Nine Lectures on the First Epistle of John

It should be stated that these Lectures on 1 John were delivered in London more than thirty years ago, and also that, while there is abundant evidence that they were carefully reported, they have never been seen or revised by the Lecturer. Many will be interested in their perusal, as well as in comparing them with the Lectures of a later date; and beyond this, they contain so much valuable truth, and truth so simply put, that, with the Lord’s blessing, their publication cannot fail to be f or the profit of His people.

London, 1882.

The great purpose of God in all His dealings in grace is to bring us individually into fellowship with Himself. “Truly our fellowship is with the Father.” Thus we have the full knowledge of God as far as it can be known, and that in full communion with Him, and that in a way that not in the way of creation. Not merely as a creature, for we are made partakers of the Holy Ghost that there may be power; “we dwell in Him, and He in us.” There can’t be anything more intimate. It is not knowledge or science that has anything to say to this; for if it be but the human mind working on the things of God, it is but that high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God. Babes in Christ have possession of these things, not have to seek for it; they are in posaeasiaw. Of course they have to ripen in la53si mere knowledge puffs up; but it is being brought loWy and then the Spirit of God can act upon the soul, and give knowledge in communion and fellowship with God. Although the Epistle of John is very abstract, yet it is abstract about things that the very feeblest saint knows in Christ. God is brought down to us; for God can come down to us in our weakness in Christ.

The dijBference between the writings of Paul and John is this: that Paul imfolds to us the counsels of God in creation, the counsels of God towards the Jews (there are various developments of Christ’s person, as in Hebrews and Colossians); but John may be called more abstract, because he speaks of the nature of God Himself. The purpose and object of God is to bring us into full fellowship with ffimself. There are three things here I would notice. First, the work of God, by which we can stand in His presence perfectly free from any question of sin, so that we can enjoy all God is. Second, justification by faith and acceptance in the Beloved, perfect cleansing of the conscience, knowing we are accepted, so as to be able to be before “ffiTn in perfect peace. Third, the new birth, commonly called regeneration. There must be a new nature capable of affections towards God. An orphan who never knew a father has the affections of a child, is capable of loving a father, and is often very unhappy because without the object towards whom those affections would natiimUj Bow; so the capacity to love God is what we get by being partakers of the divine nature. It is the Holy Ghost that gives us competency to enjoy these things: “We have an unction from the Holy One “given to us, to enable us to €njoy what God has given to us. There must be our standing in the presence of God without our conscience being at work at all, a nature capable of enjoying God; a new nature, and power to work in that new nature, which is by the Holy Ghost dwelling in us. The thing brought specially before us is what that is we are to enjoy, the nature of the things brought down to the understanding of a poor sinner, and that tries the conscience just as it moves the affections. God is light, and if I am brought into the blessedness of what God is, it must put the conscience to the test; and, I ask, am I standing in it? If I am capable of it, then I enjoy all the joy of standing in the light, and can test all that pretend to possess this character.” God is light’* He is bringing this home to the hearts of the saints, and this must be by presenting Christ Himself. There was a great deal made of development, and he wants to bring them back to the truth. Science, so called, had got in. The character of apostolic teaching was to bring them back ‘’earnestly to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints.” “But continue thou in the thing which thou hast learned,” “that which was from the beginning.” My soul ought to know Christ bettet The moment I get God “manifest m can’t know anything out of that but that which is false. The question of knowledge is to give place to Christ. If I get there nothing can shake me; I ‘m in Christ. “These things write we unto you, that you may believe on the name of the Son of God.” Do you believe on the Son? Thm, resi there.

(Verse 1.) First, it was from the beginning; second, it was a real substantial Person they had known familiarly, not a doctrine; that s the blessed secret of alL If they have got Christ, then they have got all that the Father has got, all that ’s revealed of Him, and they can’t go from that without being wrong. They’ve got eternal life, the perfect revelation of God, the power of life in Christ. This is what is presented to us as the full enjoyment and the safeguard of the saint. It is ours through that which was with the Father, yet was so near to us; not union, but so near to us that nothing could be so near as Christ Himself. Instead of wanting anything between myself and Christ, it was so revealed that nothing could be so near to me as Christ Himself. This is the eternal life that was with the Father, and it is as we study the Lord Jesus Christ we shall have affections established towards Him that nothing can break. The poor woman who was a sinner had that confidence in Him that she had come to Him and loved Him. The secret of our joy is to know the love of Christ to us, and then we have confidence in Him, undeistaudm tha.t

God has come so near as to reveal Himself and inspire confidence. The more we go out and study Christ, the more we penetrate into His ways, the more we learn the depth of all these riches in Him, and the more EUs divine fulness is revealed to us. If it is His taking little children up in His arms, I see in it what God’s character is. “He that has seen me has seen the Father.” Having truth thus revealed in a Person, I get it for the humblest, lowest, poorest sinners, because it’s a personal act of our Lord Jesus Christ. “That which was from the beginning,” and now mark this “word of life” while it shows what God was in Christ, shows it communicated to us.

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