The Lord Jesus Christ is the One into whose name the believers are gathered together. Concerning this, Matthew 18:20 says, “Where there are two or three gathered into My name, there am I in their midst.” The Lord Jesus gathers us not in His name but into His name. In the principle of the New Testament, the name denotes the person. Since the name is the person, to be gathered into the Lord’s name is to be gathered into the Lord Himself. Furthermore, the name of the Lord Jesus is very much linked to the Holy Spirit. Actually, the Spirit is the reality of the Lord’s name. The Lord’s name denotes His person, and the reality of the Lord’s person is the Spirit. This means that to be gathered into the name of the Lord, that is, into the Lord Himself, is to be gathered into the Spirit.
Our being gathered together by the Lord into His name is for the purpose of meeting. The basic principle of the meetings of the church is that the meetings are a gathering of the believers by the Lord into His name. The most crucial thing in the believers’ meeting is to be gathered into the Lord’s name. Because we are the Lord’s and have been saved by His name, we should gather only in that name and meet only in that name. We must not gather into and meet in any other name.
For the meetings we need to be gathered out of so many other things into the Lord’s name, into His person. We especially need to be brought out of the self. We cannot be gathered together into the Lord’s name if we stay in the self. For every church meeting we need the Lord to bring us out of everything other than Himself and to gather us together into His name.
Matthew 18:20 says that where there are two or three gathered into the Lord’s name, He is in their midst. The Lord Jesus gathers us into His name so that we may enjoy His presence in our midst. His presence is our enjoyment. Whenever we are gathered into the Lord’s name, into His person, we enjoy His presence in a special way, and His presence brings us enlightenment, grace, supply, and all kinds of blessing.
In Matthew 21:1-11 Christ is presented as the King, in particular, as the meek King. Shortly before the end of His life, the Lord Jesus entered Jerusalem as the King. Even though the people despised Him and rejected Him, He came to them as the King.
Verse 5 says, “‘Say to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your King is coming to you, meek and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, a foal of a beast of burden.’” This signifies the humble and lowly state in which the Lord Jesus was willing to be, for the donkey and the colt together give an impression of meekness and humility. The heavenly King did not come with haughty splendor but with gentle, humble meekness.
The presence of the colt testified that the Lord Jesus did not come to Jerusalem to fight or to compete. Rather, He was meek and lowly. This, I believe, was the impression that He wanted to convey to the people. Yes, the Lord Jesus was the heavenly King, but He did not have the intention to come as a great King fighting or competing with others. He came as a meek, lowly King who did not fight against anyone or compete with anyone.
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