Abraham that his seed should be the possessors. Israel was to be God's heir; they ought to have become joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. But they killed God's heir. They said, as in the parable of the Lord Jesus, "This is the heir: come, let us kill him". They killed Him who was "appointed heir of all things", and in so doing they robbed themselves of the inheritance.

Now comes in the church: "heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ". The church is the heir to the promise made to Abraham now, and this whole letter to the Hebrews has to do with the inheritance, the great inheritance to which we are called as the companions of the heavenly calling. And the appeal of this letter to us is: "See that you don't miss the inheritance! They lost it through unbelief; you can lose the inheritance." So the letter uses Israel by way of illustration - the terrible possibility of Christians losing the inheritance.

Do you notice this little word "if" that occurs so often? "We are become companions of Christ if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto the end" ... "Whose house are we, if we hold fast..." That's a very big word that little word! A lot hangs on that word. We are not talking about the loss of eternal life, we are talking about the purpose of salvation; the purpose of salvation is a very much more important thing even than being saved. Paul says that there will be a lot of people who get into heaven, having lost everything. All their life work will go up in smoke; they themselves will be saved yet so as by fire. Everything but their salvation lost. Do you want to just get into heaven "yet so as by fire"? No, this letter says there's something more than being saved. That is the great inheritance, but we can miss that. Read the letter again in the light of that.

But our point is that this principle of being heirs of God is carried over into the heavenly Israel.

I would just mention one or two other things without very much comment. The next thing which is carried over from the old to the new is:

The City of God.

If you look into this letter, you will find that on several occasions the city is referred to. And in that passage which we read: "we are come... to the heavenly Jerusalem, the holy city".

Now Israel, of course, had their life centred in the old earthly Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the centre of their unity. They were all united because of that city. That is why their males had to go up to Jerusalem so many times every year. We have those wonderful psalms of ascent as they came, from the north, the south, the east and the west, a wonderful caravan, they were singing the songs of Zion. Those psalms about Zion are wonderful psalms - glorying in their city, and finding the expression of their national unity in Jerusalem. It was the centre of their government. Their whole national life came out from Jerusalem in government. What you saw of Jerusalem was everything to them.

The writer of this letter to the Hebrews is speaking about the approaching day, when that will have gone forever, or, to satisfy the people who believe that the Jews are yet to occupy Palestine and have another Jerusalem - it was gone for a whole dispensation. Jerusalem today is the very symbol of division. The Jews have one bit and the Arabs have another, and they cannot live in peace together. It's the symbol of disunion, and with God it does not stand. It has been given over, but He has brought in His heavenly Jerusalem - "You have come to the holy city, the heavenly Jerusalem".

We have been made "to sit with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus". All our unity, as the new Israel, is centred in Him above. There will never be true expression of unity amongst the Lord's people, only when they have a heavenly uniting Lord. Our unity is in heaven, not on earth. Our government is from heaven, not from earth. As Paul says, we are "fellow-citizens with the saints" - our life is hid with Christ in God.

Yes, the city exists. God's thought concerning the City has been carried over to the spiritual Israel.

Then the next thing:

The Flock of God.

These are all wonderful conceptions of the old Israel! If that Israel was God's family, the house of God, the heir of God, the city of God, so Israel was thought of as God's flock, God's sheep: "He led them like  a shepherd" it says. That idea, of course, lays behind the cry of the prophet Isaiah: "All we like sheep have gone astray". Israel was God's flock. He was Israel's Shepherd. We shall dwell more fully upon that later - indeed it's a very large matter in this new relationship to the Lord; one of our sixteen things in John's gospel.

But God has carried this over, it is a very precious thought of God concerning the heavenly Israel. We are "the sheep of His pasture". So we come to the end of this letter to the Hebrews, we have this beautiful word: "Now may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep..." our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep. There is a sense in which that spreads itself back over the whole letter. The companions of Christ are His sheep: "My sheep know Me and I know them... My sheep hear My voice, and they follow Me: I give unto them eternal life". That's a grand idea for sheep isn't it? We'll just leave it there for the time being.

I remind you of the last thing and close for this morning. It is:

The Kingdom of God.

We all know that Israel of old was God's kingdom, the kingdom over which God was king. Do you remember that when they chose Saul to be king, Samuel was very distressed about this and he went to the Lord and told Him about it. The Lord said: "They have not rejected you, they have rejected Me from being King". Israel was God's kingdom and of course the Old Testament has a very great deal to say about that.

When we come into this new Israel what a lot there is in this letter to the Hebrews about the kingdom. I will not ask you for the moment to look at all the references, but the last of them is this: "Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken..." The Greek tense is: "Being in process of receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken". We are His kingdom, people under His kingship and government.

We will have much more to say about that later, but I think we have said enough this morning to show that this is a very real thing. In a spiritual way we have come into all that which was foreshadowed in Israel of old. To that thing, to that Israel, the Lord Jesus said: "The kingdom of heaven shall be taken away from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof". And Peter saith, "we are a holy nation". We are the inheritors of all that God ever meant for His people. In us, that is, in His true church of this dispensation, God is in process of realising all that which He had foreshadowed through many, many centuries.

Well, these are many words, they are wonderful ideas, but I hope they go further than our heads; I hope they go to our hearts. We are a very privileged people. The great need of our time is for Christians to know what God has called them unto. They do not know, dear friends. You can go over this world and find Christians in the majority who have no idea of these things. They know that Jesus came into the world as the Son of God, He lived His wonderful life, did His works, gave His teaching, died an atoning death and rose again, and is coming again; but they don't know one bit of what it all means, that is, what it is all unto; the great eternal purpose of God in it all. They are mostly quite ignorant of the things about which we have been speaking today, and that is why Christianity is in such a deplorable state today. They have not been given true instruction, they have not a true understanding of God's great purpose in His church through Christ Jesus. It is a very wonderful thing that we have come into in this dispensation.

And I say again, I hope it goes to your heart and deeper than your heads. And when I have said all this, and your heads may be tired, you may be feeling that just now you can't take much more, I'm sorry to tell you that I'm only just at the beginning! There is much more of this very thing that God has to reveal yet, and a little more, perhaps, He will show us this week.

Chapter 7 - The Two Beginnings

Hebrews chapter 3, verses 1 and 14, only by way of refreshing your memory, not by way of insulting it! "Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers or companions of a heavenly calling... we are become companions of Christ if we hold fast the beginning firm unto the end." Companions of Christ and of a heavenly calling... and we are seeing that this letter to the Hebrews embodies the whole of the character of the dispensation in which we live. It is the change from the old earthly Israel, to the new heavenly Israel.

I am sorry for those friends who have only been able to join us today, but I am more sorry for myself than for you - we are today exactly halfway through this conference, which means that a great deal has already been said. It is quite impossible for me to gather you into what is being said by going over all the ground covered. I trust that the Lord will help you to fall right into the course that He is taking. So we go on with a further fragment of this matter of the new Israel as the companions of Christ in a heavenly calling.

This morning we are going back to the beginning of this history, because we have been seeing that God is following, in a spiritual way, the line that He took the first Israel. He took a certain line with Israel in an earthly way; He is taking that same line with the new heavenly Israel, but in a spiritual way.

It would be a very wonderful thing if we were to spend some time in seeing God's line right from the beginning up to Christ. There were many generations which came to an end. In one place there is a large summary of what came and what finished. It says, "So-and-so lived, and he lived for so long..." and then it says "and he died". And that is said about a long list of people - they lived and then they died. But right through there is one line that lives and never dies; it is the line moving straight through history right up to Christ and you can clearly follow that line.

Now, at a certain point in that movement of God, we find ourselves in the presence of God's beginning with Israel. It has now moved from individuals to the point where the nation comes into view. So far it had been individuals; it had been Abel, and Enoch, and Noah, and all those antediluvians, as they are called. But when it comes to Abraham, we come to the point where a nation comes into view; it is Israel, the Israel of history; that is, the Israel of this earth.

And this morning we are going to note the beginning and how God began with Israel, and how the principle of that beginning is transferred to the new, heavenly Israel in Christ. And it is very impressive that you have the beginning of the first Israel in the New Testament, and you have it in the book of the Acts. Now note that's a significant thing because the book of the Acts is the link between the old and the new. The focal point of the transition from the one to the other is in the book of the Acts. And interestingly enough, it is in the discourse of the martyr, Stephen. The old Israel killed Stephen and out of the death of Stephen sprang the new Israel.

The first thing that Stephen said to the old Israel was this. Chapter 7 of the book of Acts and verse 2: "The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Ur of the Chaldees". "The God of glory appeared..." that was the first movement to the old Israel, and that is exactly the first movement to the new Israel: it is the appearing of the God of glory. We are seeing in the New Testament this beginning.

Turn again to the Gospel by John: "In the beginning was the Word... and the Word was made flesh and tabernacled among us..." now note: "and we beheld His glory". Turn again to the letter to the Hebrews chapter 1: "God... has at the end of these times spoken unto us in His Son... who is the effulgence of His glory". The God of glory appeared... has spoken to us at the end of these times in His Son... who is the effulgence of His glory.

First of all, then, it is:

God is Breaking into Human History.

That is how it was with the first Israel. Away there, in Ur of the Chaldees, a pagan country with two thousand other gods, the God of glory broke in and changed the course of history. He took His first step toward the securing of Israel.

The first chapter of John is God in glory breaking into human history in a new way. Now that, of course, is in the Bible, in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, and you may mentally put it out there and view it in an objective way. But you must just take hold of that and bring it right into this room and bring it into the rows of people and let it come right on you personally, because this relates to you and to me personally. It is you and it is me who are called by God to be the companions of Christ in a heavenly calling; this belongs to all of us.

The very beginning of our history as God's heavenly Israel is the intervention of God in our lives. Perhaps to some of us it was just as unexpected as it was to Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees. We were living our lives in this world, we were mixed up in the course of this world, the god of this world ruled our lives. Well, there we were, just one in a great crowd... and then God broke into our lives. And when God breaks into a life there is no doubt about it: there's a turning-point in history, in our history. And the nature of the change is that we no longer belong to this world. We have become members of a new Israel; in other words, of a heavenly people with a spiritual nature.

It may not have been with us just as it was with Abraham, but it is essential for every one of us to know that God has entered into our human history. It was not something in the first place from our side, but it was something from God's side. He took the initiative, perhaps in some wonderful way, or in some very simple way. It may belong to a moment in time, or it may belong to days, weeks and months. But the fact is that God came in where we were. How did God come in? And how has He come in? How should we put it, if we wanted to put it into words? Well, it says here about the old Israel: "The God of glory appeared". Could you put it like that as to your experience?

Well, you see these words here in the New Testament explain that. God came in Jesus Christ, and in Jesus Christ is the glory of God. And as we have seen Jesus Christ, we have come into touch with the God of glory. In these words of Hebrews 1: "God has spoken to us in His son". And all those who know that Jesus Christ has come into their lives really do know that the God of glory has come in. And so, after saying that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, John says, "and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father".

And what is the glory? "Full of grace and truth". You notice in the New Testament grace and glory always go together. If you want to know what the glory of God is, it is the grace of God, and if you want to know what the grace of God is, it is the glory of God. It is the glory of God to be gracious. God glories in being gracious, and when you know the grace of God, then you know the glory of God. The glory of God will always come to us along the line of grace, and so, because of grace, we shall be able to say: "and we beheld His glory".

Now, perhaps you know that that word "glory" is one of the big words in John's Gospel. If you have never done so, I advise you to go through that Gospel and underline the word "glory".

Now, just a little word to the young Christians who have not done a lot of Bible study yet. I hadn't thought of saying this, but perhaps it will be helpful. I do not profess to know a great deal about the Bible, indeed, I know very little of the Bible, but I'll tell you how I started to study the Bible. I bought a box of coloured pencils and I bought a new Bible. And I came first of all to the gospel by John and I gave a certain colour to the same word through the Gospel. Of course, I put green always where the word "life" is found! That's the colour for life; you see it all around - green speaks of life. I put blue wherever the word "glory" is - that's the colour for heaven. I put red wherever the blood is, or anything to do with the blood or the Cross - and so I went on. I had a wonderful result in the Gospel of John when I was finished! And to this day if I want to say something about Life, why, it's all there in green! Now that's only a suggestion, and I think you might find it a very simple help. There are a lot more colours than those three!

Now I'm speaking about glory, glory is one of John's great words, and all the references in John to Christ's glory are related to His supernatural person and His supernatural power. When John said "We beheld His glory" he was writing many, many years after the Lord Jesus had come and gone. John's gospel is one of the oldest of the New Testament writings. Probably all the other apostles had gone to the Lord when John wrote his gospel. And so John was looking back over all that history and he was putting into certain words his impressions, and as he thought of the Lord Jesus, His life, His work, His teaching, and everything else about Him, he summed it all up in this: "and we beheld His glory".

How did he behold His glory? He beheld His glory on many occasions, He beheld His glory by a whole series of humanly impossible situations. Now there's another line of study for you! Go to the gospel by John and see how many impossible situations you can find! Oh, that gospel is just full of impossible situations. Think about the marriage in Cana of Galilee, when the wine failed. It's a humanly impossible situation. Go into your next chapter with Nicodemus and what is it that Nicodemus is saying? "How can a man be born when he is old?" - an impossible situation! Think of the woman of Samaria. She had tried everything to find that satisfaction. An impossible situation! You see you can go right on like this. And in all these situations, Jesus came in and turned the impossible into actuality. And so it says at the end of the account of the marriage in Cana: "This first of miracles did Jesus in Cana, and showed forth His glory". That was the principle governing everything. It does not always say that in exact words, but if you went back with that woman of Samaria into the city and heard her shouting to all the people in the city: "Come, behold a man, is not this the Christ?" you would conclude that she had beheld His glory.

And so you go right on to Lazarus. Jesus said: "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified". And in the difficulty being faced by those sisters in Bethany, when they could not accept altogether that their problem was going to be solved at once, and they said: "I know that he shall rise again in the last day", Jesus said: "Said I not unto thee, that if thou believedst, thou shouldest see the glory of God?" You see, the glory of God in Jesus Christ related to what God could do that no other could do. It was the supernatural Person and power of the Son of God. That was the glory of God.

And dear friends, that is why we sometimes have such a difficulty in getting through. Perhaps you have often been troubled because of the difficulty that some soul has in getting through to the Lord. It almost seems as though the Lord does not want to save them! They go through difficulties, sometimes for days, weeks or months, and you know all the time they are arguing, they're bringing up their problems, and nothing seems to happen. And then, at last, it does happen and they come through. Why is that? God is saying emphatically: "This is going to be of Me, and not of yourself". No man or woman can save himself or herself; with all the goodwill of other people to help, they cannot save. The salvation of a soul is an impossible thing but for God, and God sees to it that it is put upon the supernatural basis. And very often He does not come in until we have come to the point of despair - but He does come in then.

And what is true about salvation is so often true about our spiritual history. Again and again we are brought to the point where situations are quite impossible where man is concerned. We cannot solve that problem ourselves, we cannot change the situation ourselves. If it were that we were only people of this world, we might be able to do it, but somehow or other, because we are the Lord's people, it just doesn't work. All our cleverness fails. Naturally there is no reason why we should not get on, but the fact is that we just do not. We try everything, we are greatly perplexed. We are being brought more and more to despair, and we are being brought to the point where we say: "Well, only the Lord can do this!" - and that is exactly what the Lord has been working for. When the God of glory appears, He appears as the God of glory. Do you see the point?

Well, I said that the word "glory" in John's gospel is connected with the supernatural power of Jesus Christ, and we only learn who Jesus is by coming up against situations in which He only can help us. The more we are going to learn about the Lord Jesus, the more impossible will life be here on this earth and the more impossible will situations become.

Well, that's the beginning of the God of glory.

Note the next thing:

God's Glory in Abraham Reached its Climax in Sonship.

There were many things in the life of Abraham which needed the God of glory to come in and so we read that in different situations "the Lord appeared unto Abraham". But the climax of all God's appearances to Abraham was in connection with Isaac - that is, it was bound up with this matter of sonship. The covenant of God with Abraham was going to be realised along the line of sonship; all God's purposes in Abraham were bound up with Isaac.

Of course, at the beginning Isaac was an impossibility, but at the end he was still greater an impossibility - "Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest... and offer him a sacrifice". Here is all the promise and covenant wrapped up in Isaac, to be slain with a knife. This is an impossible situation! Isaac to die? There's no possibility of another Isaac, indeed, I doubt whether Abraham would have wanted another Isaac. It was a matter of life or death to him; a quite impossible situation if Isaac lies dead on the altar. But you know what happened and you know what the New Testament says about that, it says: "he received him back as by resurrection".

Has ever anybody raised someone from the dead but God? Men can do a great deal in prolonging life, and they think that they are going to reach the time when they will raise the dead. Well, we haven't reached that time yet, and we shall see whether God will surrender His own one prerogative - that is, to bring back a departed spirit into a dead body. That is God's act, that is resurrection, not resuscitation.

I was saying that the glory of God reached its climax in Abraham's case along the line of sonship. Later on we shall have to look at this more closely in connection with Lazarus, but let us come back to our beginning.

John 1 again, "We beheld His glory". How do we behold His glory? "He came unto His own, and they that were His own would not receive Him. But as many as did receive Him, to them gave He the right to become sons of God", He gave them the authority to be sons. That's our history. We, here this morning (I trust it's true of everybody) are able to say: "By God's intervention I am a child of God." And then you notice how John analyses this: "which were born, not of the will of the flesh, not of blood, nor of the will of man, but of God". Children of God by the intervention of God, by a direct act of God, born from above, made children of God. The glory of God revealed in Jesus Christ in sonship.

Are you glorying in the fact that you are a born again child of God?

This same John, all those years afterward, with a very full heart wrote these words: "Beloved, now are we the children of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be. But when the children are full-grown, we know that we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is". And connected with that, John says: "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called sons of God".

Oh, it's a wonderful thing to be a child of God! Anyway, John said so, and he knew what he was talking about.

The glory, then, is in sonship. And I think I'm going to leave it there for this morning, perhaps if I say much more you will forget what I have said. But it is just at that point, you see, that the Israel comes into view: Abraham's seed through Isaac. It's the nation that is coming into view now and, as we have said before, God said to Pharaoh: "Let My son go". And that word "son" was a comprehensive word, it embodied the whole nation. God saw that nation as one son and He would not surrender one fragment of that, because sonship is such a complete thing. Pharaoh said "Well, just let the men go. Leave the women and children and leave your flocks and herds". And Moses said: "Not one single hoof of one single cow shall stay behind." God had said "My son", and that included the nation. Oh, how I'd like to go over the New Testament with that, but we can leave that until tomorrow.

Chapter 8 - The Old Jewish Background

Once again we return to this great matter which the Lord is bringing before us in these days, the great thing which God is doing in this dispensation - that is, the period between the ascension of the Lord Jesus and His coming again. God is doing a secret thing in this dispensation. The real nature of the thing that God is doing is not seen on the surface. Men are always trying to make it seen, but what God is really doing is deeper down than can be seen. It lies behind everything that is seen.

God is constituting a new, heavenly, spiritual, Israel. The members of that new spiritual Israel are not known to this world and many of them are not known to other Christians. It is not until you come right into close touch with them that you discover that they are fellow citizens of the heavenly kingdom and very often you are quite surprised as to where you find them. However right we may be in abhorring the Roman Catholic system, we are sometimes very surprised to discover that there are fellow citizens of the kingdom of heaven inside the system and that you can have a large measure of spiritual fellowship with them. And so it is in other connections; you do not know where they are until you come into touch with them in a spiritual way. This is a spiritual Israel, it is not a great public, political movement. That is the difference between the old Israel and the new.

Now, we have been saying a great deal in these meetings about the setting aside of the old Israel, and while that is true, there is something that we must recognise. Although we are saying so much about the rejection of the former Israel, we have to remember that the twelves apostles and the apostle Paul were Jews and they represent what God meant all the Jews to be. These men, the twelve apostles and the apostle Paul, were involved in the rejection of the Lord Jesus. Peter, their leader, was the one who denied Him and it says that "they all forsook Him and fled". The fear of their nation came upon them and they broke down in that fear and they fulfilled the word of the Lord Jesus when He said, "All ye shall be offended because of Me this night." They were all involved in that thing.

And as for the apostle Paul, there's no doubt about him; he was very much involved - persecuting all those that were of that way. And yet here they are, the first men of the new Israel. I think this is a very wonderful thing from more than one standpoint. I don't think Peter ever forgot that denial of the Lord Jesus. No doubt from time to time it came up before him like a black spectre. I have no doubt that the devil often played upon that and said to him, "It's all very well for you to preach, but remember your black past... Remember how you denied and forsook your Master!" I suspect that Peter often had to make a real battle over his past. Well, we know that Paul did. Not once did Paul refer to that past of his, he repeatedly reminded people of it. He said, "I am not meet to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church". One time he said to the Lord, "Lord, Lord, they know... they know how I persecuted You and how I gave my consent to the martyrdom of Your servant Stephen." Paul never forgot the tragedy of his past life. And yet these men are the men which are the foundation of the new Israel.

Now, why have I said that, because you're waiting for me to go on with the sixteen points in John! But today the Lord told me that I was to say this: our past can always be a very great discouragement to us. And it can be the ground upon which the enemy plays, to take the heart out of us and even tell us, "You see what kind of a person you are? You have proved yourself to be a worthless person. What do you expect, seeing what you have been like in the past?" And so he would destroy all hope and take away all our assurance by saying, "You're a bad lot and you know it, and you ought to expect nothing good for the future." Well, if ever there were men who could have talked like that, it was Peter and Paul and the rest of those men on the night when Jesus was delivered up. I put it over on the other side and I say, "If ever there were people who seemed to be hopeless, these were such people!" But these "hopeless people" became the very beginning of the heavenly Jerusalem. I say there's hope for anybody! And if the apostle Paul were standing where I am standing tonight, he would say to us, "My friends, anybody could be saved if I could be saved! Anybody could be a part of this heavenly Israel if I could be! So take heart." You see the material of which the Lord builds His new Jerusalem.

In the light of this, it is a great dishonour to the Lord for anybody to say, "I am hopeless. My past is such a bad one that there is no possibility for me." That dishonours the Lord. And F. W. H. Myers has said, "God shall forgive thee all, but thy despair." God cannot forgive despair. Elijah discovered that! The Lord said, "What doest thou here Elijah? You get up out of this and and go yonder and that is where I will meet you; not here under the juniper tree." God shall forgive all but despair... because despair limits the Almighty and it says, "God is not capable of solving my case".

So, when we speak about the rejection of the old Israel, let us remember that it was material from the old Israel with which God began the new. Well now, having said that, we can go on with John, because what we are seeing in the gospel by John is the old Jewish background upon which the Lord is building. That is, behind this gospel of John, in every part, there is something of the old Jewish order. And the Lord is taking the principle of that and bringing it over to the new heavenly order.

Last night we began with the Lamb of God, "behold God's Lamb". We saw what a large Jewish background there was to the Lamb of God. And then we went on to Nathanael and saw the heaven which had been closed, opened in Jesus Christ. And then to the marriage in Cana of Galilee behind which we saw the marriage relationship between the old Israel and Jehovah, and the breakdown of that relationship because one party to the covenant had failed to keep it - and the marriage saved in Jesus Christ - a new Israel.

Further into chapter 2 we came to the temple and heard the Lord saying, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again". They, the Jews, "thought that He spake of the temple in Jerusalem, but this He said concerning the temple of His body". So that the old temple was set aside and in Jesus Christ a new temple was brought in.

Into chapter 3 we came to Nicodemus, this representative son of Abraham after the flesh. And how impossible it is for sons of Abraham after the flesh to enter the heavenly kingdom! The sons of Abraham must be born again to become sons of God, "of such is the kingdom of God".

Now tonight we come to number 6, in chapter 3, at verse 14: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whosoever believeth may in Him have eternal life." There is an Old Testament background, we have it in the 21st chapter of the book of Numbers and the incident begins in this way, "Then the children of Israel spake against God and against Moses..." and they said, "we hate this vile bread" - very strong words they used about the manna: "We hate this vile bread..." the food from heaven. They spake against God, against Moses, and they said "we hate the thing that God has provided". Do remember, dear friends, that God, in all that He did, always had His Son in view. And when God gave them manna from heaven, as we are going to see when we come to John chapter 6, He had His Son in view; the manna was a type of Christ who said "I am the living Bread which came down from heaven" and they said, "we hate this vile Bread". And you can hear the Jews in Christ's day speaking like that, "We hate this Man!" They would almost say, "we will not have You even if God sent You" - that was their spirit; against God.

God saw the spirit of these people in the wilderness - how antagonistic it was to Him and what He gave, "wherefore God sent serpents among them which did bite them and a great multitude died". And then came in the serpent. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness... oh, there are deep and terrible things here. The serpent is ever and always, from beginning to end of the Bible, the symbol of a curse - the symbol of the judgment of God. You know that from the very first mention of the serpent in the Bible.

This serpent lifted up in the wilderness is the symbol of the judgment of God. The judgment and curse of God which rested upon the rebellious people is transferred to that serpent and that serpent is transfixed to the cross, carrying the curse and the judgment of God upon itself for the people. "And whosoever looked to the serpent was saved." In using that bit of the Old Testament, the Lord Jesus was only saying, "I am going to be made a curse for you, when I am lifted up I shall bear your judgment upon Myself. I shall carry your sins in My body on the tree". There is deliverance in Christ crucified from the curse and from the judgment, and "whosoever will look, shall live. For..." and here comes in the greatest scripture that we know, oh, I like the conjunction! Conjunctions are always very significant things in the New Testament, when you get a "for", or a "wherefore" or a "therefore", always look all round. The serpent lifted up and the Son of Man lifted up, bearing the curse and judgment of a rebellious people for... "God so loved the world". We quote that John 3:16 without the context.

Ah, what a tremendous thing this is, God is pouring upon His only begotten Son the judgment of us all, allowing His only begotten, well beloved Son to be made a curse for us. Why? "For God so loved the world... that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have eternal life." You have to lift out John 3:16 and put it right into Numbers 21, or take Numbers 21 and put it right into John 3:16. Here is the background, and here is the foreground; the transition from the old to the new. The new heavenly Israel is built upon this ground: "whosoever believeth hath eternal life". Oh, what a lot more we could say about that!

We must pass on, and here is the unfortunate thing in the dividing of chapters. For spiritual purposes it's a great pity that John 3 and John 4 are divided in chapters. You know what is in John 4, it's the woman of Samaria at Sychar's well. You recall the conversation between the Master and that woman; at the heart of the whole talk was this: "he that believeth on Me, I will put a well of water into him, a well springing up unto life eternal. He that drinketh of this water shall never thirst again". I think there ought to be no division of chapters there, because the 21st chapter of the book of Numbers is not divided, and immediately after the incident of the serpent being lifted up, you have the incident of the springing well: "Then sang Israel, Spring up oh well". When the Cross has done its work, when Christ has borne our judgment and the curse resting upon us, then the Holy Spirit is released and springs up as the well of eternal life.

Then in chapter 4 is the background of Numbers 21, the springing well following immediately upon the serpent lifted up. In John 3 and John 4 you have these two things: the serpent lifted up, Jesus lifted up, made a curse for us, because it is written "cursed is everyone that hangeth upon a tree", made a curse for us, bearing the judgment of our rebellious hearts and when He has done that, He has made a way for the springing well, the well of eternal life.

Wonderful connection the Holy Spirit makes, doesn't He, in the Bible? How He brings things together! Well, we would perhaps never have thought we'd find the third and fourth chapters of John in the book of Numbers, but there it is. That was number 7, in case you're losing count.

Number 8: chapter 4 of John at verse 46. We have the incident of the nobleman and his dying son. He has come all the way from Capernaum to find Jesus and to persuade Jesus to go home with him and heal his son. Jesus tested his faith and then, finding that his faith was quite genuine, He said, "You can go home, your son's alive". "Your son liveth." The man went home, believed Him and went home, and discovered that it was just at the very moment when Jesus said "thy son liveth" that his son began to get better.

Now, I expect there are people here who were here last year and who are saying, 'we heard all about that last year'! But you didn't hear all about it last year and you'll see that in a moment! You remember last year I took the eight signs of the gospel by John; they've developed into sixteen this year, so you didn't hear all about it! And not only concerning this nobleman's son.

And what is at the heart of this incident? Why did not Jesus go with that man to Capernaum, because at another time He did go to Capernaum and healed a lot of people. Why did He not say, "Well, I've got to go to Capernaum at some time and do a lot of works there, I may as well go now, here's the opportunity. This is an invitation and I suppose I ought to take all invitations..." Jesus did not do that, He stayed where He was and sent the man home, all that long way back again, over many miles [editor's note: this portion in italics was translated from the German as the sound was lost briefly]. As we saw last year, it took from 12 o'clock noon until the close of the day and then on into the next day for the man to get home.

Why was it that Jesus adopted this method on this particular occasion? We have a Jewish background and what is the Jewish background? It is the background of the law, that "letter of the law which killeth". Jesus said in this gospel, "The letter killeth, but the words that I speak they are spirit and they are life". And it does not matter how far away the case may be, if He speaks, His word is Spirit and Life. The Old Testament speaking of the law brought death. "The letter killeth", that is the letter of the law, "the Spirit giveth life and the words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are Life". He only had to speak and He reversed the effect of the law. The law could never have done this, you may bring all the scribes and pharisees down from Jerusalem for this boy and they can recite all the law of Moses and nothing will happen to the boy, he will die right enough, and probably die all the quicker because of their reading of the law! Jesus only has to open His mouth and speak a word, and the boy, many miles away, begins to get better from that moment. Yes, Jesus is showing that the law of His mouth is Life.

The transition is so clear isn't it? From death unto Life in the Word.

Number 9: chapter 5 of John. Here we have to repeat largely what we have said before. The story of the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda. Verse 5 is the heart of the thing, "A certain man was there which had been thirty and eight years in his infirmity..." and what is the Jewish background? There is very little doubt that the Jewish background there was Israel's journey in the wilderness - the 38 years of their wandering in the wilderness. What cripples they were in the wilderness! They could have made the journey from Egypt to the land of Canaan in 11 days, it took them 38 years and during the 38 years, they were really making no progress at all. They were in bondage to their own self life. They were impotent, helpless cripples because the self life was in the place of mastery.

You have no need for me to tell you how that self life governed them in the wilderness. They never looked at anything as to how it served God, as to how far it satisfied God's interests; they looked at everything as to how it affected them. All their murmuring and rebellion was because they were not getting what they wanted. It was never what God wanted, they were just a self-centred people and the self life was their bed, and they were cripples lying on the bed of the self life, never really able to get up and march straight forward to God's purpose.

Well, that's the old Israel background. Jesus takes up an illustration of that right in the presence of the Jews and He takes this man and puts him on his feet. And the members of the new heavenly Israel are people who have been delivered from self interest into God's interests; people who have been put on their spiritual feet by Jesus Christ and are walking in strength in the way of the Lord.

Now, don't you think it's a very significant thing that the first miracle after the day of Pentecost was the raising of an impotent man at the gate of the temple of Jerusalem? You see, these are not just pretty stories put together to make an interesting book. God knows what He's doing and when He puts the first miracle of the Christian era as the raising of an impotent cripple, He is saying that the people of this new Israel are people who have been delivered from this impotence and put on their feet spiritually.

Are there any cripples here tonight? There are a lot of Christian cripples about, they can neither get on their own feet, nor can other people put them on their feet. You try to pick them up, they may take a step or two, and down they go again. A lot of people are like that; you have to spend your life trying to get them up on their feet. What is it that is eating the very life out of them? What is it that is making them such helpless cripples that cannot walk? It is self-centredness. Make no mistake about it; it's self in some form. It's self that wants to be taken notice of. It is self in the form of pride.

This poor man was delivered because he knew his own helplessness, but he believed what Jesus said. He believed onto Jesus Christ which means he believed out of himself. Yes, that's the secret: that we shall turn from our miserable selves and cease to be occupied with them - say once and for all, "I am done with you. I am done with you wretched self! I throw myself onto Jesus Christ. I take the one great step of committal". And Jesus never lets such a person down.

Number 10. I think we can take number 10 for granted, we've already said something about it, chapter 6: the Bread of Life. And you know how the Lord Jesus said, "It was not Moses that gave you the manna, it was My Father". That's the Old Testament Jewish background. Now right in the presence of the Jews, He is saying, "I am the living Bread which is come down from heaven to give Life to the world". Well, I say we can leave that. Here is the very obvious transition from the old to the new. We have seen in the book of Numbers that the manna did not fully and finally satisfy, but this Bread which came down from heaven is the full and the final satisfaction of all who receive Him.

I do want to say a word about number 11, that is why I have hurried over number 10. This is in chapter 7 of John, but perhaps I had better ask you, would you like me to stop now? Shall I stop? Thank you, because I've seen some people looking at me like they've had enough!

Very well then, chapter 7, first, verse 1: "After these things Jesus walked in Galilee for He would not walk in Judea for the Jews sought to kill Him. Now the feast of the Jews, the feast of tabernacles was at hand."

Verse 14: "But when it was now the midst of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and taught."

Verse 37: "Now on the last day of the feast, the great day, 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 him shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake He of the Spirit which they that believed on Him were to receive."

Well, now we're in the presence of the Feast of Tabernacles: Numbers chapter 29. If you look at that chapter, you will see what led up to this great day of the feast. All the different kinds of offerings had been presented to the Lord. I need not enumerate all the kinds of offerings, they are all mentioned there and they have all been presented to the Lord. Then came the last great day of the feast. It is called the Feast of Tabernacles, but it is also called the Feast of Trumpets. On that great day of the feast in the temple in Jerusalem the priests brought out great vessels of water and poured out the water on the top of the steps of the temple so that it flowed down the steps in great volume. Jesus stepped forward at that time.

All in Him, all the offerings are presented to God, He in person is the embodiment of all the sacrifices and all the offerings and He, as the completeness of all God's requirements, presents Himself to the Lord. And then He comes to this day of the Feast of Tabernacles and it says in Numbers, "and the priest shall sound with the trumpet". And Jesus took the trumpet and "He cried with a loud voice"; here's the trumpet of the Feast of Tabernacles. In Him all the offerings are perfected. God is fully satisfied therefore He can pour out His spirit in fullness. He cries, like the trumpet, with a loud voice, "He that believeth on Me out of him shall flow rivers of living water". Now, this is the heritage of all who are of the new Israel. Dear friend, it's your, it's your inheritance.

If the Word of God is true, if what Christ has said is true, if on this only occasion when He lifted up His voice, He cried with a loud voice, (that is, before the day of His cross when He cried with a loud voice) the only time when He lifted up His voice, if this is true, He has put great emphasis upon this: that if you and I will accept Jesus Christ as God's full satisfaction on our behalf, as the One who has brought every offering that God has stipulated to God Himself and He has done it for us, if that is true (and Jesus wanted it to be known that it was true by crying with a loud voice, the trumpet sounds this very loudly) Jesus is God's satisfaction on our behalf. He has offered, He has answered to every sacrifice, and every offering. If we believe that, if we really believe that, then His great cry is true for us - out of us can flow rivers of living water. That is, that others shall be receiving of His life through us as His channels. That is how it ought to be in the case of every true believer. And Jesus has made it possible by satisfying God completely on our behalf.

So, people of the new Israel ought to be people with a river flowing out. Believe... proclaim your faith... keep not silent! Take the trumpet to your lips and let people hear and you will be surprised that when you begin to testify to the Lord Jesus, people begin to receive Life. Something will happen in other people. If you keep your mouth closed and you refuse to testify to the Lord Jesus in your home, or in your village, or in your work, then you are holding up the river of the Spirit. You are just checking the flow of the river that ought to be flowing out of you.

Now, if you have never done it, you try it; and I want to tell you that the first soul that comes to the Lord Jesus through your testimony will release something in you that you will never again want to keep your mouth closed. There are a lot of miserable Christians because they will keep their mouths closed. I know there is those Christians who talk too much, but there are quite a lot of Christians who do not talk enough and so they are spoiling their own Christian life.

Take the trumpet of the Lord Jesus, and cry with a loud voice, and the rivers will begin to flow. Well, you told me to go on, but I'm only ten minutes late after all, but we haven't finished yet!

Chapter 9 - Our Heavenly Calling

The friends who have been with us all the time will be patient with me if I say a few words for those who have only joined us this morning, just by way of helping them to come into line with what the Lord is saying. We are occupied at this time with what God is particularly doing in this dispensation. And it is very important that all Christians should know what the special character of the time in which they live, is. So we have seen that God in this dispensation is forming a heavenly and spiritual Israel. We put special emphasis upon those two words: heavenly and spiritual. That is the particular nature of God's work in this dispensation.

We are seeing that God had left the old Israel, which was an earthly and temporal Israel, and has moved on to form this heavenly Israel. The first Israel refused to move on with God into this heavenly Israel. It got its roots so deeply into this earth and into this world that it would not have them pulled out. So God rooted out that vine, God pulled up that tree by the roots and has thrown it into the fire of these last two thousand years. He has taken a remnant from it, represented by the twelve apostles, by the apostle Paul, in the first place by the 120 at the beginning, and then the 3000 saved Jews on the day of Pentecost - a spiritual remnant of Israel and then extended this spiritual Israel to embrace the Gentiles. And He has been going on with that work ever since.

There are two things that I want to say before we go further with our particular point.

I want to correct a possible misunderstanding. The heavenly and spiritual Israel, which is the church of Jesus Christ, is not an afterthought of God. It was not brought in because Israel failed. Please be very clear about that. There are those who teach that that is so: the Lord offered it to Israel, Israel refused it, and then He had to do something, and so He got the idea of a church - it was quite an afterthought, a kind of emergency movement of God. And He brought in the church. That is entirely false to the whole of the Bible, and that is one thing that we are seeking to show in these days. No, we have said that everything in the Old Testament, including Israel, had Christ and the church in view. It was all leading on to Christ and the church, and Christ and the church take up all the Divine thoughts of the past and embody them in themselves. The church is the eternal thing. The church is in the heart of God before time was and the church was chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. The church is no afterthought of God: it is a before-thought of God. God's Son is not an emergency matter. He may have come in at a time of emergency, but He was from all eternity in view for this particular work. The church was eternally intended to be the Body of Christ.

Now I want you to keep that in mind in all that we are saying. It is a very important matter.

The other thing that I want to say or emphasise is this: that this new Israel, the church, is essentially a spiritual thing as truly as Christ, here, now, is a spiritual matter. And Christ is here in this world by the Spirit. As truly as Christ is here - no longer in physical presence and on a temporal basis but can only be known spiritually, we can only have fellowship with Him spiritually - as truly as that is the case with the Lord Jesus, so it is as to the church. In the minds of many Christians there has got to be a revolution about this matter. That word "church" is taken up and just put on to almost anything. Forgive me! I mean no offence, but we are dealing with very vital matters. We hear of, speak of, this church and that church - the Lutheran church, the Methodist church, the Baptist church, the Anglican church - and how many more? And we speak of all these as the church. From heaven's standpoint that is a lot of nonsense. From heaven's standpoint that is not the church. These things may represent one or other aspect of truth, but not one of them has the whole of the truth, and when you have put them all together they haven't got all of the truth. All the truth is in Jesus alone.

The church is a spiritual thing. You cannot look upon anything material, or any people in the flesh, and say: "That's the church." You are only in the church in so far as there is something of Christ in you. It is Christ in us that makes the church. You see, the church is a unity in Christ.

The Lord Jesus never looks upon so many loaves of bread all over the world when there is a gathering to His table. I suppose that on any Lord's Day there may be millions of loaves of bread being broken, and as for cups I don't know how many - heaven never sees more than One loaf and heaven never sees more than One cup. The loaf is Christ, the cup is Christ, and by our partaking we are united in Christ as One Loaf.

I'm not quite sure whether the translators were correct - but I think there may be something in it - when they translated the words of the Lord at the supper. The old version said that the Lord said: "This is My body, which is broken for you". And I think that there may be very real truth in using that word "broken". Indeed, the Lord's body was broken, but the later translators have left out that word "broken" and have said: "This is My body, which is for you". Now, perhaps that later translation dismisses a false idea because the word "broken" has been so often taken to mean that this is a piece, and there's another piece, and there's another piece in all the places all over the world. Christ is not divided. Paul said: "Is Christ divided?" no, Christ is not divided. There may be a thousand pieces of the earthly loaf, but the heavenly loaf is One, and that is how heaven sees the church.

The church is a broken thing on the earth. It is broken into many pieces down here, but in heaven it is seen as one, and the sooner you and I see from heaven's standpoint the better. If this man or this woman is in Christ, it does not matter whether that man or that woman is in our denomination or not, whether they are in our sect or not, if they are "in Christ" they are part with me and with you in Christ.

Now understand that the church is a spiritual thing, not an earthly, temporal thing, and that is a very important thing for us to recognise. Now I've taken a lot of time before we go on with our particular point. We are doing this: along one side we are tracing God's ways with the old Israel, along the other side we are seeing that He takes the spiritual laws of the old Israel and perpetuates them in the new Israel. What He did in a temporal way with the first Israel, He is now doing exactly the same thing, but in a spiritual way in the new Israel.

Now our last word yesterday morning was that God's glory in Abraham reached its climax in sonship - sonship in death and resurrection as represented by Isaac. God's glory came to its climax in sonship. Sonship is the climax of God's glory.

We are back in our letter to the Hebrews now. What is the climax of that letter and of all God's movement as contained in that letter? It is found in one fragment: "Bringing many sons to glory". That is the climax of the glory of God. As it was in a temporal way in Abraham, so it is in a spiritual way in the new Israel.

But the idea of sonship did not begin with Abraham and Isaac. It only came out in Abraham and Isaac. It was right back before them in eternity - this idea of sonship was God's cherished secret from before times eternal. That secret has been lost in Abraham's seed after the flesh, but it is taken up in Abraham's Seed after the Spirit.

Now probably you know that the letters to the Romans and the Galatians are concerned with that particular thing. In the letter to the Romans, chapters nine, ten and eleven (all one section really) the apostle's just saying this: "They are not all Israel, only those that are of Israel, out from Israel, is the new Israel. All the natural children of Abraham are not Israel now, it is the spiritual children of Abraham now." And when you go into the letter to the Galatians, that is explained very carefully, and the apostle reduces it to this one thing: he refers to the promise made to Abraham: "In thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed". Now this is the thing that got Paul into a lot of trouble. He said: "When God said that, He did not say in 'in thy seeds' He said in 'thy Seed as of One' and," he said, "that's Jesus Christ". Not the many natural children of Abraham, but the spiritual children - and that is Christ; Christ and the companions of Christ.

Isaiah cried: "He shall see his seed... he shall see of the travail of his soul", and this heavenly Jerusalem is the spiritual seed of Abraham, which is Christ. The letter to the Galatians says the rest have gone. Even all the other children of Abraham are now set aside, God only recognises His spiritual children. And this is taken up in this phrase that has governed our whole time: "Wherefore, holy brethren, companions of a heavenly calling... we are companions of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning firm unto the end". There's something there that I am tempted to stay with, but I think I'll have to hold it over for another connection; I want to get on with this matter.

This spiritual and heavenly Israel is called "companions of a heavenly calling", for a few minutes I want to dwell on that heavenly calling.

What was God's intention in this world concerning the first Israel? Well, as we said last night, it was that they should mediate light and life to the nations. That was their Divine calling: that the nations should receive life through their light - that they should be the channel of Divine light and life to the nations of this world. That was their calling. Now we could take quite a lot of the Old Testament to show that, I'm going to take perhaps only one illustration.

You notice that all the sons of Israel were focused in one son (of course, when I speak of "Israel" now, I mean Jacob) all the sons of Jacob were focussed on one son and that son was Joseph. If it had not been for Joseph, that whole nation would have perished, and not only the sons and families of Jacob, but all Egypt would have perished; the world would have perished in a sense. God's strange, sovereign dealings with Joseph brought him, through death and resurrection, to the throne. And when his brothers came to Egypt and he made himself known unto them, in utter shame they went down before him, they began to apologise to try and excuse themselves. Poor, miserable, wretched fellows they were! Down before Joseph, their brother. What did he say? "Don't be sorry, fear not, don't be miserable about it, you meant it for evil, God meant it for good, to send me before you to save many alive". Life and light came, not only to all the families of Jacob, but to Egypt - the world - through Joseph.

Joseph was the inclusive representative of all his brethren. God made him like that, and he sets forth this truth that God intended all Israel of old to be a minister of life and light to the whole world to "save much flesh alive". That was Israel's calling that is what Israel was intended for in the old dispensation - just down here by God's appointment, right at the centre of the nations, in a position of ascendancy, to mediate light and life to the nations. Abraham's seed was intended to be that, but that seed of Abraham failed God, and instead of fulfilling that holy calling, they contradicted it.

We need not dwell upon their failure. It's a dark and terrible story. And if you ask why Israel have been where they have been for the last nearly two thousand years, well, they have been just where the Lord Jesus said they would be. He said: "The children of the kingdom shall be cast into outer darkness; there will be weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth". And that is the story of the earthly Israel, through all these past centuries. That is, as a nation; thank God for all those who have escaped from the outer darkness, who are not weeping and wailing and gnashing their teeth now, but are rejoicing in Christ Jesus! But that is where the nation went, and the last stroke of that was in the year A.D. 70.

That's the dark side. But God had not finished with an Israel, He still had in view a "Prince with God", for that is the meaning of the name "Israel" as you know. And this heavenly, spiritual Israel to which you and I belong are called into the vocation of Joseph. God has transferred that in a spiritual way to us. We are here in this heavenly calling, this spiritual vocation, to minister Light and Life to the world. That is to be our heavenly calling now, that is why the Lord said to His new Israel: "Go ye into all the world..." ... "Begin at Jerusalem... Samaria... all Judea... and unto the uttermost parts of the earth, and wherever you are, your heavenly calling is to bring Light and Life from above."

And at the beginning the church almost settled down in Jerusalem, that is, the earthly Jerusalem. They were very slow to move away from the earthly Jerusalem, so the Lord took a big hammer and He brought that hammer down on the church in Jerusalem and "they were all scattered abroad". The Lord said: "I have finished with this earthly city. The new Jerusalem is above, and the new, heavenly calling is to all the nations."

That is the heavenly calling of the spiritual Israel now, but that has got to come to fullness afterward. And that fullness is re-presented at the end of the Bible - "the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven". No, this is not a material and political world-center. This is the church. These are the companions of Christ - represented in the symbolism of a city. And the last word about that city is this: "And the nations of the earth shall walk in the light thereof... and in the midst of the city is the tree of life, and the leaves of the tree are for the health of the nations". Did you notice that I changed a word? Our translation says "for the healing of the nations", but that is not correct. The nations then won't need healing (thank God) in eternity, but they will need their spiritual health ministered to.

Most of us here this morning do not need saving. And remember, by the way, that the word "salvation" in the original is the word "health". It is the state of being in good health. That is the meaning of the word "salvation" - being in good health - of course it means spiritually.

The nations will then be the nations that have had the Gospel and responded. "Righteousness shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea", but right at the centre of the nations will be the church, and through the church Light and Life will go out to maintain the health of the nations. I was saying we do not need salvation now, in the sense of being saved. But why have you come here? You're all saved people... what are you doing here? Ought you not to be out all over the world getting others saved? Well, that may be, but you're here because you want your health looking after! You take your morning breakfast to keep your health good, and you have come here to the Lord's provision, the table which the Lord has spread for us, to keep our health good and to still make our health better. So the leaves of the tree are not for the healing, but for the health of the nations.

So, when everything has been said and done, and you have gone right through the long, long story, at last you come to the end in the last chapters of history in the book of the Revelation: and the last picture is of a heavenly Israel ministering Light and Life to the nations.

Perhaps some of you Bible students and you people who are very interested in doctrine are just troubled now with a question, in light of what I have said. "Does he mean that the church is one thing and that there are a lot of people who are not of the church? In other words: the city is one thing and the nations are another?"

Now, I am not going to please you by entering upon any argument about that, but I'm going to bring you back to this letter to the Hebrews for the answer. And the answer in this letter is in one little word of two letters: "IF"! "We are become companions of Christ if..." "Whose house are we if...". And the whole letter in one sense circles round that little word. It is not now a matter of salvation and getting into heaven. It is now a matter of that instrument of heaven for all the rest. This is the height of the heavenly calling. I'll leave you to answer the question by studying this letter again. It does seem to say that everybody will not be the City. If everybody is the City, where's the country? No, the City is the center, it is the seat of administration, the seat of government, the seat of Light. The whole country derives its values through the City. And it does seem that that is the truth that is here. It is possible to get into heaven, but not be of the City.

Well, if you've got trouble with that and you disagree with me, it doesn't worry me very much, I can only say to you: "Go back to the Word." I cannot, my dear friends, I cannot understand this letter on any other ground. Why is this letter shot through and through with this urgency to go on? I do not believe that if you don't go on you forfeit your eternal life, that you sacrifice your salvation, but I do believe that if you don't go on you will forfeit your inheritance, and that is the teaching of this letter as I see it. Why, the whole of the New Testament, after the Gospels, has this one object: to get Christians to go on, and to go on to full growth.

This is Abraham's spiritual seed and we're going to see at some point that Abraham looked for "a city, whose builder and maker is God". This is the City that Abraham was looking for. So I'm going to close with that thought this morning.

God put something into the very constitution of Abraham which had two effects. It made Abraham a very discontented man. Abraham was possessed of a holy discontent. He went up and down the land, he saw the land,  God gave him flocks and herds in abundance, but all the time Abraham was saying: "This is not it. There is something more than this. I can never be satisfied with this." And in a right sense Abraham was a most discontented man.

On the other side, he had a vision of what ought to be. The New Testament calls it "the heavenly country". He was looking for a City, the builder and maker of which is God. And no city on this earth answered to what was in the heart of Abraham. Do you think I'm exaggerating? Do you think I'm making that up? What did Jesus say to the old Israel? "Your father Abraham saw My day and he rejoiced". He saw right down the ages. He had a vision and nothing in this world could satisfy that vision. His heart was ever hungry and so he was a man who never settled down on this earth. I expect people around about said continually, "Hello Abraham, are you packing up again? You're pulling down your tent again? Where are you going this time?" That was always happening with Abraham. He could not settle down anywhere, there was in his heart this vision and this hunger; something that God had done in him and nothing but the heavenly could satisfy him. Now I've given you the letter to the Hebrews again!

"Let us go on", says this letter continually, "let us go on! Let us not settle down, let us never be satisfied with anything less than God's fullness." That is the message of this letter.

And it is in the end represented as a race. We are running a race and the goal and prize lie ahead. Let us not stop in the race and turn aside! "Let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking off unto Jesus..."   "Your father Abraham saw My day and rejoiced" it's still to be like that: "Looking off unto Jesus". Never settling down with anything less than God's fullness. "Wherefore, holy brethren, companions of a heavenly calling."

I'm quite sure that where the Holy Spirit really has His place in a heart, that heart will be a "going-on" heart. That heart will never settle down to anything less than God's fullness.

There are two different kinds of dissatisfaction. There are those poor, miserable people who are never satisfied with anything - always discontented, and that in a wrong way. And I am not appealing for such people like that! But this spiritual discontent, this that says: "No,  I haven't yet attained, neither am I already made perfect... but there's one thing I do, leaving the things which are behind... I press toward the mark of the prize of the on-high calling". That is the nature of a truly Holy Spirit-governed life; it will always be pressing on to something more of the Lord. These are the true heavenly seed of Abraham, which is Christ. Well, we leave it there for the time being.

Chapter 10 - Companions Who See

In the sixteen points in the gospel by John which mark the transition from the old Israel to the new, we come this evening to number twelve. And we are in the eighth chapter of the gospel by John, from verse 12 through into chapter 9. I think we had better read some of this.

"Again, therefore, Jesus spake unto them saying "I am the Light of the world, he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the Light of Life. The Pharisees therefore said unto Him, Thou bearest witness of thyself; thy witness is not true. Jesus answered and said unto them, Even if I bear witness of Myself, My witness is true; for I know whence I came, and whither I go; but ye know not whence I come, or whither I go. Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man. Yea and if I judge, My judgment is true; for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent Me. Yea and in your law it is written, that the witness of two men is true. I am He that beareth witness of Myself, and the Father that sent Me beareth witness of Me."

Verse 26: "I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you: howbeit He that sent Me is true; and the things which I heard from Him, these speak I unto the world."

Verse 31: "Jesus therefore said to those Jews that had believed Him, If ye abide in My word, then are ye truly My disciples; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. They answered unto Him, We are Abraham's seed, and have never yet been in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?"

Verse 36: "If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. I know that ye are Abraham's seed: yet ye seek to kill Me, because My word hath no free course in you."

Now we ought to read the whole of the rest of that chapter, and once more it's a pity that the chapters are divided here because chapter 9 is the demonstration of all that is in chapter 8 - in a very practical way Jesus shows the truth of what He has been saying. And so we have this in chapter 9: "As He passed by, He saw a man blind from his birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, Rabbi, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he should be born blind? Jesus answered, Neither did this man sin, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. We must work the works of Him that sent Me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. When I am in the world, I am the light of the world. When He had thus spoken, He spat on the ground and made clay and anointed his eyes with the clay. And said unto him, Go wash in the pool of Siloam. He went away therefore and washed, and came seeing..."

I think you know the rest of that story, but it is perfectly clear that this story, this incident, is set in the background of Israel (that is, the earthly Israel) and the effect of this long section of the record is intended to show that Israel after the flesh is blind. If ever men demonstrated how blind they were, these people did in all this argument! Jesus is making them give themselves away. That is, He is just compelling them to betray their own blindness. These people are not seeing; that's the fact. They are as spiritually blind, as was that man naturally blind. So that what we have here is set in Israel's blindness, all with the object of showing this specific characteristic of the new spiritual Israel which the Lord Jesus was bringing into being.

Now, can you just hold that for a few minutes, don't forget it as I don't want to have to say it again, but I'm going away from it for a few minutes because there is one marvelous truth which embraces all these things which we are saying, and that truth is this: that no thought that God has ever expressed dies. There is no lapse of any thought that God has expressed. In the Israel of old, God expressed His thoughts; His thoughts were in the very conception of Israel, they were in the very constitution of Israel. They were in all that was said about Israel, they were in all that was revealed as to God's purpose concerning Israel. In a multitude of ways God expressed His thoughts concerning Israel. Now, that Israel failed to answer the thought of God. They would not give God the answer to His expressed thought that He desired. Those thoughts of God concerning Israel were never realised because of Israel's rebellion. So Israel is put aside, but God's thoughts are not put aside with Israel, all those same thoughts are taken up in a new Israel.

Jesus Himself becomes the inclusive new Israel. You remember He referred to Jacob, Jacob whose name was changed to "Israel", and He said to Nathanael, "Afterward, (that is, later on) you shall see the heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man". So Jesus is the new "Israel" in person. All the communications of God and heaven to man are by way of Jesus, the new Israel. All God's thoughts in the past ages are taken up in the Lord Jesus in the first place. All that was ever intended by God concerning Israel and that Israel lost, is carried on in the Lord Jesus, and then transferred by Jesus to His companions - the companions of Jesus and of the heavenly calling - the new Israel, which is a spiritual Israel.

Now I have opened a very big realm for you. It would be impossible for me to number all the characteristics of God's mind concerning Israel, let me just indicate what I mean.

You know, God marked Israel off as a people distinct from all other people by appearance. Some years ago, before he went to the Lord, I knew a very distinguished Hebrew Christian. He used to travel all over the world, and he said this to me: "Wherever I go, in all parts of the world, I always know when I meet a Jew. They may have lived for generations in this country and in that, but there is something about them that they never lose. Without being told that they are Jews, I always know." God marked them out as a people distinct from all other races.

Now see how that is taken up in the Lord Jesus and see how that is taken up in all the true companions of Jesus. Not by the shape of our face, not by any outward form, but it is perfectly true that wherever you meet a true Christian in this world, you know them before being introduced. There is never any need for anybody to bring them to you and say: "This is a Christian." You come into their presence and there's something about them, it's  different. Then when you begin to talk you know that you have met one of your own race. Their outward features may be those of Chinese, Indian, British, or anything else, but there are spiritual features which mark them out as different from all others: "And they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus". They are different - there is that about them which is quite different from all others.

Now that is a truth, and we must very sacredly safeguard that truth. There are far too many who bear the name of Christ who cannot be distinguished from the world; indeed they are just trying to behave like the world.

But my point is this: whatever the expressed thought of God was, in any one of a thousand ways, if Israel left that thought, it is taken up in Jesus Christ and is transferred by Him to His companions. The companions of Christ always take some of His character. And that is why somebody started the name "Christian": "And the believers were first called Christians in Antioch". Someone said: "These are Christ ones". That is just the meaning of "Christian".

Now that is a very large truth within which we are speaking in these days. Israel was called to be God's instrument of Light to the world. God raised up Israel to be Light to all the nations for Him. All the nations were intended to come to know God through Israel, to see what God is like, to come into the knowledge of God. Israel was set in the nations for that purpose: to be the Light of the world. God intended to reflect Himself through Israel on this earth. The Light of God was intended to fall upon Israel like a mirror and then from Israel to be reflected, to shine forth to all the nations. There were times when it was like that to some extent - but what a tragedy Israel was in that particular! The time came when God was rather veiled by Israel than revealed. Israel became a terrible contradiction of God. When you pick up these gospels, you read all these arguments between Jesus and the leaders of Israel, you read all that is in these gospels as to the Jewish rulers, the way they behaved, the way they talked, the spirit that they showed, and you say: "Well, if that is God, I want to have nothing to do with God". That is a terrible misrepresentation of God! And because of that God put Israel aside, but in this particular respect He did not put His thought aside.

At that time, when Israel was about to be rejected, into the world came God's Son. He took up the thought of God that was intended to be realised in Israel and He said, right in the midst of this dark and blind Israel, "I am the Light of the world". Israel has failed. I take the place of Israel, and in Me and through Me shall all the world know what God is like. While I am in the world I am the light of the world: he that followeth Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life." God always intended that the races of this world should have the Light of Life, Life-giving Light, liberating Light! Oh, how Light liberates!

When I came out of my room to come into the meeting tonight, there was no light on the stairway. It was as dark as night. I was feeling everywhere to find where the light was. I was afraid to walk to the top of the stairs in case I fell down. I was helpless! I was a prisoner to darkness and I could do nothing until I found the light. And here I am! Quite safe and sound! I was a prisoner of darkness and I might never have got here; when the light came I was set free, I could go anywhere, do anything.

"If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." How does the Son make us free? "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" ... "While I am in the world I am the Light of the world", and the effect of the Light is to set men free.

Do you remember the commission given by the Lord to the apostle Paul at the time of his conversion? It is most illuminating and instructive in the light of what we are saying. The Lord said to Paul, giving him his commission to the nations: "To whom I send thee... to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God". "Prisoners of Satan and therefore in the dark, to turn them from darkness to Light and from the power of Satan unto God. And every person of the human race by nature is in the prison of the devil.

I think perhaps some of you here have heard me quote from Bunyan's, John Bunyan's "Holy War" in this connection. I hope you've all read his "Holy War", you have probably read his "Pilgrim's Progress"! You will remember that "The Holy War" sets forth the battle for Mansoul, and all the forces of Apollyon are attacking to capture man's soul, which is represented as a city. And Apollyon calls his leaders together and he says this: "If we are going to capture Mansoul we must first of all capture the burgomaster of Mansoul. And the name of the burgomaster is Mr. Understanding. We must capture Mr. Understanding and put him in a dark dungeon so that he does not see what is happening." My, there's a bit of genius in that! The Word says: "Having the understanding darkened... The god of this age hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus should not shine unto them". If Light comes from Jesus to any soul, that soul is liberated; the whole strategy of Apollyon is upset. And, how important it is to the god of this age to blind the minds of men and to put Mr. Understanding in a dark dungeon, and make sure that he does not see what is going on! And that is the state of every child of Adam after the flesh.

The Lord was saying to Israel: "That's where you have got to. You, who were intended to be the light of the world, are now involved in the very darkness of the world. You are a contradiction to all God's thought and intention". Well, that is quite clear and evident, isn't it? But that is the negative side. We repeat: what Israel failed to realise is taken up in the person of God's Son and transferred to the new, collective Israel, called in the Hebrew letter "the companions of Christ".

Do you see what the companions of Christ are supposed to be like? They are supposed to be the very vessels in which this truth is fulfilled. They are supposed to be the very temples of Christ, and in them He is to be the Light: "Christ in you, the hope of glory".

Now, that would lead us to a very large study. You know that the New Testament has a very great deal to say about spiritual understanding; the tremendous importance of spiritual knowledge. It puts a very high and great value upon this faculty of spiritual sight. You'll remember that great passage in the second letter to the Corinthians, chapter 4, "God who said, Let light be, has shined into our hearts," in other words has said "Let light be in our hearts", "...hath shined into our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency might be of God, and not of ourselves". Have you noticed what is surrounding that marvelous statement? It is connected with Moses going up into the mountain where God was, and receiving the law at the mouth of God, and then coming down the mountain, not knowing it, but his face was shining. It says that he "wist not that his face did shine", but the people saw it and they could not look. The light was too strong and they could not look upon the face of Moses, so Moses took a veil and put it over his face and hid the glory of God behind a veil. "Now", says the apostle, bringing this right up to date, "from that time until now there is a veil upon the heart of Israel..." Israel is incapable of looking upon the glory of God... "But," says the apostle, "when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil will be taken away - now by the Lord," says Paul, "I mean the Spirit; and where the Spirit is Lord, there is liberty". When the Holy Spirit removes the veil from the heart and shines Christ in, there's liberty. The life is liberated.

Oh, it's a wonderful thing just to see something of the Lord by the Holy Spirit! I'm just hoping that that's what is happening here in these days. Well, if it isn't happening in you, it's happening in me, I'm having a glorious time! Heaven is open! We are seeing the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ and we are set free! Who will say that there is not the liberty of the Spirit amongst us in these days? I think we can say about this as Jesus said about something else, "Today is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears".

Now, what I have said is the statement of fact, and when the facts have been stated, we are only at the beginning of the matter. You will never be liberated by the statement of facts! I may stand here for years and state  facts and it will make no difference to you. Something has got to happen. It's got to begin to happen if you are not already born again, and what has got to happen to you right at the beginning of your Christian life is what happened to this man who was born blind: you have got to be able to truly say exactly the same words as he said: "One thing I know... a lot of things I don't know, but one thing I do know: whereas I was blind, now I can see." That is the characteristic of the beginning of a true companion of Jesus Christ. But that is only the beginning of seeing.

The apostle Paul had given a tremendous amount of teaching to the believers in Ephesus. He said to them: "I have not shunned to declare unto you the whole counsel of God". He spent some years with them and he was just pouring out to them the light that he had. They were, therefore, Christians who had a lot of instruction. And after all that, Paul went to prison and in prison he wrote a letter to them, and he said: "I pray for you. I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus for you and this is what I pray to God for you, with all that you have received, this is what I'm praying for you: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, will grant unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of His Son, the eyes of your hearts being enlightened". That's not for their salvation - they had been saved a long time, they had been taught very much. They have gone a long way with the Lord - but still Paul prays this prayer. In effect he is saying: "All that you have received and all that I have given you is nothing compared to what there is yet to see in the Lord Jesus. And for all that, you need to have your eyes opened. You need the Spirit of wisdom and revelation". How important this is!

And you notice how he finishes that letter? "Our wrestling is not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers, with world-rulers of this darkness, and spiritual hosts of wickedness". And what is it that they are seeking to do? Rob you of the Light. Paul says there: "We are not ignorant of his devices, take the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil". The wiles of the devil are to stop you getting more Light, to rob you of the Light that you have, to bring in something that will blind your eyes, to get your eyes off the Lord Jesus and on to something else, perhaps on to yourself, or on to some worldly interest. And as soon as that happens you will go into bondage, you will be helpless prisoners again. This matter of spiritual enlightenment is a great battle. There is always a battle bound up with receiving more true spiritual Light.

Well, we must just close for the present. We have come only to the door of a very great matter, but we close by repeating what we said: this great thought of God is taken up in Christ and transferred to His companions.

I thought that I might say something this evening about Christ's battle with His own companions in the days of His flesh on this matter. He had chosen twelve, the number of the tribes of Israel. He had made them His companions, but, oh, what a difficulty He had to make them understand! He had sometimes to say: "Do you not understand?" and He had to put His teaching into little children's parables to try and get through their thick minds some understanding of spiritual truth. "A sower went forth to sow" - and you know the picture. It's a picture for little children, isn't it? And all the other parables... and when He had finished them all, He had to tell them that He'd had to do it like that because they hadn't got understanding. All the way through He was battling with their dark minds, and He was pointing on to a day when they would understand. And, because He knew that day was coming, He did not give them up. "In that day ye shall ask Me no more questions... when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all the truth".

And I have thought that the Lord Jesus must have been very happy on the day of Pentecost! Have you read Peter's address to the multitude on the day of Pentecost? Here is a nice little piece of Bible study for you - make a list of all the subjects included in Peter's address on the day of Pentecost. That address is just packed full of the Old Testament, and Peter is saying: "Why, it's all being fulfilled in Jesus Christ!" That is what Jesus laboured for three and a half years to get them to understand! And on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit had come, why, the Bible was wide open to them! They saw it all! They were set free by the Truth, by the Light. I think Jesus in heaven must have been saying: "Why, this is what I lived for and what I suffered for! These men are seeing at last. These are My companions now."

The companions of Jesus are those who see as He sees. How true that is of all companionship! There is really no companionship between two people if they don't see alike. You might want to keep together, but, oh! how difficult it is when one doesn't see what you see. You can just go so far and no further. Says the Scripture: "How can two walk together, except they be agreed?" Real companionship rests upon mutual understanding, and I think there are few things that Jesus wants and longs for more, than to have people who understand Him. This is what God ever wanted, and this thought is taken up in His Son and is passed on to the Son's companions.

John says: "If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another" - fellowship with the Lord and fellowship with one another.

Chapter 11 - Companions Who Hear

Into the tenth chapter of the gospel by John, John's gospel chapter 10. We are seeing that behind everything in the gospel by John is a Jewish background and we are seeing that in this gospel there is the movement from the Jewish background to the new Israel foreground. That is, from the old dispensation of Israel, to the new dispensation of the new and heavenly Israel. In this gospel there is a movement going on; on the one side it is the closing down of the history of the old Israel and on the other side the opening up of the history of the new Israel so that there is a background and a foreground in this gospel.

Now, we are following sixteen points in that transition and tonight we come to point number 13 which means that there are not many left for us! And point number 13 is marked in chapter 10 of the gospel by John. Everybody knows what is in this chapter, it is the chapter of the good shepherd and his sheep. We're not going to read the chapter because it is so well known, the heart of the chapter is the words, "I am the good shepherd." I want to put alongside of that one or two other passages of Scripture and go back to the book of the Psalms.

Psalm 77 and verse 20: "Thou leddest thy people like a flock, by the hand of Moses and Aaron".

Chapter 78, Psalm 78 verse 52: "But he led forth his own people like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock".

Now in the book of the Acts, chapter 20, at verse 28: "Take heed unto yourselves, and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. I know that after my departing grievous wolves shall enter in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them".

Now over to the letter to the Hebrews, and this letter is the basis of all our meditation this week. The letter to the Hebrews chapter 13 at verse 20: "Now the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep with the blood of the eternal covenant, even our Lord Jesus, make you perfect in every good thing to do his will".

So here we have the flock spoken of, both in the Old Testament and the New. There does not need that there should be very much argument that the Lord looked upon Israel of old as His sheep. The books of the prophets are just full of this idea; the prophets were continually speaking about Israel as God's sheep. The nations were judged by God because of their treatment of God's sheep: they destroyed and they scattered God's sheep. With the false shepherds in Israel, God was very angry - they failed to fulfil their trust to the sheep. Well, there's a very great deal more, as we have seen in the Psalms about Israel as the Lord's sheep.

We begin our meditation on this matter by speaking about the Lord who is the owner of the sheep. That is the great point which governs this whole matter. The sheep belong to the Lord. They are the Lord's sheep, the Lord's ownership of the flock is everywhere emphasised. The sheep exist for the Shepherd, and the Shepherd exists for the sheep. The love of God for Israel as His sheep is everywhere to be noted. They were "the people of his pasture". The love of God for Israel of old is a very wonderful thing. What care He showed for the sheep in the wilderness! How, as a Shepherd, He provided pasture and water for them, even in the desert. How angry He was when anyone touched His sheep! He was very jealous about His sheep. Touch one of the Lord's sheep and you touch the Lord! The Lord claimed the ownership of His sheep, and because He owned them and they were His sheep, everything He did was on that ground.

In these days we are seeing how God, on the one side, had to forsake Israel. The God who had so loved Israel, the God who had been so jealous for Israel, the God who had done everything that He could do for Israel, had at last to hand over His sheep and break His relationship with them.

Why was that? that is not like God! It seems to be such a contradiction of God. God would never, never do that if He could possibly avoid it. He had said: "I have loved thee with an everlasting love". It was a terrible thing for God to have to forsake Israel, and He had to do that. And today Israel is in that condition - no longer God's flock, as it was in old times. Those sheep are scattered over all the earth, they are without a shepherd.

Why did that come about? Simply for this one reason: Israel's fatal sin was their repudiation of God as their one Shepherd. They turned to other gods; they made other gods their shepherds. They followed the voice of other gods, they repudiated the sole ownership of the Lord. That great chapter, Isaiah 53, shows their attitude toward the Shepherd. A word rises out of that chapter: "All we like sheep have gone astray", and that chapter shows how they treated God's provided Shepherd.

It is impressive to note that the Apostle Paul quotes this very thing in his letter to the Romans in chapter 10 and verse 16: "But they did not all hearken to the glad tidings. For Isaiah said, Lord, who hath believed our report?". They refused to believe the message of the prophets, and the message of the prophets was all about God as the Shepherd and Israel as the sheep. And the prophet says: "This is why they turned away from Jehovah... All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way". Away from the way of the Lord to their own way. And their own way was to choose other shepherds than the Lord.

It is a rather impressive thing to notice that in Psalm 95 where this matter of the sheep comes up, Psalm 95 verse 7, : "For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand". Now, do you notice the verse does not finish there, the rest of the verse is this strange word: "Today, oh, that you would hear His voice! Harden not your heart". We are the... sheep of his pasture but the sheep can have very hard hearts and refuse to hear the Shepherd's voice. So to His sheep of old He said: "Oh, today, that you would not harden your heart".

Do you know friends that that very word is quoted at least three times in the letter to the Hebrews? Three times in that letter it is quoted: "Today if ye shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts" (Hebrews 3:7,8). So it was hardness of heart, that lost Israel their Shepherd - the refusal to hear His voice. Paul said in that letter to the Romans: "I would have you know, that a hardening of heart has happened to Israel", and you have only got to read this one chapter, John 10, to see the hard heart of Israel. It's a terrible thing!

Just look at this: Jesus has been speaking about Himself as the good Shepherd, who gives His life for the sheep. He has said: "I give unto my sheep eternal life; and they shall never perish" and all these wonderful things about Himself as the Shepherd and His sheep. Do you notice what happens at verse 19? "There arose a division among the Jews because of these words. And many of them (the Jews) said, He hath a devil" ... "I am the good shepherd... I give My life for the sheep... I am come that they might have life... I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish." All these wonderful and beautiful things and the Jews said: "He has a devil"!

Now do you understand why God had to cast them off? "We have hardened our hearts. We have turned every one to our own way. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have gone away from the Shepherd because of self-will. In other words, we have said: 'We will not that have this Man to reign over us'".

That is the Jewish background of John 10. Into that situation Jesus came as the good Shepherd. And what a situation to come into! You can feel the very atmosphere of antagonism, you can feel how they hated Him. Presently they will take counsel that they may kill Him. He was right when He called them wolves who would destroy the sheep!

Right into that atmosphere Jesus came and He said: "I am the good Shepherd, and I am going to lead My sheep out of all this. I am going to take My flock out of this setting, out of this false flock." And He leads the nucleus of His new flock and He gives unto them eternal life. He begins with a nucleus out of the old - a dividing work takes place.

I didn't read the whole of that statement just for this purpose; I wanted to keep it until now: "There arose a division among the Jews... many of them said, He has a devil, He is mad; why hear Him? Others said, These are not the sayings of one possessed with a devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?"

He is evidently getting some other sheep. There are those out of the old flock who are inclined toward Him. They are the new beginning, the new Israel, and He says: "I will lead them out, right out of that whole setting". And we see that nucleus on the Day of Pentecost: beginning with twelve - and then one hundred and twenty - and then more than five hundred brethren at once - and then three thousand - and then five thousand. The new flock.

Well, here you see, Jesus is building upon the Old Testament principle. If He cannot take the Old Testament sheep, He will take up the principle of Shepherd and sheep and He will carry it over into His new Israel of this dispensation.

Well, the position is perfectly clear, isn't it? There you have it, quite plainly: one Israel is being put aside and another Israel is being put in its place. The earthly is going, the heavenly is coming in to take its place, and this heavenly Israel becomes the new flock under the new Shepherd.

Now we have to note some of the marks of these true sheep. Jesus says here "I know My sheep", and there are certain things by which He knows His own sheep. If you have any doubt as to whether you are one of the Lord's sheep, here it is, you can prove it, and the Lord knows Himself by these marks.

You know, shepherds put a mark on their own sheep. It may be a red mark, or it may be a blue mark, but on their sheep they put their own mark. And in our country it's just wonderful to see how that works. Many flocks of sheep are sent out onto the mountains and they all get mixed up, they wander far, far over the mountains. And the day comes when the shepherds want to bring in their own sheep. Well, how are they going to get their own sheep out of all this mix up? Now here is a very wonderful thing: the shepherd has a sheep dog and how it is I don't know, but those dogs know the sheep that belong to their shepherd. The sheep dog knows the sheep that belong to his master and the shepherd simply gives a word to the dogs. And off he goes over the mountains, he's picking up all the sheep that have a certain mark on it and the dog brings back just those sheep. The point is that the sheep have a mark on them and by that mark they are known. Now Jesus is saying here: "I know My sheep because there are marks on My sheep." And what are these marks?

The first one is this: "My sheep hear My voice and they know Me... My sheep hear My voice and they know Me".

You know, this is, this is an illustration of a great truth. The gospels are but the illustrations of great truths. If you go on into the rest of the New Testament you will read a great deal about spiritual intelligence, spiritual understanding, and you will read about having an ear to hear what the Spirit says. Seven times at the beginning of the Book of the Revelation you have that - "He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit saith". Of course, that is not our outward ear. The sheep of the Lord have an inward ear given to them, that is, a faculty of spiritual intelligence; an ability to hear what no one else can hear. It was to that that the Lord was referring - "My sheep know when I speak. They have an ear for Me. My sheep are always listening for My voice. My sheep hear My voice".

Every truly born again child of God is given a faculty of spiritual hearing. That is why, you say in the early days of your Christian life: "The Lord seems to be saying something to me. The Lord seems to be saying that I ought not to talk as I do talk, and the Lord seems to be saying to me that I ought not to dress as I have been dressing, and the Lord seems to be saying to me that I should not to go to the places which I used to go to...", and a thousand other things like that. The Lord seems to be saying something... He is speaking in the heart, and as we go on in the Christian life that becomes the governing thing in our lives. We seek to hear what the Lord has to say to us, and when we hear His voice then there arises a crisis. Are we going back to the way of the old Israel going our own way? Or are we going to hear that voice and obey?

You see that is the message of the letter to the Hebrews: "Don't go back on to that old ground! Today if ye shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts as they did." But it is a very wonderful thing to see people who are obeying His voice! It is not because other people have to tell them these things. They are a poor kind of Christian who have to be told all the time what they should do and what they should not do. The true sheep hear His voice and they follow Him. It's something that comes out of the heart - they have heard Him speak in the heart. This, of course, is the whole of that New Testament subject of spiritual understanding, and you and I, as Christians, are supposed to have that faculty of spiritual understanding.

We were speaking about Nicodemus earlier. He was a ruler of the Jews, a great man in Israel. He had a high position and a great education, and yet he hadn't the first idea of spiritual things. Jesus had to say to him: "If I had spoken to you earthly things, and you have not understood, well, what will happen if I begin to speak of heavenly things?". Nicodemus could not see beyond the natural to the spiritual. When Jesus said "You must be born again", he could not see beyond the natural, he said: "How can a man be born when he is old?". He hadn't any spiritual intelligence. He was like a little child, although a great teacher in Israel.

I have a little grand-daughter about four years of age. She went to Sunday School and when she came home from Sunday School she said to her mother: "Mother, will you get me out all my baby toys, the baby toys that we put away?' Her mother said: "Why do you want your baby toys out again?" "Oh," she said, "my teacher says I must be born again!"

Well, that's a little child, you might expect that of a little child, but here is the great big grown-up Nicodemus and he is no better than that! You might expect more of him, but you don't get it. Spiritual intelligence belongs to the born again ones, and you and I are given that gift with our birth. We have a whole new set of faculties, to hear, to see, to feel, and so on. And I repeat it is about that very thing that the New Testament speaks when it speaks of spiritual understanding. That is what Jesus meant when He said: "My sheep hear My voice and they know Me".

The next mark about these sheep is: "My sheep... follow me."

Now that is very simple in the words, but they have a very deep meaning. It means that His sheep never have to be driven, His sheep never have to be compelled to go His way. His sheep follow Him in a voluntary, and spontaneous way. The Lord never has to say (or ought never to say) to His sheep: "You must come this way." The Lord is going a certain way and His sheep see which way He is going and they follow Him.

Of course, in this part of the world, it is just the other way round where sheep are concerned. I have a son who is a farmer and he has one of these wonderful sheep dogs. And how often we have heard him give the dog a word of command and off the dog has gone. But the dog has never stood in front of the sheep and said, "Follow me"! He has gone round behind the sheep and has driven them on. He is running from side to side all the time, he is not letting one of those sheep get away; he is driving them on. And if a sheep should stop, the dog quietly creeps up and then suddenly lets his presence be known and that sheep goes on! Well, these  sheep have to be driven, but it's never like that in the East, and Jesus takes the principle of government from the East. He says: "I don't drive My sheep. I never have to get behind them and force them to go on. I never have to send a dog after them bite their heels to get them going. My sheep hear My voice and they follow Me." It's a spontaneous movement of the heart to go after the Lord.

Now let us apply the law. These are the marks of the His sheep. Are you one of His sheep? Do you really hear the Lord speaking in your heart? Do you listen for His voice? Do you seek to have your life guided by that voice of the Spirit within speaking to you through the Word of God, speaking to you through the circumstances of your life, speaking to you through your sorrows? The Lord always having something to say to us, there are very few things which happen to the Lord's sheep which do not have some meaning. It is for us to seek to know what it is the Lord is saying to us - the government of the life of the Lord's sheep is by hearing His voice. Do you know anything about that?

And what about this spontaneous response to the Lord... a heart that readily goes after the Lord? We have only to know that the Lord wants something and we respond with a hearty "Yes, Lord"?

Now I must close, time has gone extra quickly tonight somehow! What is the bond between us, His sheep, and Him, the Shepherd? It is the same bond as existed between old Israel and the Lord. This same principle is taken over, it is the principle of His ownership. That which unites us with the Lord is the realisation that we belong to Him, that He is the absolute owner of our lives. To quote another Scripture: "Ye are not your own; ye were bought with a price", and we have the mark of the Lord put upon us, which is the seal of His ownership. And Paul tells us that the seal is the Holy Spirit - "sealed with the Holy Spirit". When you look at the seal you know who the box belongs to. That says that "This is the property of a certain person". The Lord gives us His Spirit as the seal that we belong to Him.

What a sheep the apostle Paul was! He said: "Let no man trouble me (that is, trying to draw me away): for I bear branded in my body the marks of Jesus... The marks of Jesus mean that I belong to Him". He said to the centurion on the ship when he was travelling to Rome: "The angel of the Lord stood by me this night whose I am, and whom I serve". The true sheep of the Lord are never ashamed to say: "I belong to the Lord Jesus. He owns my life and everything that I have. I am completely committed to Him." That is a true sheep!

Well, these are the marks of His new Israel. And you can now understand why we have these words which have been the key to all our meditations: "Wherefore, holy brethren, companions of a heavenly calling... companions of Christ". There is a kind of companionship between this Shepherd and His sheep. They are not just animals, they are friends. There is a wonderful friendship between the Lord Jesus and His own - "Companions of a heavenly calling".

Chapter 12 - The Superiority of the Heavenly

There are some words in the letter to the Hebrews about which I feel led to speak to you this morning. They are in chapter 3 and verses 1 and 14.

"Wherefore, holy brethren, companions of a heavenly calling... we are become companions of Christ if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto the end."

We have been seeing that this wonderful letter embodies the transition from the old Israel of the earth to the new Israel of heaven. This morning we are going to concentrate upon one aspect of this, it is the superiority of the heavenly Israel to the earthly.

The writer of this letter, whoever he was, was giving himself wholly to the immense superiority of what had come in with this dispensation. It was as though he said to himself, "The time has come for someone to let these people know how superior is that which has come in with this dispensation. This final movement of God in the history of this world is greater than anything before". And that is what he set himself to show to the people of his day, but God meant it for more than that: God meant it for His people for all time.

Who wrote this letter, no one knows. Many names have been mentioned. Some have been very certain about it and then someone else has come along and upset that certainty. Some have been very sure that Paul wrote this, others have very nearly proved that Paul did not write it. Some have thought that Apollos wrote it, others have said it was Barnabas; Apollos, because he was a man "mighty in the Scriptures" (so it was said of him) and it certainly did require a man mighty in the Scriptures to write this book! Barnabas, well Barnabas was a Levite, he knew all about the Levitical system of the Old Testament, so he would be a good one to write the book. As for Paul, well, of course, he was the perfect master both of Judaism and of Christianity, and it needed such a man to write this book. If Stephen had not been martyred, I would have chosen him, because I think in his last great discourse you have all the substance of the letter to the Hebrews. Well, we cannot say.

Do you wonder why I take time to talk like this? And I have a reason, because this letter is something that really only the Holy Spirit could write. The Holy Spirit required all that knowledge of the old dispensation and of the nature of the new to set down what is in this book. The fact is that it needed someone who knew all about Israel and all about Christ to write this book just for this very reason: that the message of this book is the wonderful superiority of Christ to all that had been before.

I am touching on very old and well-worn ground when I remind you of the place that the word "better" has in this letter. That word "better" occurs more often in this letter than in all the rest of the New Testament put together. And here is a study for the beginners in Bible study. Get out your box of coloured pencils, choose a good colour that you think is suitable to "better", and underline that word through this letter. You will find that you have it occurring thirteen times, and always in a very instructive connection. I'm just going to run through them:

Chapter 1 verse 4 - "Better than the angels". (Well that's a high place to begin at!)

Chapter 6 verse 9 - "We are persuaded better things of you".

Chapter 7 verse 19 - "A better hope"; verse 22 - "A better covenant".

Chapter 8 verse 6 - again "A better covenant" and "better promises".

Chapter 9 verse 23 - "Better sacrifices".

Chapter 10 verse 34 - "A better possession".

Chapter 11, 16 and 35 - "A better country" and "A better resurrection".

Chapter 11 verse 40 - "Some better thing".

Then, alongside of that, you can put chapter 12 verse 24 - "The blood of Jesus speaketh better things than that of Abel". And then in chapter 1 verse 4 and chapter 8 verse 6 you have the words "more excellent", and again in chapter 1 verse 4, chapter 3 verse 3, and chapter 10 verse 25 the phrase "by so much more".

Well, that word itself is a key to the Letter. Everything here is better than it has ever been before and we can come back with that to our own key words: "Holy brethren, companions of a heavenly calling" - called to something so much better than has ever been in the history of this world.

Now, just again, let us remind ourselves of why this letter was written. In the first place, it was written to save these Christians from spiritual declension or spiritual arrest. For various reasons they were being tempted to draw back. You will remember that those words occur in a warning: "If any man draw back..." the Lord says, "My soul shall have no pleasure in him". It is a terrible thing to get into a place where the Lord hasn't any pleasure in you, to lose the pleasure of the Lord. And to prevent these Christians from getting into such a position, this letter was written.

Some were inclined to just stand still and not go on any further, so that their spiritual life would be arrested and that they would no longer go on and grow. They would become just "stand-still" Christians - "As it was, so it is now" - nothing of the future life governing them. So, to save them from going back and from standing still, this letter was written.

But we have already pointed out that there was another reason: it was written to carry these Christians through a time of great trouble which was coming. It was evidently written very shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem. Perhaps the writer saw the signs of that coming, whether he saw those signs or not, the Holy Spirit saw what was coming. He knew that a time of great testing was coming to these Christians, when all that they had trusted in on this earth was going to be shaken, so the Holy Spirit, who knew all about that, led this writer to write this letter. It was intended, therefore, to be a strength to them and salvation in a time of trouble. And the method of so ministering help to them was to show again the greatness of the Lord Jesus, the greatness of the heavenly calling, and how great a thing it is to be companions of Christ and of the heavenly calling. And so the writer sets out to bring the Lord Jesus into view in His superiority to all who had gone before. But in doing so, he does another thing, and this is a very interesting thing that is in this letter. He says: "Down through the past ages there have been men who have had great difficulties, men who had many discouragements and trials..." and he speaks about Abraham.

Now, Abraham indeed had a difficult life. There was the difficulty of the postponed promise - God's promises did not seem to be in the way of fulfilment. God was taking such a long time to fulfill His word. We all know something about that difficulty! We are in a hurry and God is not - He seems to have all time to play with, our trouble is: "Oh, if only the Lord would hurry up!" and I suppose our prayers are so often marked by one word: "Lord, hasten it!"

Now, if any man knew about having to be patient, it was Abraham! There was then the difficulty of unfulfilled promises, God taking so much time. Some times Abraham just broke down under that. On one occasion he left the land of promise and went to Egypt - and found himself in still greater trouble and had to tell a lie to get out of it.

It was a very real testing, this matter was to Abraham. I think there are signs that Abraham's wife was not always in sympathy with him. When they were both old and the Lord said that they should have a son, it says that Sarah, in her tent, laughed. And the Lord was angry, and Abraham had to rebuke her. Well, we must have full sympathy with Sarah, she was being hard put to it by the way in which the Lord was taking her husband and she was not always able to see as her husband saw, and to feel just as he felt. Perhaps, for that reason, Abraham had a certain measure of spiritual loneliness in his life.

Then what about that young man Lot? He was just a lot of trouble! He certainly did not share Abraham's vision! His vision was all on this earth, his ambitions were all for the present, and you know well the story of Lot and what a thorn he was in the side of Abraham.

Well, I suppose I could add other things to the painful story. Abraham's was not an easy life, but, do you know, the New Testament says that Abraham rejoiced? Abraham rejoiced! And why did he rejoice? Why did he rejoice in tribulation? Jesus Himself tells us why: "Your father Abraham saw My day and rejoiced". In some way Abraham had seen the Lord Jesus, had seen the day of the Lord Jesus, and that got him through all his troubles. He rejoiced because he saw the Lord Jesus and the day of Christ.

You know, there's more in this letter to the Hebrews about what Abraham saw. He had seen a heavenly country, and was looking for it. He had seen "a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker was God". Abraham had seen the day of Jesus Christ. You remember this writer of the letter to the Hebrews says: "We are come to the heavenly Jerusalem". Abraham had seen that, and seeing the Lord Jesus, he was able to go on; he rejoiced in a long life of trial.

What about Moses? Did Moses have any trouble? Well, we could make up a long story about the troubles of Moses! He had to carry a very heavy burden, and there was a time when Moses nearly lost his heart. He said to the Lord: "Oh these people... they are too much for me, they are too great a burden. I cannot carry them". Very often Moses had to go back to the Lord like that and say to the Lord: "You've asked me to do something that is more than I can do." Through forty long, weary years, Moses had very many trials, but we have this word here: "He endured, as seeing Him who is invisible". Who was the "him" that he was seeing? Notice what this letter to the Hebrews says. When Moses was in Pharaoh's palace and saw his own Hebrew brethren being persecuted, he decided that he was going to take sides with them, and you know what he did. And then this letter to the Hebrews tells us something: he chose to suffer affliction with the people of God - and here's a wonderful thing - "he counted the reproach of Christ greater than the riches of Egypt". The reproach of Christ! What did Moses know about Christ? Somehow he had seen Christ and he saw that these Hebrew people were called in relation to Christ, and "he endured, as seeing Him who is invisible".

This is a point at which our minds have got to get adjusted. Perhaps we have got the idea that when Jesus came into this world, that was the beginning of Him, but the Word of God makes it perfectly clear that Jesus Christ was present in the days of Abraham and Moses. Indeed, the Word says that He was present in the creation of the world: "By Him were all things created" says the Scriptures. He was there all the time! He was the One who was appearing again and again and they did not recognise Him. He appeared to Abraham, He appeared to Moses, He appeared to Joshua, He appeared to Gideon... yes, this same Christ was there, active all the time. He did not just begin when He was born in Bethlehem, He only came then into this world in human form.

Do you think that's exaggerating? Well, let's come to our letter to the Hebrews, chapter 13, verse 8: "Jesus Christ... the same yesterday, and today, and forever". I have left out one little word "Jesus Christ IS the same...": He IS yesterday, He IS today and He IS tomorrow. There is no yesterday, today and tomorrow with Jesus. "Yesterday" was the day of the old dispensation when this writer wrote this letter, "today" was the day in which he lived, it was the new dispensation that had just begun. "Today" is the period between Christ going back to heaven and His coming again, that's today. We have seen already how that phrase is quoted three times in this letter, it is brought over from yesterday to today: "Today if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts". That is a message for this dispensation. Yesterday, and today, and tomorrow... "tomorrow" is forever, and it's going to be the same Jesus Christ.

So the writer of this letter is saying: "Jesus Christ was back there in yesterday. He was in the past dispensation, the same Jesus Christ as we know today. And He will be the same Jesus Christ forever".

Now, if you turn again to the beginning of this letter to the Hebrews, do you notice how many quotations from the Old Testament are in this chapter? We cannot stay, I think, to look at them, but the Old Testament is here used a very great deal, and the quotations are things concerning Christ, so that, in the first place, it's quite clear that He was in the Old Testament. He was being spoken about then, He was present in the minds of the writers of the Old Testament. There are quotations from David; Jesus Christ was very much in the mind of David. The words "Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee" David first wrote that and there is much more like it.

The quotations from the Old Testament are very many at the beginning of this letter, which simply shows that Jesus Christ was present then, present in the thoughts of those writers, and that Jesus Christ is brought over from yesterday to today. And this writer is simply saying: "That Jesus Christ of the prophets and the men of old is this One today of whom I am writing". This first chapter of the letter just takes up all that about Christ and brings it over here into the present - it's the same Jesus Christ.

But now we haven't begun to see the superiority of this "today" over "yesterday". We have only sought to do one thing, and that is the thing that this writer set out to do: to show that to get through trouble and testing you need to have a large conception of the Lord Jesus. If we are going to get through to the end in victory, it will depend upon what kind of a Christ our Christ is to us.

The writer realised that these Christians were finding the way rather long and difficult, and the most testing thing in spiritual life was their need; and that is patience. "You have need of patience... that after you have done the will of God..." and so at the end of the letter he says: "Let us run with patience the race that is set before us". And what is the real strength of patience? Oh, it's so easy to say to people: "Now, be patient. Don't be in a hurry. Things will turn out all right..." and I'm afraid when people talk to me like that, I never feel so bad. But this writer did not just say to these Christians: "Now be patient!" He did say: "Let us run with patience the race..." it will test our patience, it calls for a lot of patience, but the thing that will keep your patience strong is this - "Looking off unto Jesus". If we look at ourselves, we'll give up the race. If we look at other people... there are a lot of people who will make us give up the race. If we look around us on the world we shall lose patience... and so I like the true translation, some versions just say "Looking unto Jesus". Well, that's all right, but the real version is: "Looking off unto Jesus". You must take your eyes off of yourself. You must positively refuse to look at yourself. You must train yourself in the habit of refusing not to look at yourself. Every time you are tempted to look at yourself, you'll have to say: "No! No, I shut my eyes to that." You must not have your eyes on those Christians who are disappointing Christians. You must remember that the very best Christians are only human, after all. It is a very dangerous thing to think of any man or woman as being infallible.

I think Paul got very near to doing that once. You know, Paul owed a very great deal to Barnabas. It was Barnabas who went off to find Paul, it was Barnabas who brought him back. And when even the apostles saw Saul of Tarsus come in the door, I think some of them had other things to do, "Excuse me, but I must go and do something..." they drew back. They were all suspicious of this man and they drew back, and Barnabas took him by the hand and brought him in, and said: "Don't be afraid, brothers. He has met our Lord Jesus. He is now a companion of Jesus Christ. He is one with us." And they received him.

It was Barnabas who brought Paul to Antioch, Antioch was in great need at that time. They needed a very strong minister, and off Barnabas goes and says: "I know the man!" And he brings Saul to Antioch and so introduced him to his life ministry.

Paul owed a lot to Barnabas. It says of Barnabas, "He was a good man, and full of the Holy Spirit". I think Paul put Barnabas on a high pedestal. And then that day, that terrible day, came when Barnabas fell off of his pedestal. You know of the division between the Jewish and the Gentile Christians and that the new order of Christ demanded that they should be all one, that they should eat together and drink together. Peter had learned that lesson over the house of Cornelius, but then that day came when this whole question of eating and drinking arose; Jews and Gentiles meeting at the same table. It was a very strong dispute; it was a very critical day. And then it says "They sent down certain from Jerusalem..." James came down and some others with them - and Peter withdrew from the table. He was afraid of James, he was afraid of those others from Jerusalem! He said: "I mustn't let these senior brothers see me eating with Gentiles..." and so he withdrew. And Paul says, "And so strong was the contention that even Barnabas was caught in their dissimulation! Just think of it - Barnabas! I never believed that Barnabas would do a thing like that! I thought Barnabas was far above anything like that." I am sure it was a very great blow to Paul's confidence in men, and if he had continued to keep his eyes on Barnabas, no one knows what would have happened. He had to look off from Barnabas to Jesus.

Paul was always having to do that. In many ways and situations he had to just take his eyes off and look unto Jesus. I think there's a very real touch of Paul in this letter - "Looking off unto Jesus". My own opinion is that whoever wrote this letter, Paul had a good hand in it. His influence is everywhere in this letter. And certainly he was called upon to look off unto Jesus.

Now that is a very vital lesson for us to learn. Again and again we have to do that in our Christian life. If we get our eyes upon anything but the Lord Jesus, we may just go to pieces. Have all respect for God's saints, I'm not saying that you have got to eye every servant of God with suspicion and be all the time saying: "Well, of course, he is not perfect, you know..." no, give honour to whom honour is due, but never build your faith upon any man, however good he may be.

And as for ourselves... I think perhaps we are more often tempted to look at ourselves than at anything else! And this is one of our real Christian exercises. We have continually to remove our eyes from ourselves and everything to do with ourselves. There is nothing more discouraging than this self of ours, there is nothing more misleading than ourselves. Our own judgments are all wrong, our own ideas are all wrong, our thoughts are not God's thoughts.

We must take our eyes off ourselves, but not look out into space, not to be vacant, but "Look off unto Jesus", and you know how that sentence is finished - "Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith". Did you start this thing? Are you a Christian because you decided to be a Christian? Well, the Lord help you if that is so! No, He started this thing. Are you not glad that you can say: "It was the Lord who found me! It was the Lord who put His hand on me"? It is very true what He said: "You did not choose Me, but I chose you!" He was the Author of our faith, and it says He is the Finisher - He will finish it.

I have so often said that when we get to heaven we will be full of wonder that we ever did get there! Well, in our experiences in this life we sometimes feel like that. When we arrived in Aeschi last week, I said to my wife, "Well, we're here! We're here." And when I said that, that meant a lot! If you knew all the history of the past year, you'd say, "That's wonderful!" but that's a very small thing. When we all get to the glory, we'll just look at one another and say: "Well, we are here! It's a wonderful story; how we got here I don't know. A thousand times I thought I'd never get there and had given up all hope - but we're here because Jesus is the finisher". Believe that, dear friends! In the day of your despair, in the day of your difficulty, look off unto Jesus. He has said: "Where I am, there shall My servant be also". And if it takes a thousand miracles, He will work them to get us there. Do believe it! Take hold of it with both hands and trust Him to see you right through to the glory, for that is one of the great things in this letter: "Bringing many sons to glory". That means you, and that means me.

I haven't said anything about the superiority! We can leave that for the present....

Chapter 13 - Companions in Life

We are taking note of the movement from the old Israel to the New Israel; from the old, earthly, historic Israel, to the new, heavenly, spiritual Israel. This gospel by John is one of the books in the New Testament which especially have to do with that matter. That is, this gospel in a particular way sets forth this transition from the old to the new, from what was in the Old Testament times, to what is now in New Testament times. And we have indicated that in this gospel there are sixteen points in that transition. And we have already dealt with thirteen of these, so that tonight we come to number fourteen, and that is in the eleventh chapter of the gospel.

It would take too much of our time to read the whole chapter and especially because I have some other Scriptures that I want to bring in. Most of you will be familiar with this account of the death and raising of Lazarus. If you are not familiar with it, just look down the chapter and as quickly as possible acquaint yourself with what is said here. I shall be dealing with it in a general way, but I want to bring in at this point alongside of that chapter some passages from the Old Testament.

I turn you first to the prophecies of Ezekiel, chapter 37, at verse 12. I think many of you people on the continent are not as familiar with your Old Testament as you are with the New, so I will give you plenty of time to find it. If you open your Bible very near the middle, you'll be near Ezekiel; I hope you don't think I'm insulting your intelligence. Ezekiel chapter 37 at verse 12: "Wherefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God, behold I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, oh My people, and I will bring you into the land of Israel and ye shall know that I am the Lord when I have opened your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves, oh My people."

Now over to the prophecies of Isaiah, chapter 11, at verse 11: "And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall set His hand again, the second time, to recover the remnant of His people which shall remain from Syria, from Egypt..." and so on.

Now over to the New Testament, the letter to the Romans, chapter 9, verse 27: "And Isaiah crieth concerning Israel, if the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that shall be saved for the Lord will execute His word on the earth, finishing it and cutting it short and as as Isaiah hath said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had become as Sodom, and had been made like unto Gomorrah."

You will remember those Scriptures as I refer to them as we go along. We come then to John chapter 11: "Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany of the village of Mary and her sister Martha." We have been seeing that in this whole gospel there is a Jewish background to everything and that the Lord is building His new Israel with the old Israel in the background. That is, you can see the new spiritual Israel in the light of God's dealings with the old, earthly Israel. But at this point the old Israel was being put aside and against that rejection of the old Israel, God is bringing in His new Israel after the Spirit. The saints, the believers of this present dispensation are God's new, heavenly Israel.

Now, to see the Israel that is being rejected, just note some verses here. And once more you will see how unfortunate it is that the chapters are divided, of course they had to be divided as a convenience for public reading, but in your private reading you ought never to take any notice of these chapter divisions. So you look back to what is marked as chapter 10 at verse 39, this is speaking about Jesus: "And they sought again to take Him and He went forth out of their hand". Look back at verse 31: "The Jews took up stones again to stone Him...." Verse 33: "The Jews answered Him, For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy; because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God".

Now over again to chapter 11 at verse 11, at verse 7: "Then after this He saith to the disciples, Let us go into Judaea again. The disciples say unto Him, Rabbi, the Jews were but now seeking to stone thee; and goest thou thither again?"

Now you see the Jewish background. Repeatedly they attempted to stone Jesus. They wanted to do with Him what later they did with His servant Stephen - just to stone Him there, and leave Him broken in body and dead - just as they did to Stephen. Again and again and again they took up the stones to stone Him: "and they sought to stone Him" it says. That is the Jewish background of chapter eleven, and it very clearly shows us why Israel of old had to be set aside, and why God must have another Israel. That kind of Israel can never serve the purpose of God! And so that Israel is rejected.

Now you notice that if you remove the chapter mark 11 and read through from chapter 10 and read right on, you'll find that this account of the death and raising of Lazarus is set right in that background. We must never just take some story as an incident in itself. We must always recognise that it relates to something else, and this dying and raising of Lazarus is set right in that Jewish background. This was not just a coincidence, not just a chance sort of thing that happened. Jesus made it perfectly clear that this was in the plan of God, if you read the story. And it is quite clear from what Jesus said that this is all planned - this is arranged by God. It is arranged by God that Lazarus shall die, and Jesus is not going to interfere with that. It has got to happen because it stands related to some very big thing that God is doing.

Well, let us look at Lazarus. Our friend Lazarus is sick, and Lazarus has a sickness for which there is no cure. I don't know how many doctors there were in Bethany, or even in Jerusalem just a few miles away, but I am quite sure that if there were any doctors about during those four days, the sisters would have sent for the doctor. But whether they sent for the doctor or not, the doctors could have done nothing. Lazarus has just got to die in the plan of God. He has a sickness for which there is no cure, and even Jesus, who had more than once raised the dead, will not interfere in this matter. He just positively refuses to prevent Lazarus from dying. Here it tells us that when Jesus heard about it He stayed where He was for four days. Of course, it was that that made the great problem for the sisters, and it gave something to the enemies. They said: "Could not this man, who gave sight to the blind, have prevented this man from dying?" Well, let the sisters misunderstand and let the enemies misjudge, Jesus is not going to be moved by anything. He lets Lazarus die.

Is this a hopeless situation? Well, what does Jesus say about it? When He received the message from the sisters of Lazarus He said: "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified thereby." This sickness is not unto death, and yet He let him die. He evidently meant: "This sickness is not unto death forever - it is not final death." Later He said, "our friend Lazarus is dead", and yet He said, "It is not unto death". So He meant: "this death is not going to be the last word".

Now let us note this as we go along: the spiritual knowledge of Jesus. Although He was a long way away, away from Bethany, He knew exactly the moment when Lazarus died. No one sent a second message to Him to say "Lazarus is dead". He said to His disciples: "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth". They said: "Well if he sleeps, he'll do well". "Then said Jesus plainly unto them, Lazarus is dead." Jesus knew in His spirit what had happened, He knew in His spirit that Lazarus had died. In His spirit He always knew when there was death and when there was life anywhere. And I'm tempted to stop there and put in something else: you know, dear friends, that if the Lord Jesus is in us by His Spirit, we always know when things are alive or dead. We may go amongst some people and say: "My word, there is no life here! It is all dead." Or we may go amongst other people like those at Aeschi and say: "My, there's life here!" We know it in our spirit. No one has to tell us that those people are dead or they are alive. And that is a mark of the Lord Jesus. Now that is just something by itself, let us go on.

Jesus knew the moment that Lazarus died. Now we have the Jewish background, the immediate connection of this incident, that is, the connection of the old Israel. Now that is why I read those Scriptures from Ezekiel and Isaiah. When Israel was in captivity in Babylon and Assyria, the Lord said they were dead and buried, and He said "When I shall open their graves". To the Lord they were in their graves. And then Isaiah said, "a remnant shall return", and that remnant was the people who came up out of the grave of Assyria and Babylon.

Now, did you notice in Romans how Paul takes that up and brings it over into the New Testament? He quotes Isaiah's word about a remnant and in Romans he is saying that out of the old buried Israel there is going to come a remnant that is resurrected by the Lord, and that remnant of Israel is going to be incorporated into the new heavenly Israel. That is why this story of Lazarus is put right in the Jewish setting.

You notice that Jesus deliberately moves into the Jewish area. It was there that they had repeatedly tried to stone Him, He said to His disciples: "Let us go back into Judaea". They said, "Lord, they have only just recently tried to stone You there. Why go back?" But He would not accept their argument. He went deliberately into the Jewish area although it was so hostile to Him. Why did He do it? The story of Lazarus is the answer. This death and raising of Lazarus was set over against that Jewish situation; right in the midst of the rejected, dead and buried old Israel, He is going to raise a new one.

You might have thought that when the Lord wanted to start His new work He would have gone to some other country. He would have said: "Well, I can do nothing in Jerusalem, I can do nothing in Palestine; let Me go to India, let Me go to China, let Me go to Switzerland and start afresh all over again", but He deliberately went back into Judaea and He said: "In the place of death I am going to have resurrection".

And the Day of Pentecost is wonderful for that fact alone. If ever there was an impossible situation, it was Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. The old Israel has been rejected by God, from God's standpoint it is dead. It is buried. And right there God brings, by new birth, His new Jerusalem. That's the immediate setting and meaning of this incident.

But we said Paul carries this whole thing right over into the New Testament and he says: "God has sent the old Israel away, but God is going to bring out of that very place of death His new Israel. A remnant is going to be saved through union with Jesus Christ in death and resurrection".

And what is the new Israel? Here again get rid of your chapter divisions, from a certain standpoint they can be a perfect nuisance. The chapters in the letter to the Romans - remove the numbers. What are marked chapters 9, 10, and 11 deal with, on the one side, the death of the old Israel, the rejected nation. And then it's there that the Apostle says that out of that a remnant will be brought. But you see chapter eleven goes straight into chapter twelve and what is chapter twelve about? It is about the Body of Christ! It says, "There is one body..." there is one Body. What is the Body of Christ? It is not Jew and Gentile brought together, it is both, having lost their own distinctiveness, and become one in Christ. In another place Paul says that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free... we are all one man in Christ. So that when the old Israel is removed, a remnant is taken out of it, and buried with Christ, and raised together with Christ. It does not come back as a Jewish remnant, it comes back as a part of the Body of Christ. That's the new Israel.

Well now, I have said that is the immediate connection, what will help us most is to see the wider connection.

Going back to Lazarus, the New Testament teaches us this: that the Cross of Jesus Christ does not cure the old man. It crucifies him. Now that's the trouble with most of us. Let us be perfectly honest about it! We are wanting the Lord to cure our old man, to make the old man a good old man, to remove from him all his faults, all that is wrong with him, all his sinful nature. The Cross of the Lord Jesus does not do that with the old man. The Cross of the Lord Jesus says in the sight of God that old man is dead and buried. "Our old man", says Paul, "was crucified with Christ". Jesus never came to any old man to heal him and make him better, and we are waiting all the days of our lives for the Lord to make us better. And right to the end of our life the old man will still be the old man, but with this difference - that God looks upon him as buried, as in the grave - crucified with Christ. There's Lazarus. Jesus would not cure Lazarus of his sickness. God would not cure Israel of its evil nature. God said: "It must die".

That's only half of the story, but let us be quite clear about this. There will always be an incurable background in our life which is not healed. It's there all the time, it's not healed, it is not cured of its spiritual maladies. Any day that you like, if you like to go back on the ground of the old man, you can commit the same old sins. That is what the New Testament teaches on one side.

But the glory will be in that which stands over against the background! The glory will be in what is in the foreground. We may have a sick body; the Lord does not always heal sick bodies. Just sometimes He does, but He does not always, even with the very best saints that He has had. And some of the best saints that God has ever had, have had sick bodies. We may have a sick human nature - and we all know that is true - we are all the time up against the troubles in one another, "Oh, if only I could forget what that brother or that sister is in himself or herself... I would have a happy time! But, you know, he is such an awkward man! He loves the Lord, he wants the Lord's best, but if you come up against him naturally you don't find him a very easy man to get on with..." and the Lord does not seem to deal with that, He does not seem to heal that human nature. I do not expect, dear friends, however long I live, that the day will come when everybody will think that I'm perfect. Perhaps in my last days, before going to the Lord, people will find some difficulties with me! Paul, right at the end of his life, says, "Neither am I already perfect..." I am not saying that we ought not to lose some of those strong, wrong ways in our lives.

Grace can work miracles in our human nature, but if you are looking for the day in this life when you are going to be absolutely free from your bad human nature, you are doomed to disappointment. Perhaps you'd say: "That's a very poor gospel to preach!" but there is another side to it. You and I can live in the power of His resurrection with a very sick body and with a very poor human nature. Yes, the power of His resurrection can cover so much! The foreground can just be the power of His resurrection.

We have to say about some people: "Well, you know, they're so weak physically. They know so much about sickness, and yet, look at what the Lord enables them to do! It's a miracle how much work they get through! They ought to have been dead a hundred times, but they go on." Not in their own strength, there is another strength that is over their weakness. Paul said: "When I am weak, then am I strong", the power of Christ's resurrection was overcoming his weakness. The weakness was there, he said: "I glory in infirmities, that the power of Christ may encamp upon me". He was speaking of his physical infirmities and he was speaking of the power of Christ's resurrection.

Now, what is true in the physical realm is true in the spiritual. If we live in ourselves, we will give up. Oh, what a lot of infirmities there are in our natures! We are always carrying about a lot of spiritual sicknesses. Do you understand what I mean? These natural infirmities of ours... what a trouble they are. And if ever we say "Well, I cannot...", and then, because we cannot, we say "I give it up", we have forfeited the greatest blessing of the Christian life. Think of all that the apostle Paul had to do and to suffer! It was a terrible, terrible life that he had to live, from one standpoint. He had a weak and infirm body, he had enemies wherever he went, he suffered three shipwrecks (he only tells, we're only told of one, but he says there were three) he was in the sea a day and a night. He was in nakedness and hunger. He had to travel on foot mile after mile, month after month. And so we can gather up all the difficulties in that life... if ever a man ought to have said "I cannot go on..." that man was Paul! But what did he say? "I can do all things in Him that strengtheneth me", not 'I can do all things' - Paul would have said 'I can do nothing' - but "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." There was a day when he naturally despaired of life; he said so. He said: "We had the sentence that it was death, on the natural side we despaired of life, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead".

Now, Lazarus was absolutely hopeless and helpless. He could do nothing... and that's how we are naturally. But Jesus said "it's for the glory of God". And dear friends, the glory of God is manifested in those who in themselves are as good as dead, but whom He enables to go on and to do much for Him. Jesus may not always heal us in body or in nature, but if He does not heal us, He can give us Divine Life and Divine Life is a great thing.

Perhaps some of you have heard of God's great servant, Dr. A. B. Simpson and Dr Simpson was a great believer in Divine healing. And he wrote a book on Divine healing, but, although he was such a great believer in Divine healing, he said this: "So that no one will misunderstand my position, I do not say that everybody has got to be healed, but I do say that everybody can know Divine life, which is something more than natural life."

Well, back to Lazarus. The Lord did not heal him, but the Lord gave him resurrection life, and this is the hope of everyone. The Lord may want to heal you in your body, or He may not do it. Whether He does it or whether He does not do it, He does not want us to live on our own life, He wants us to live by resurrection Life. That is what Jesus meant when He said: "This is not unto death, but to the glory of God". And if you look through your New Testament you will see that God is always glorified in resurrection. That is where the glory of God is.

You may see a very weak Christian physically, and you may glorify God in that weak Christian because of the wonderful power of Divine Life. You may see a person who has many faults and lots of things about them that you don't like, and yet there's something more than that - there is the Lord's Life in them. And while you may not glory in what they are naturally, you can glorify God for what they are spiritually. Well, that is the real heart of this incident of Lazarus. Life out of death is God's secret, it is the thing that most of all glorifies God.

Is that all a lovely story, all wonderful truth? Put it into operation tomorrow morning! When you get up in the morning say to the Lord: "Now Lord, I'm no good in myself, but I'm going to live this day by the power of Your resurrection". There may be impossible situations in yourself or outside of yourself; you just say to the Lord: "Now, Lord, You get glory today by enabling me to live by resurrection Life." It is something that we are to take by faith every day.

Timothy was evidently weak, a physically weak, young man. There was something wrong with his stomach and it was constantly troubling him. Paul said, "for thine oft infirmity..." Paul said to Timothy, "Lay hold on eternal life". You may have an "oft infirmity". If the Lord meant everybody to be physically healed, why did Paul not heal Timothy? Paul knew that there was something better than being physically healed - the power of eternal Life in a weak physical body is better. "Lay hold on eternal life" - that is, resurrection Life, something that we have got to do. May the Lord enable us to do it in all times of conscious weakness.

Chapter 14 - The Superiority of Christ

Yesterday morning we began to consider the superiority of what has come in with this dispensation, to that which belonged to the old. We only made a beginning on this matter - and when we say 'we made a beginning' on the last, but one day, of the conference, it is quite evident that we are going to have twelve baskets full over when we are finished! For really, we have not got into the heart of this letter to the Hebrews, and there is so much more that could extend for a long time. Perhaps that is how it ought to be. We do not want to come to an end, we want to feel that the land is a land of far distances... the land into which the Lord can lead us, even without a conference.

Well, this morning we are now going on a little way into that land - the land of the superiority of this dispensation over all past dispensations.

It may seem to some of you that I am repeating much of what I have already said. If that is so, it is only that we may go beyond it. Perhaps I could say what the apostle said, "It is not irksome to me to say again the things that I have said, but for you it is good". Well now, let us come to this particular matter, for it is the supreme matter, which means that it is the supreme matter in this dispensation: how much higher and fuller is that which has come in with the Lord Jesus than ever came in in old times.

Now you have the letter to the Hebrews open before you, and you will see that right at the beginning this is the dispensation of God's Son. That is, it is the dispensation of God's Son in a new, personal, manifestation. We believe that He was present in the old dispensation and that He appeared to men in other forms, but this letter says that in this dispensation He has come in a new form. So it begins with the manifested presence of God's Son. It says that in the old dispensation men met God in portions and in different ways, the first verse says that it was in "divers portions and in divers manners" and God met men and men met God in the prophets.

Now, the prophets were the servants of God, and men met God through the servants of God. In this dispensation they meet God in God's Son personally. And there is a statement that "God was in Christ". "Son" implies  "Father"; the "Son of God" implies God. So in the Son we meet God, not now in servants, but "in Son". And this reaches absolute fullness in the matter of Divine revelation, "For it pleased God that in His Son should all the fullness dwell". When a thing is full, there is no room for any more. If you are pouring water into a vessel, when it is full, you say it's full; you don't put any more in. It is just full! And it pleased the Father that in the Son should all the fullness dwell and there is nothing more to be added.

Now, do not take these as just words. Do understand that in every fragment there is this truth: In the dispensation in which you and I are now living, God has come to us in all His fullness. There is no more to be added. In His Son we have the absolute fullness of God, and it is out of that fullness that He speaks to us in His Son. And God has only one Son in that sense - it is His only begotten Son, which means that there is no one to come after Him. Therefore, God's last word is in His Son. The Son brings both the fullness of God and the finality of God. It is that that gives the solemnity to this whole letter. It says: "If you fail to hear the voice of the Son there's never another voice for you. God is never going to speak by another voice. God hath spoken in His Son, and He is never going to speak again by any other means." Hence this letter contains this word of warning and this word of exhortation: "Because this is the fullness and this is the end, be sure that you give heed".

But it is not only God speaking in His Son. That is, a way of speaking, God's speaking is always God's acting. In this dispensation God is active in and through His Son. To come into touch with the Lord Jesus is more than to come into touch with a teaching: it is to come into touch with a living, active Person. "It is God with whom we have to do." It is a glorious thing to come into touch with God in Christ - but it says here that "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God". No, it is not a book, it is not a teaching, it is not a philosophy: it is a living, positive, powerful Person. It is no other than God in action.

If you have any doubt about that, just remember the book of the Acts. It is called "The Acts of the Apostles", well, everybody knows that that's a wrong name, for the apostles in that book only amount to three or four, most of the apostles are never heard or seen in that book. They are mentioned at the beginning and then you hear no more about them. It is not the book of the Acts of the apostles, it is the book of the Acts of God in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit - and indeed it's a book of acts! Whatever teaching there is there, it comes out of the acts.

Well now, we go on to this next thing, the Son is introduced, He is presented, and then He is described. And it's a wonderful description isn't it, of the Son! But we ask: Who is this Son? Because His name is not mentioned until you get into chapter two, verse nine. It is the Son without a name. Who is this Son? Well, verse nine of chapter two tells us and tells us for the first time who the Son is: "But we behold Him who hath been made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus". Perhaps it seems a very simple thing to say that Jesus is this Son, and this Son is Jesus, but perhaps you don't recognise a certain thing about this: it is very rarely, after His resurrection and ascension, that He is called "Jesus". When He has gone back to heaven He is usually "the Lord Jesus", "Jesus Christ our Lord", "our Lord Jesus Christ". His full title is given when He is enthroned in heaven, and if someone comes right back from that down here and just uses the title "Jesus", you know that they are referring to His humiliation and the purpose of His humiliation. It has to do with His work on earth for our redemption.

So look at verse nine again: "We behold Him who hath been made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death". The name "Jesus" is the name of the one who suffered death, who tasted death for every man - and it was the Son of God who did that. It was the Son of God who, as Jesus, tasted death for every man, because of the suffering of death. That is the Son who is introduced here. He is identified by His name "Jesus"... "He shall be called Jesus: for He shall save His people from their sins".

Then the next thing is the position and function of the Son. Right back at the beginning again, "God hath at the end of these times spoken unto us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds". This Son, known to us as Jesus, is by God's appointment the heir of all things. All things are to come to Him by right of God's appointment.

Please do not be weary with me. This is one of the first things said about the dispensation in which you and I live. It does not look very much like it now, for we do not yet see all things put in subjection under His feet, but it says here emphatically right at the beginning that He is "heir of all things", therefore everything has to come to Him in the end. God is going "to sum up all things in Christ, things in heaven, and things on  earth". He is appointed heir of all things.

If we were speaking in human language there was somewhere in the past eternity, an occasion, when the Godhead had a conference to discuss the future of everything that was going to be made. And the Father said: "I make My Son the heir of all things. I appoint Him My heir, and I decree that all things in the end shall come into His possession."

Now you're dealing with almighty and eternal God, and when He decides a thing like that, nothing can prevent it. "Whom He appointed heir of all things" - but He didn't leave it there. He turned to the Son (of course, this is our way of speaking) and He said: "Now, My Son, I am going to use You as the agent in making all things" - "through whom He made the worlds". This Son, whom we know as our Saviour and Lord, was God's agent in the creation of the worlds.

And then it says a third thing, and this is of course something so difficult to understand. This Son upholds "all things by the word of His power". Things do not collapse because He is holding all things, upholding all things by the word of His power. And things will not collapse until He says they should collapse.

If this is true, it is something very wonderful for us. We are hearing so much about the disintegration of the universe, the blowing to pieces of this world. A lot of people are getting very frightened about this. Well, if it is true what is here, the universe and the world can never go to pieces until Jesus says so! Men may get very near to doing it, and then it recedes. It just doesn't happen. It has got like that several times, but the word of His power has stopped it, and until He says "Now - go!" it won't go. He upholds all things by the word of His power.

May we go as far as to say that should be of personal comfort to us? Sometimes it seems that our own personal little world is going to pieces, and that we have come to the end of our little world. Well, it applies there; not until Jesus says so. He will hold things together until He wants them to go to pieces.

This is the Son identified, this is the Son described. And then we move on into the larger body of the letter: the Son's greatness by comparison with other great things and people.

In verse four: "Having become by so much better than the angels". That is the next highest to thing to God and the Son; the angels. Oh, there is so much said about angels in the Bible! Peter says that, "the angels who are great in power". In the book of the Judges the angel is said to have had a very striking appearance, his face was striking to behold and the person who saw him was afraid that they were going to die. They said: "I have beheld the angel of the Lord, his face was like unto an angel" - Judges 13:6 if you want the reference.

The angels have a very vast knowledge. Jesus said this: "Of that day and hour knoweth no man, not even the angels..." If anybody ought to know this, the angels should, their knowledge is so full and so great, and yet even the angels do not know this. The angels have a vast knowledge.

There is an overwhelming number of angels, Revelation chapter 5 verse 11: "The number of the angels was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands..." that is spoken of angels. They are a vast number.

These angels are very near to the throne of God, they have access into the presence of God. That comes out in one of the beautiful things that Jesus said about little children, He said, "You must not offend one of these little ones, because their angels do always behold the face of My Father which is in heaven". Of course, we don't understand that; something very mysterious. But Jesus says that the angels have access to the throne of God, they are very near to God Himself. There is only One who is nearer to God than the angels.

The work of the angels is very varied. Look again because we're keeping very close to Hebrews, verse 13 of chapter 1: "But of which of the angels hath He said at any time, Sit thou on My right hand, till I make thine enemies the footstool of thy feet? Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to do service for the sake of them that shall inherit salvation?" And what a lot of work they have to do! All the heirs of salvation, all over the world, in every generation - and this says that the angels have to look after them and to look after their interests! "To do service for them that shall be heirs of salvation." Well, of course we do not see them, but if the Bible is true they are there and they are very busy people. They have very, very much and very varied service. All the various needs of these heirs of salvation are their concern.

So the angels are a very high order - but in this letter the Lord is saying: "But the Son is far greater than the angels". Here it says He has obtained a greater name than they, verse 4: "Having become by so much better than the angels."

Now if you read all that there is about angels in the Bible you will have a very wonderful revelation - and then you come to this fragment about the Son, who is Jesus, "so much better than the angels". That's where the superiority begins.

And we, dear friends, have come into the dispensation of that: the superiority of Jesus to all the angels. Perhaps we haven't made enough of the ministry of the angels, but evidently they are very busy for us. Perhaps many, many things that we are saved from is because they were very watchful.

Well, we begin with the angels and then we go on with Moses. You will notice what it says here, chapter three: "Wherefore, holy brethren, companions of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, even Jesus: who was faithful to Him that appointed Him, as also was Moses in all God's house. For He hath been counted worthy of more glory than Moses" - get hold of that phrase - more honour than Moses! "For every house is builded by some one; but he that built all things is God. And Moses indeed was faithful in all God's house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were afterward to be spoken; but Christ as a Son over God's house..." The writer is saying: "We are not going to take anything away from Moses. We give Moses honour as a great servant of God, but Christ is greater. The Son is greater than Moses."

Abraham was the father of the nation, Moses was the builder and constitutor of the nation. What a large place Moses had in history! Not only had he a very large place in Israel, but he had a large place in the world. Many of the best legal systems in this world are based upon the economy of Moses, because through Moses it was said: "Thou shalt not steal", we have all the police forces in the world! "Thou shalt not kill", well, we have all the police forces in the world on that, I wish we had a few more forces in relation to some other things that Moses said! But the point is: Moses has come to have a very large world place in history. The Jews in Christ's day always appealed to Moses as the final authority in anything. Their charge against Jesus was that He made Himself greater than Moses. They therefore believed that there was no one greater than Moses. Now this writer of the letter to the Hebrews, with great boldness, says that there is One greater than Moses. Give Moses all the honour that is due to him, but the Son is greater than Moses.

And then he goes on to speak of Aaron. Aaron was the first high priest, and being the high priest, he was the representative of the whole priestly system. Aaron was over all the other priests and Levites, Aaron was over all the sacrifices, Aaron was over the whole sanctuary. Aaron went in alone to the place of the Most Holy. No one but Aaron was allowed to go into the Holy of holies - and the writer here is saying that the Son is greater than Aaron, far greater than Aaron. And he tells us why: Aaron died. Aaron died. And anyone who dies never makes anything perfect. When he dies he has to leave something unfinished. And what the writer is saying is "Aaron died, therefore his work was not perfect. Death cut across it. It was never finished. There had to come a lot of other high priests to try and carry it on". Many more priests and many more sacrifices - all being added to try and make this thing perfect, and chapter nine tells us that they never did make anything perfect. All the priests and all the sacrifices never made anything perfect. And this is the wonderful thing that the letter says: many high priests, thousands of priests, millions of sacrifices, rivers of blood, and never bringing anything to perfection and then the Son came... one Priest for ever, who will never die, therefore His work will never be cut short.

We have one priest forever... Of course there, that wonderful paragraph about Melchizedek comes in. And everybody is wondering who Melchizedek was, I have been asked this week: "Who was Melchizedek?" You can go to the Bible and you will never find the answer, and you will certainly not find the answer outside of the Bible. This mysterious man comes in from nowhere, and where he goes to no one knows. He has not beginning nor end, that is, so far as the record is concerned, neither beginning nor end and that is taken up as illustrating the Lord Jesus as the High Priest: neither beginning of life nor end of days, He is an eternal High Priest.

I like to see that High Priest in John chapter 13, that High Priest rising from supper and taking the priestly girdle the towel, and going to the spiritual laver (you remember the laver in the tabernacle don't you?) and it was as though this One went to the laver and filled the basin with water, came and washed the disciple's feet. A symbolic act of cleansing. It's the High Priest doing it and it's very beautiful because over that incident there are written these words, just look at those men, what kind of men they were, and then right over them this: "Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end". That end is not in time; if eternity ever ends, that's where it is. He loved them with an everlasting love... this High Priest, this greater than Aaron, who ever lives, "who lives forever to make intercession". That is what it says here.

And then with one sacrifice forever... they used millions of sacrifices and never, never made anything perfect. He, with only one sacrifice, did it. It's done forever, and He was the Sacrifice as well as the Priest. As Priest He offered Himself without blemish unto God.

If we go on like this, dear friends, you will begin to believe that there's something better here - better than Moses, better than Aaron. Do you know why God put those two men together? They were brothers, Moses and Aaron were brothers, but they were very different brothers, and yet they had to live together and work together. Why was that, what was the difference? Moses was the governor, Moses represented government and authority. Well, we know that. What came through Moses was "thou shalt" and "thou shalt not". Moses governed Israel. Moses exercised authority in Israel. But God is not only like that. Aaron was the man of love, the man of sympathy. Priesthood means that you know - priesthood means love and sympathy: love for the poor sinner, love for the poor sinning world, sympathy with men. And God puts these two things together. It would not do to have all of one. It would never do to have only an autocrat. You must unite with him, the governor and the authority, a heart of compassion. And if you get that, if you have those two things put together you have a very good Israel.

Now here in this letter you see it's saying that Jesus, the Son, is better than Moses and better than Aaron. On the one side He can say: "All authority has been given unto Me in heaven and in earth". The Father said: "Sit thou on My right hand, till I make thine enemies the footstool of thy feet".

Here are two pictures in this letter, two wonderful pictures. The one is of Jesus "crowned with glory and honour", having "sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens" waiting, until His enemies are made the footstool of His feet, with all authority in His power. He is in the place of government. And alongside of that is this other beautiful picture: "We have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities" ... "He ever liveth to make intercession for us." Not only authority and government, but love and sympathy - and so much greater than Moses and Aaron. Yes, His authority is a greater authority than that of Moses, His government is a greater government than ever Moses exercised, but His sympathy and His love is far greater than that of Aaron.

I think you may have had enough for this morning. I haven't finished with the superiority of the Son. We haven't touched upon His work - the work of making purification for sins, but you can read it. And I'm afraid that that's where we have got to stop this conference. Perhaps it is just like a window opened into heaven. If you get the right window you can see quite a lot! You can see great things and you can see far things, and the best that I can hope is that this has just opened a window, and that as you look through this window you are seeing one thing: how superior is Jesus Christ to all else, and how superior is the dispensation into which we have come, and how superior are all the resources at our disposal to all that ever was before!

Now, dear friends, this is not just a conference subject. There is one thing that I am strongly convinced of, that if we are getting near to the end of this dispensation (and many of us believe that we are) the one thing that is needed to be known is the greatness of Christ. And this is the thing that God will emphasise at the end. All other things are going to prove to be very small. All other things are going to pass away, but Jesus is greater than all. He'll abide forever. That will be the only strength of God's people in the end time, so that more than being just a subject for a conference, it's God's message in the day in which we live. Dr A. B. Simpson, to whom I referred last night, said over fifty years ago, "I believe that the last movement in this dispensation will be a movement back to Jesus Christ". Perhaps that is why the Lord has led us to consider Jesus Christ. You can take it from me, dear friends that you are going to need this Christ, you are going to need to know how much greater He is than all other things.

Chapter 15 - The True Vine

The gospel by John, chapter 15. We have been seeing that there are two books in the New Testament which are wholly occupied with a special matter, and that is the transition from the old Jerusalem to the new Jerusalem, from the old Israel to the new Israel: the old being left behind, the new coming into view, but the new being constituted upon the spiritual principles of the old. The two books referred to are the gospel by John and the letter to the Hebrews.

We have said that in the gospel by John there are 16 steps in this transition. Now, I'm afraid that I have made a mistake over that, for I have discovered some more today! But I'm not going to include them, I'm not sure that we shall be able to take number sixteen, but however, we will come to number 15 tonight. And the fifteenth step in this transition is here in the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel by John: "I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman." The rest of the chapter is well known to you and I shall not read it all through, but shall refer to it later.

Before we go on we must get to our Old Testament. First of all in the book of the psalms, Psalm 80, verse 8: "Thou broughtest a vine out of Egypt. Thou didst drive out the nations and planted him". Verse 14: "Turn again, we beseech thee O God of hosts: Look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine."

The prophecies of Isaiah, chapter 5: "Let me sing for my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My well-beloved had a vineyard in a very fruitful hill and he made a trench about it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also hewed out a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes."

Prophecies of Jeremiah, chapter 2, verse 21: "Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed, how then art thou turned into the dangerous plant of a strange vine unto me?" Chapter 6, verse 9: "Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, they shall truly glean the remnant of Israel as a vine: turn again thine hand as a grape-gatherer into the baskets."

Prophecies of Ezekiel chapter 15, "And the word of the Lord came unto me saying, Son of man, what is the vine tree more than any tree, the vine branch which is among the trees of the forest? Shall wood be taken thereof to make any work? Or will men take a pin of it to hang any vessels thereon? Behold, it is cast into the fire for fuel, the fire hath devoured both the ends of it and the midst of it is burned; is it profitable for any work? Behold, when it was whole it was meet for no one, how much less when the fire hath devoured it and it is burned; shall it be meet for anyone? Therefore thus saith the Lord God, As the vine tree among the trees of the forest which I have given to the fire for fuel, so will I give the inhabitants of Jerusalem."

Well, there you have the old Israel background. What Israel was intended to be, what Israel failed to be, and the destiny of that Israel - "Cast into the fire". It is clear from these Scriptures that Israel was called, "God's vine", but that vine became a false vine and God had to cast it into the fire. It has been in the fire for these nearly twenty centuries.

But when God cast that vine into the fire, He brought forth another. We have said that this Gospel by John sets forth the putting away of the old Israel and the bringing in of the new. We have seen that various names of Israel have been taken over into the new Israel, and here in this chapter "the vine" is taken over. When Jesus said "I am the true vine", He emphasised that word "true". If you could hear Him saying it, you would hear Him saying it like this: "I am the TRUE vine". And the implication is perfectly clear: "I take the place of the false vine. The false vine has been cast away; I am the true vine which takes its place".

We have received for a little while how Israel was false to its very nature and purpose.

What is the nature of a vine? It is the nature of a vine to spread out far and wide. We have at least two vines in England and Scotland which are as long as this room. They have just spread out on the right and on the left, they are always reaching out to cover more space. It is not the nature of the vine just to go straight up. It is its nature to reach out; that is the nature of the vine: to expand itself.

Israel was raised up for this very purpose: to stretch out their arms to embrace the nations: "I will give thee for a light to the Gentiles" is the word. "The nations shall come to thy light, and kings to the shining of thy brightness". Israel was just raised up of God to be a testimony in all the nations, to bring to the whole world the knowledge of God. It was Israel's calling to fulfil a world purpose and a world vision. Israel was intended to be God's missionary nation to the whole world, but instead of embracing the nations, they excluded the nations. They drew a wall round themselves and they said, "We are the people and all others are dogs." They called the Gentiles "dogs".

They shut themselves in to themselves, they became an exclusive people, and thus they contradicted their own nature and their own mission. Exclusiveness was a contradiction to the very nature of Israel - and exclusiveness is always a contradiction to Divine nature because it is not written in Scripture: "God so loved the Jewish nation that He gave His only begotten Son". It is written: "God so loved the world..." The very love of God was contradicted by their exclusiveness. The very nature of God amongst them was violated in that way. To turn in upon themselves, or upon ourselves, is always a violation of Divine calling. For any people or any person to make themselves an end in themselves is a sin. That is why, in the order of nature - when nature is normal - a family expands. The Lord laid down this law right at the beginning of human history; He said to Adam and Eve [meant to be Noah]: "Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth". It was in the very nature of things by the appointment of God. And I say, when things are normal, no lives are an end in themselves. Of course, I know of those exceptions where it is not possible to do this, but I am speaking of the normal course. In the very nature of things, normally, God intends life to be an expanding life and anybody who deliberately violates that law will be an end in themselves and will sin against God's law.

Now, Israel was called to expand and to fill the earth with the knowledge of the Lord. Israel withheld that from the nations, turned in on themselves, made themselves an end in themselves. And God came down upon that and said: "All right! You shall be an end in yourselves." God's judgments are usually the confirmation of our own choices!

Well, that was Israel's nature and that was Israel's violation of their nature as a vine. Instead of expanding to the world, it contracted into itself; anything like that is always fatal.

Well, that was the nature, what about the purpose? Well, quite obviously the purpose of a vine is to bear fruit. It is to bear grapes, and from the grapes there is to come the wine. Do you know that in the Old Testament wine is always the symbol of life. It means life; that is why we have it at the Lord's Table. It represents His blood, and in His blood there is life. He Himself called it "the fruit of the vine". He did not say: "I will not drink of My blood again with you until I drink it in the kingdom of heaven", He said: "I will not drink of the fruit of the vine again with you until I drink it in the kingdom". The grapes and the wine are symbols of life.

Israel of old was called to minister the life of God to all the nations. When you read these gospels and you look to see what kind of fruit it is that that Israel is bearing, it is anything but life. It is really death. It is sour fruit. All those who were tasting the fruit of that Israel were turning away and saying: "We don't want any more; this is not life, this is death". The gospels are just full of that truth.

Jesus said: "I am the true vine", "In Him was life: and the life was the light of men", men's faces grew light when they tasted of Him.

Now, did you notice one thing that we read from the Old Testament about the vine? Those verses in Ezekiel 15, there we read that the vine has no other purpose in its existence but to bear fruit. Have you ever seen anything made of a vine? You have never seen a table made of the vine, you have never seen any vessel made of a vine, you have not even seen a walking-stick made of a vine! You can do nothing with a vine, that is what Ezekiel says, "men will not even take of it a peg to hang something on". It is absolutely useless apart from the fruit. The only purpose of its existence is the grapes, and if it does not bear the grapes, you put it into the fire, says Ezekiel. There are no by-products of the vine, there is no secondary use for the vine. It exists for one thing, and one thing only, and that is fruit.

And that is what God raised up the old Israel for - to bear His Divine fruit of life and light for the nations - Israel failed to do that. God has no other use for an Israel like that, and so He says, "Cast it into the fire". And He cast it into the fire these nearly twenty centuries ago and that's where it is.

And from that we can see what the Lord Jesus means by being the true vine and we being the branches. The true vine is that which fulfils the one and only purpose of its existence. So Jesus brings this illustration over to Himself and His church, and it is perfectly clear what the nature of the Lord Jesus is. His nature is reaching out to all men, embracing the whole world. He takes into His heart all the nations, all men are His concern, not any one nation, but all the nations. To His apostles He said: "Go into all the world, preaching the gospel to every nation". It is the very nature of Jesus to do that. It is quite foreign to the nature of Jesus to be exclusive; to be small and narrow and self-occupied.

Our salvation is to have our hearts enlarged bigger than ourselves. Anybody who turns in on himself or herself, and is always occupied with themselves, is dying while they live. It cannot be avoided. Let a little company of the Lord's people just live to themselves, become wholly occupied with themselves, and their days are numbered. They are living a living death - their destiny is to fade out. That is true of any one Christian or of any company of the Lord's people, because Christ is in the believer and His very nature is to reach out like the vine. He would draw all men unto Himself, and to be otherwise, is to be a contradiction to the very nature of Christ. This is the nature of the true vine.

And Jesus says: "I am the vine, and you are the branches". And the branches and the vine make one vine - they partake of the same nature. And do you notice that it is the very branches themselves that do the expanding work of Jesus? Yes, it is by the branches that this expanding nature is manifested.

Do you notice that that is what happened in Jerusalem right at the beginning? Some troubles sprang up in the church, the Christian church right at the beginning. It was the first bit of trouble that the Christian church had! Some of the first apostles wanted to stay in Jerusalem, they wanted to build up this church in Jerusalem. They were forgetting the commandment of the Lord, and they were just settling down in Jerusalem; to make Jerusalem the centre of everything and to make Jerusalem an exclusive body.

And then there rose up in their midst a young man, "full of the Holy Spirit and of faith". That young man's name was Stephen. And if you listen to what Stephen said you will hear him saying, "This will not do! We have been called for the nations. We are not to be an exclusive people. We are called to a world mission, we must not settle down again in the old Judaism". Some of the first Christians and Christian leaders did not agree with him. Of course, the old Israel did not agree with that! And so they stoned Stephen on this very issue; they stoned Stephen on the issue of the world mission of the Church. I cannot help asking the question: where were James and where was Peter when Stephen was being stoned? They were in Jerusalem, but they were not there. Why was it that Stephen was stoned and not Peter or James? Because at that time Peter and James were not taking the line that Stephen was taking. They were making Jerusalem everything, and of course, the old Israel won't stone them if they do that, so somewhere in Jerusalem they are quite safe. But Stephen was stoned for this very thing.

Do understand, dear friends, that there is something here to be taken note of and it is this that we must take note of: that this new Israel is given a mission to all the nations, and there is a great price to pay for that mission. The whole kingdom of Satan is against that. If you will just become a little, quiet, compromising local sect you'll be all right. Just living within your own walls and closed doors, the devil won't worry you, and the world won't trouble its head about you. It will leave you alone... but if you go out on this heavenly level of things to embrace all men in Christ, you will find the world is against you, you will find the devil is against you. And you and I ought to see this in our day as no one has ever seen it before.

Do you not see what is happening in the nations? There is not a missionary left in China! And it is no longer possible for a missionary to go into China; and in large parts of the world that same thing is happening. They have tried to drive them out of Africa. Why is this? Oh, the kingdom of Satan does not want Jesus to get into his world. There have been literally some millions of martyrs in China for Jesus Christ, and many others in Africa, and in other parts. It was never quite like this before. This is a new phase of things. Satan knows that his time is short and he must do all that he can to close the nations to Jesus Christ. And there is a great price bound up with this world mission. Stephen is the great example of that.

The purpose, then, of Christ and His church - of the vine and the branches - is to bring Life to men all over this world.

I wonder if that is true, altogether true, of the church today! Don't you think that even the Christian church today is failing in that matter? It is not really bringing life to the nations. Many, many a place called a "church" is not bringing Life even to its own little village. This is a contradiction of Christ!

But it is quite very well to think of this objectively. This has got to come down to every one of us. What is the proof that Christ is in you and in me? How can it be known that Christ is in us? Only in one way: that others are receiving Life through us, that we minister Life to others, the Life of Christ - that when hungry and needy people come into touch with us, they feel the touch of Life. They may express it in different ways, but it amounts to this: "That man, that woman, has got something that I have not got; he or she has something that I need. I feel it about them, there's something about them that I feel, and it is what I really need." That should be true of every Christian because Christ who is the true Vine is in us; expanding Himself through us and ministering His Life through us.

Oh, do pray, dear friends, every day that you get up, pray: "Lord, make me a channel of Life to someone today. Lord, minister Your own Life through me to someone today. May I bring Life wherever I am". The Lord has no other purpose for you and for me. We may try to do a lot of things, but if we belong to the Vine we are no good for anything but to bear fruit; that is, to bring Life to others. Yes, fruit... only fruit... not even to be a peg upon which to hang something, not even to be a walking-stick to help somebody to stand up straight. No, God has no use for us but to bear fruit, to bring Life.

Now, Jesus said here in this chapter: "If a branch brings forth fruit, my Father, the husbandman, pruneth it that it may bring forth more fruit". Of course, we understand that in nature and we agree with it. Perhaps if you have had anything to do with grape vines, it's what you have done. It's strange that we believe in it as a law of nature and say: "It's the right to do and it's the best thing to do to cut this piece off so that it will do better", but we don't agree with the Lord doing it to us. When the Lord begins to do that with us, we are full of grumbles and complaints! When the Lord for a little while calls us to do less in order that He might fit us to do more, we don't agree. When it seems that the Lord is taking away some of our fruit, taking away some of our work, we are full of problems. We don't understand the Lord and we begin to ask questions about His love.

Now, Jesus has laid it down as a positive truth. Here is some branch that is bearing fruit (it is not a branch that is bearing no fruit, He says He casts that into the fire) but it is the fruit bearing branch that He prunes. Here is the branch that is fulfilling its vocation, and the Lord looks at it, He says: "That is very good! I am very pleased with that, but I can do better than that, there is better that that branch can do". So He takes the knife, and He disciplines us, He reduces us in order to increase us. He cuts away some, in order that there might be more.

What a lot of history there is in that statement! The writer of our letter to the Hebrews said: "No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: but afterward it beareth the peaceable fruit of righteousness" (Hebrews 12:11). That is only saying that the Husbandman does sometimes take the knife and He cuts deeply into our souls, but afterward there's more and there's better fruit than there was before.

Time has gone. It just brings me to this last word. The wine comes from the grape through the winepress, the winepress is the symbol of pressure. What pressure is brought to bear upon that fruit in order to get the wine! The winepress is the symbol of breaking, and that fruit is broken to pieces. Out of that fruit is wrung by agony the wine.

When Jesus said "I am the true Vine", it is prophesied of Him that He would tread the winepress alone. The Cross was the winepress of the Lord Jesus. How He was pressed in the Cross! He was crushed, He was broken, but out of that breaking has come the Life which you and I have, and which so many in all the nations ever since have received.

And, in a measure, that is true of His church. It was out of the crushing and the breaking of the church that the Life came to the world. And, dear friends, that is true of every member, every branch, of the vine. If we are to fulfil this true, living ministry, it will only be through suffering, it will be through the winepress, it will be pressure and breaking. Paul said: "We were pressed out of measure, almost beyond our enduring..." but what Life has come out of that man's pressure! It is like that. I am not talking about preaching and Bible teaching; there's a great deal of that which is not Life. But I am talking about this great ministry of Christ giving His Life through us. It may be through preaching, it may be through teaching, it may be through living, but if it is His life, it will come out of experiences of suffering. A preacher or a teacher who has never suffered, never ministers Life.

Well, this may not seem a very pleasant outlook, but it is true. The best doctors and nurses are those who know something about suffering themselves. I would always choose a doctor who knew something about sickness in himself. I've had many doctors and I've had many nurses, and I know the difference - some are just professionals, treating you as a case; you are just number so-and so. But, ah! there are others who treat you as a person, as a human being, who care for you. And if you ask why, they've got a background of suffering themselves. They know just a little of what you are going through. We read this morning from Hebrews: "We have not a high priest who cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities; but was tempted in all points like as we are... He is able therefore to succour those who are tempted". He has been the way of the winepress; we have received the benefit.

Is this why Paul said: "That I may know Him and the fellowship of His sufferings"? Paul knew quite well that the sufferings of Christ meant Life, and if there was one thing that Paul wanted for others, it was that they should have this Life, and that they should have it through Him. So he said: "That I may know... the fellowship of His sufferings".

That may not be our ambition, we may not like the idea very much, but may the Lord help us to look at things in this way: "The Lord is putting me in the winepress. He is putting me through a time of great pressure. I am being broken and crushed. The Lord intends more fruit, more Life, more people to have the Life", for the very nature of this thing is to reach out to others. That is the true vine. Anything that is not like that is the false vine.

"I am the vine, ye are the branches."

Chapter 16 - The Companionship of the Bride

I want to turn you to several passages of Scripture. In the Old Testament in the prophecies of Isaiah chapter 54, verse 5: "For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is His name: the Holy One of Israel is thy redeemer".

Chapter 62 at verse 5: "For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee".

In the prophecies of Jeremiah, chapter 3, verse 14: "Return, O backsliding children, saith the Lord; for I am a husband unto you".

Chapter 31, at verse 31: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord".

The prophecies of Malachi chapter 2, verse 11: "Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah hath profaned the holiness of the Lord which he loveth, and hath married the daughter of a strange god".

That is how we finish the Old Testament. Now we will see how we finish the New Testament. The book of the Revelation, chapter 19 verse 7: "Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad, and let us give the glory unto Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready". Chapter 21, verse 2: "And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband".

Verse 9, "And there came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls who were laden with the seven last plagues; and he spake with me, saying, Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the wife of the Lamb. And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God: her light was like unto a stone most precious, as it were a jasper stone, clear as crystal: having a wall great and high; having twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels..."

I think we can leave the reading there and resume the matter with which we have been occupied through the week. We have been seeing what God is doing particularly in the dispensation in which we live. He is constituting a new, heavenly, spiritual, Israel. We have seen the failure of the old Israel and God's necessity for setting that Israel aside, but, at the time of setting aside, the bringing in of His new heavenly Israel. This is what is called "the heavenly calling", and we are told that we are called to be "companions of the heavenly calling", and "companions of Christ in the heavenly calling".

We have seen how the New Testament takes over the ideas of the Old Testament and translates them into spiritual meaning. The titles of the old Israel are redeemed and brought over to the new, because, although God may have to give up an instrument that He raises up, He never gives up His thought. He will never give up His intention, and if He cannot realise His purpose in one instrument, He will realise it in another.

We have seen that the old Israel was called "God's family"; we have seen that the old Israel was called "the Lord's house"; the old Israel was called "God's heir for His inheritance"; the old Israel was called "God's flock" - Israel were God's sheep. We have seen that the old Israel was called "God's vine". And all these titles are taken up and brought into the New Testament church. The new heavenly Israel is His family - children of God. It is His house, "Whose house are we". We are "heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ". We are His flock - "I am the good shepherd". We are His vine, "I am the vine, and ye are the branches".

Well, now we have to come to the last one that we are able to look at at this time. And from the readings that we have taken you have come to the conclusion as to what it is: the Bride of the Lord.

Israel, as we have seen from those various Scriptures, was called God's bride. It says that He became a husband to Israel. You notice that although Israel was a man literally, Israel is usually spoken of in the feminine. It is not "he" it is "she", and it is "she" who failed Him as a wife. He purchased Israel to be His bride with precious blood. Last week we saw that the Passover was a marriage covenant. Jeremiah 31:31 says that when He brought them out of Egypt, He took them by the hand and became a husband unto them. The blood of the Passover lamb was the blood of a covenant marriage between the Lord and Israel. He betrothed Israel unto Himself that night, and thus she was purchased with His blood.

Very little needs to be said to those who know the Old Testament, about God's love for Israel - the most amazing thing in history. When you think what Israel was, when you read the history of Israel from Israel's own side, it is the most wonderful thing to hear the Lord saying: "I have loved thee with an everlasting love". God has never given up that love, it's still an everlasting love, but there is a sob in the heart of God. It's a disappointed love.

However, the Old Testament is a wonderful revelation of God's love for Israel: the love of the whole heart of God for a bride. How that love was expressed for Israel! See the wonderful protection that the Lord provided for Israel! He protected Israel all the way along. He provided food and raiment for Israel. It says that He led her safely on. The tender, providing, protecting love of God is everywhere in the Old Testament.

What was God's thought and intention in betrothing Israel to Himself? That she might be to His pleasure. The Lord took pleasure in Israel, but the Lord had brought Israel into being for His own pleasure, to bring satisfaction to His own heart.

Of course, this is a deep mystery why the all-sufficient God should want something for His pleasure. He who possessed all things and really had need of nothing is nevertheless revealed as One who created a people for His pleasure. You see, He created all things for His pleasure. He created the world for His pleasure. He created all that is in the world for His pleasure. And He created man for His pleasure. And it all went away from Him. He was disappointed in it all, so He said: "I'll begin again", and He raised up Israel. His idea was that Israel would satisfy Him where everything else had disappointed Him. The bride was for the Bridegroom's pleasure.

Then again, Israel was raised up to be the self-revelation of the Lord. God intended to reveal Himself to the whole universe through Israel; to show what kind of a husband He is. Of course, we can't bring this down to everyday life now, but sometimes you are able to see what kind of a husband a woman has, by herself. As you look at her, see how she is provided for and cared for; you are able to say: "She must have a wonderful husband!" Well, that is what a wife is for! I'm afraid many of us husbands have failed terribly... but that is how things are in the human life. But the Divine thought is just the opposite. God wanted to reveal to this whole universe what a wonderful God He is in terms of a husband to Israel. Israel had been raised up, in New Testament language, to "show forth the excellencies of Him who called her out of darkness into light".

Then Israel was brought into this relationship of the wife to the Lord for the purpose of His increase, His expansion. So to speak, many others outside of Israel were to be born unto the Lord through Israel. His family was to expand by means of Israel: "The Gentiles shall come to the brightness of thy shining". And nations were to be born unto the Lord, these are the things that the prophets said. And the bride was to be for the Lord's own expansion.

And then, last of all - mystery of mysteries! - it was a matter of companionship. None of us can understand why the Lord wanted a companion. It is possible to be a wife and not be a companion. Many a wife is not a real companion of her husband. He does not find her a companion. She is a lot of things, but just that one thing is lacking - real companionship. Perhaps that is the tragedy of many broken marriages today. Of course, I know that it works the other way as well, but companionship is the highest thought in this relationship. The Lord raised up Israel to be His companion.

Now, it is easy to see how Israel failed in all these matters. The time came when the Lord could no longer take pleasure in Israel, when Israel no longer revealed to the world what kind of a God He is, when Israel cut off the Gentiles and shut herself down to herself; refused to fulfil the world mission for which she had been brought into union with God. And all this resulted in God losing His companion, and the Old Testament closes on that painful note: a horrible thing has happened in Israel, she has left the Lord, her Husband, and gone after another.

So, to the Lord, she died. To the Lord as a nation she is dead, she is "dead while she liveth". The Lord could never marry another while she was alive; that was contrary to His own law. She has died, so He can take another wife. You will remember Paul's own words about this: that we are married to the Lord. When this former wife died, He brought in another, a new bride.

The New Testament has a lot to say, as you know, about this new bride. In the gospels the Lord Jesus calls Himself the Bridegroom. You will remember the parable of the virgin, when the cry went forth: "Behold, the bridegroom cometh!" and we have read these passages in Revelation all about the bride, the Lamb's wife. Some of you are recalling Paul's words in his letter to the Ephesians: "Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might present the church to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing", and that follows this: "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loves the church".

Well, the fact, I think, is established, but we have to bring back all those features of this relationship. Why are we joined to the Lord? Why are we what are called Christians? For if we are New Testament Christians we are joined to the Lord in a covenant of marriage. It is "the church of God, which He purchased with His own blood".

How many of you go to the Lord's Table at any time? It goes by different names - the Lord's Table, the Lord's Supper, the Holy Communion, and so on. It doesn't matter so much what you call it, it is what you mean by it. Do you know, dear friends, that every time you go to the Lord's Table, His meaning in that table is that you are putting your hand to the covenant again and saying: "I stand by my marriage relationship to the Lord. This loaf means that I am one flesh with Christ." We are one body in Him, a part of His very Body is represented by that loaf. And the marriage ordinance of God at the beginning is: "They two shall become one flesh". Jesus said: "This loaf is My body". When we take it we are meant to be saying: "I am one body with Christ". The two become one flesh. And it is the marriage relationship.

And when we take the cup, symbolic of His Blood, we say two things: "I share one life with Him. His life is my life, and that was made by a covenant in His Blood." That is the deep meaning of the Table of the Lord. Is that what we mean every time we come to the Lord's Table? It is the bride saying: "I stand by the covenant, I am one with my Lord".

We sang this afternoon: "Jesus, my Husband..."; that is the nature of our union with Him. That is what it really means to be a Christian. May our Christianity be redeemed from everything less than that!

But when the relationship has been established in His Blood, then the purpose of the relationship begins. We are His for His Pleasure and not our own. He has made us for His pleasure, the apostle says, "Working in us that which is well-pleasing in His sight... that we may be unto the praise of His glory... to the glory of His grace... to shew forth the excellencies of Him".

Dear friends, this compasses the Christian life. This is why He has drawn us with the bands of love. This is the reason for our union with Christ: that we should be unto His pleasure, that He may take pleasure in us. The time is coming when He will look at His bride and then He will say, "She is a glorious bride". He has brought us to Himself for that very purpose: to reveal Himself by means of us.

Perhaps our heads and our hearts are going down now. What a poor revelation of our Lord we are! We're making a terrible mess of this business of revealing Christ, but He is taking great pains with us. Truly it is not easy, and He does not make it easy. It seems so often that He puts us into difficult positions in order that we may show forth His glory.

Paul was given a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet him. Do you know what it is to have a thorn in the flesh and a messenger of Satan always buffeting you? Paul said that he went to the Lord three times about this. I don't know whether he meant literally three times, I think he meant: "I went to the Lord again, and again, and again! I asked the Lord to remove this thorn and to destroy this messenger of Satan, but He said unto me: 'My grace is sufficient for thee: and My strength is made perfect in weakness'".

That strange sovereignty of God... that strange providence of God. It seems sometimes that He puts difficulties into our lives, and makes it hard for us, and then, in the grace that He shows, we magnify Him. No one knows what Paul's thorn was. A lot of people have had a guess at it, and some people think they've got it, they know what it was, I don't think anyone really does know. But it was evidently something that people could see, and they could say: "My word, Paul has a hard time with that. I'm very glad that the Lord hasn't called me to go that way! That poor man does know what suffering means, but how marvellous is the grace of God in that man! Look at his victorious spirit! See how he does not go down under his suffering. My, the grace of God in that man is a wonderful thing!" And Paul said: "And they glorified God in me". Yes, for the self-revelation of the Lord the church is a suffering church. This wife of the Lord is a suffering wife, but the revelation of His grace is a wonderful thing.

Then what about His increase through the church? We have already said much about this. The Lord, through His church, wants to bring many, many into the Kingdom. Said He, "Preach the gospel in every nation, in the whole creation... The Lord willeth not that any should perish, but that all should come to the knowledge of the truth". Let that stand over all your ultra-Calvinism. Don't let any Calvinism take one iota away from that. The Lord would have all men saved, and He has never told His church to go and pick out one here and one there and say: "You are the elect," and leave the others. No, "Preach the Gospel to the whole creation; leave the rest with Me!" Well, that is the world mission of the new Israel. But do not just view it in a general way. Get down to it tomorrow morning, make this your personal business if by any means you might be able to bring souls into the Kingdom.

When we have said all that, we come to this supreme thing: He has joined us to Himself to be His companions. That has been our note right through this conference: "We are become companions of Christ... Wherefore, holy brethren, companions of a heavenly calling." To be His companions. I confess that I don't understand that: that the Lord should find me His friend, not just officially related to Him, but related to Him as a friend. To be the friends of the Lord! I can only say to you let us take that word and continually ask ourselves "How would a friend act in this matter? How would a friend decide? I am the Lord's friend. I must not fail Him in friendship. I must not let Him down. He counts upon me to be His friend" - the highest and most sacred part of the whole relationship.

I despair of ever getting over to you what I see in this matter. You see, after all this time, I haven't touched the new Jerusalem yet! It is a very significant thing that the new Jerusalem is called "the Bride". Said the angel to John: "Come hither, I will shew you the bride, the Lamb's wife", and John might have said: "Now, let's go and see this wonderful woman"! "And he shewed me the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven." The bride is the city, and the city is the bride. And then you have to read the whole description of the city in Revelation 21 and 22 in order to know what the bride is going to be like. See all the precious stones! This is the preciousness of the Lord Jesus in manifold expression. Peter said: "Unto you that believe is the preciousness". "All manner of precious stones..." it is what Jesus is in His real character revealed in the bride, the city.

Well, I can't stay with that, that wants hours! But you look at it. Stop thinking about a literal city. This is all a symbolic representation of Christ's bride. All these glories of the city are only the glories of Christ expressed at last in His bride. "He shewed me the holy city, the new Jerusalem... having the glory of God... her light was like unto a light most precious" shining through all these gems. I'm afraid my interpreter might have a bad time if I started giving you the list of gems! But it really doesn't matter, we need not do it.

All this is what was meant by the apostle when he said: "He will present the church to Himself a glorious church" ... a glorious church. The city is a revelation of His manifold glories, and the City is the Bride.

Now dear friends, I have only to close with this final word. These are all very beautiful and wonderful ideas. They are glorious thoughts, but it is just unto this that the Lord has called us. This is the heavenly calling. It is unto this that He wants us to be companions: "Companions of a heavenly calling" because "companions of Christ".

I hesitate to strike a note that might sound a bit depressing, but I do remind you that this great letter to the Hebrews has many "ifs" in it. "Whose house are we, if we hold fast... We are become companions of Christ if we hold fast". This letter is just full of warnings, full of strong exhortations, and I do not believe that it was written to non-Christians. All the evidences in the letter are that it was written to true Christians. Therefore, it was saying to Christians: "Don't miss your inheritance! Don't fail of your heavenly calling. Do not fail to be true companions of Christ. Do not accept anything less than God's best and God's highest".

You can be Christians having much less than God intended. And you notice when the description of the City-Bride has been given, it says: "Blessed is he that has the right to enter in..." has the authority to enter in. There are nations that will not get in. They will walk in the light thereof, but will not be this. Make sure that you are of this Bride. Do not fail the Lord as Israel failed Him.

"Let us go on to full growth".