Question: Why did God refuse the tabernacle of Joseph (Psa. 78:67) when in Genesis 49:24 we read, “From thence is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel?”- M. G.
Answer: God gave Joseph a double portion, because he received the birthright instead of Rueben who sinned against his father.
Joseph is a type of Christ. The path of Jesus is shadowed out by his sorrow, rejection and separation from his brethren, and then of righteousness and testimony, and it ended with praise, and honor, and glory in the kingdom and inheritance.
Now notice Genesis 49:23, 24, that the good and great and chief Shepherd and Stone of Israel was from the mighty God of Jacob—not from Joseph.
Then God in His sovereign electing grace chose the tribe of Judah and the House of David for His Royal family. He accepts no other line of Royalty for Israel. (Gen. 49:10).
God has the right to choose whom He will.
Question: Who are those called to “come out of her?” (Rev. 18:4). Could there be saints in her at the time of her judgment?—F. S.
Answer: “Come out of her, My people” is a voice from heaven telling that her judgment is coming. The ears that hear the Lord speaking in these scriptures are to regard it as a voice to them now.
Do you apprehend the wickedness of this system, “Great Babylon,” that will combine all of men’s religious societies into one great system? Then come out of her! It is a spiritual call to saints now to leave the religious babel of men’s religions, and come out to Christ alone. All that are left behind of the churches of men when the Lord Jesus takes His own (1 Thess. 4:15-18) will have church union at last with popery as its head.
“Come out of her, My people,” is God’s call. (See also 2 Cor. 6:14-18; 2 Tim. 2:19; 3:5; Heb. 13:13).
Question: What is your judgment of the difference between the Lord’s Table (1 Cor. 10) and the Lord’s Supper? (1 Cor. 11).
Answer: In the 10th chapter it is fellowship.
In the 11th, it is remembrance.
In the 10th, it is corporate.
In the 11th, it is individual.
In the 10th, we judge our associations.
In the 11th, we judge our state.
In the 10th, it is the blood and body of Christ.
In the 11th, it is the body and blood of the Lord.
In the 10th, it is our title to be there.
In the 11th, it is what we enjoy there.
In the 10th, the cup is first at the Table.
In the 11th, the bread is first in the Supper.
The Lord’s Table (10:21), the Lord’s Supper (11:20), and the Lord’s Day (Rev. 1:10), are so mentioned only once.
If I were to ask you, “Who have the right to sit at your table?” you would reply, “My wife and my family and those we invite.” That is the leading thought about the Lord’s Table. It is those whom He has invited, and from 1 Corinthians 10:16 we gather who it is the assembly, which has the responsibility, should receive among them to partake of the emblems that express Christian fellowship, and in which we remember the Lord in His death.
In chapter 10:16, 17, the first thing we notice is that here the cup comes first. It is the communion or fellowship of the blood of Christ. It assumes that for one to be there, he must know his sins washed away in the blood of Christ. If he, did not know his sins washed away, he has no title to be there; he could not remember the Lord aright. The first question, when any want to be at the Lord’s Table is, “Are they truly His, do they know peace with God?” That is the main reason, I believe, for the cup being first. It is the fellowship of saints washed in the blood of Christ.
Next, we get, “The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we being many are one bread (loaf), and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread (loaf).” Here we get the unity of the body of Christ expressed in the one loaf, for we are all partakers of that one loaf.
If a person has believed the gospel, he is washed in the blood of Christ, and sealed with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:13; John 7:39), and he is consequently a member of the body of Christ. (1 Cor. 12:12, 13). These are his title deeds.
The ground or principle on which Christians should meet together is, “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling. Using all diligence to maintain the unity of the Spirit, in the uniting bond of peace.” (Eph. 4:3, 4). In carrying this out, we are gathered to the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, our Head and Center. His name judges all evil, and so teaches us to judge all our associations. The saints at Corinth could not have fellowship with idols. The Lord’s Table and the table of demons could not go together. In our days it is not demons’ tables that we need to refuse. It is something more subtle. It is tables professedly the Lord’s but gathered by the wills of men. As it is written, “Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.” (Acts 20:30). We could not call these who are of our selves (that is, Christian men) grievous wolves (ver. 29), but we do call them divisions, men-centers, gathering around their own ideas, and these we are to avoid. (Rom. 16:17). Such gatherings are not in the unity of the Spirit, nor in separation from evil. Nor could we link the name of the Lord with evil doctrines. (Gal. 5:9; 2 John 9, 10). Nor could that name be linked with immorality. (1 Cor. 5:6, 13). The name of the Lord is “Holy” and “True,” and Holiness becomes His house forever.
Notice, in chapter 10, we have nothing about remembrances of the Lord’s death, for while it is together we eat the Lord’s Supper, the enjoyment of remembrance is individual.
The Supper speaks about what we partake, but not of our title to partake. In the Supper, the Lord took bread and gave thanks and brake it, and said, “This is My body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of Me.” This brings His love before our hearts—love that gave Himself for us. We think of Him in His death and sufferings, and in eating, it is in remembrance of Him. It is not fellowship but remembrance. Then He took the cup and gave thanks in the same manner, and said, “This is the new covenant in My blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of Me.” In the gospels he adds, “which was shed for many,” “for the remission of sins,” “which was shed for you,” thus claiming our heart’s adoration. The church is not a covenant people, Israel is. He speaks to us as His friends who can rejoice with Him, and celebrate His victory over sin and death, and the power of Satan, rejoicing in all He has accomplished. Verse 26 announces the Lords’ death till He come; that is, every time the Lord’s Supper is taken, it is a witness that the world is guilty of the death of Christ.
The condition and behavior of many in the Corinthian assembly made it, for such, not the Lord’s Supper. They did not discern the Lord’s body. They were still the gathered company, the assembly where the Lord’s Table is, and it is nowhere else, but their behavior in not discerning the Lords’ body, and the disorders that were there, made the partaking, to them, not the Lord’s Supper. They were eating and drinking unworthily—in an unworthy manner—and they brought upon themselves as saints the Lord’s discipline. Some were sick, and some were put to sleep.
Many of us, however (and the writer is one), can bear witness to how much we enjoyed the remembrance of the Lord before we knew anything about being gathered as members of His body to Christ the Center.
Where hearts are sincere, the Lord meets and refreshes them, and leads them on to see more of His way. As with the two on the road to Emmaus. What He taught them soon brought them to the true Center.