Lecture IX

We were seeing last evening in the precedii verses the question between Gkxl and the worl brought to an issue. The Son of God havii been sent in the world, and in the world and I the world crttcijied, thus putting the world to tl test Grod could do nothing in the world after had crucified His Son. “righteous Father, tit world hath not known thee!” Having hui God’s Son on the cross, that moment cut the wor off; therefore now the world is a thing to be ove come by the saint.

“This is He that came by water and blood What the Apostle now presents is the and value of the cross. “He came by water an blood.” The water and the blood are as a winess on God’s part, the testimony that God give (The words witness, record, and testimony are a the same word in the original.) You may mark here, “This is the witness, that God hat given to us eternal life, and this life is i His Son.” This is the thing witnessed. “Th is the record” (or testimony), “that God hi given to us eternal life, and this life is in £ Son; “not in the first Adam, but in “His Son; not in ma!n, nor by his works nor any meai whatever, it’s God’s gift, “He hath given/* And not properly and intrinsically in us, it ’s in HiB Son; and even when we are quickened, the life is not looked at as in vs.” Because I live, ye shall live also.” It is therefore immutable. If Christ’s life can be in any way annulled or set aside, then can the life in us be so likewise, and not otherwise. If Christ can die, so can we; but if death hath no more dominion over Him, no more hath it over us; and this it is that gives the amazing value and blessed character of this life. It’s given to the Son to have life in Himself. (John V. 26.) For example, my finger has life, my natural life flowing through it; but the seat of life is not there. My finger may be cut off (I am not here supposing that a member of Christ can be cut off; that cannot be, as we have ofben seen); but if my finger be cut off, the life still remains in my body, the seat of life not being in my finger. My finger was as much alive as the rest of my body, but the seat of life was not there. The seat of life is in Christ; “our life is hid with Christ in God.” Hence all the character of the life and all the communion flows from this blessed truth — in Sis Son. The character of this life is nearness to God. Christ Himself is my life. It is of the last importance for the strength and comfort of our souls, and for all blessed delight in God, clearly to understand what our life is; for our thoughts on regeneration are altogether imperfect until we apprehend tili» &

H which we have, associating us with His Son, not possessed before, and in virtue of which we get communion with the Father, who has given us eternal life; not in vs, but in His Son.

We get brought out in various testimonies what Christ is to us, as in 1 Cor. vi 1-11, where the Apostle, speaking of the offscouringof the earth, says, “Such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.” And so here we get a corresponding testimony brought out in these three witnesses, the water, the blood, and the Spirit. In John xix. 34: “When one of the soldiers pierced His side, and forthwith came thereout blood and water.” The Hood and the water flowed from a dead Christ. We see how manifestly the link between the natural man and God are broken for ever: “In that He died. He died unto sin.” It ’s all gone for ever. All that Christ could have blessed in nature is now entirely and for ever gone; and if there is to be any blessing now, it must be in a new nature, and through a dead Christ, as all connection and association with God, expiation, purity, life, can alone be had through a dead Christ. It ’s a dead Christ must purify me, if I am to be purified. Until the death of Christ, God was dealing with nature to see (or rather to teach us, for He knew what it was) if any good thing could come out of nature. Well, the Cross proved, God’s rejected Son proved, that it was iioli ^o^ftAa 3aa.t any good

THE FIRST EPISTLfi OF JOHN. 115

thing could come out of nature. Man is not merely a sinner driven out of Paradise, as we know Adam was; for man’s state now results, not only from his being turned out of God’s presence because of sin, but in the will and energy of his evil nature he has cast God out of His own world. The cross shows man’s nature is utterly incapable of being acted on by any motive whatever which could set it right. This is very humbling, yet very blessed. Heaven won’t do, Earth won’t do, the Law won’t do. I have yet one thing in heaven. My beloved Son, I ’11 send Him. May be they will reverence Him when they see Him. No; the determination of man’s will is to have the world without God. This is what man wants. He will not have God in any sense. Here it is brought to a climax; for the very worst display of Christianity will be just this.

If any here present should be seeking pleasure in the world — you know you don’t want to find God there; for if you did, it would upset it all — thus are you saying in spirit, “Let us kill the heir.” You may not have lifted up your hand to slay God’s Son, but you have turned Him out of your heart. Man’s great abilities will be much more developed in the day that is just approaching than they have ever yet been, in trying to make the world go on thoroughly well without God. When was there ever a time when everything was going on so well, as men speak; such unity among nations as now, or such dramii o>X. oi ^^ssiNiXRRsJV

The cry is, “Peace! peace /” by the energies and working of man’s will without Grod. Man looks for progress in the philosophy, commerce, politics, and comfort of this world; but still there is in his heart a dread of the consequences of the progress of this self-wiU. Thus is fulfilled the apparent paradox of Scripture, the cry of peace combined with men’s hearts failing them for fear. Now men could say that’s a contradiction. No; for while men are building up commerce, arts, and science in the energy of self-will, who is there among them that would undertake to answer for the state of any nation in three years* time? Man is afraid of the working of self-wiU in his neighbour, although he likes to exert it in himself. But the Christian has learned that the question as to the world is settled — in the rejection of Christ At that moment it was all over with the world. The question between God and man is settled as to man himself; for not only is man turned out of Paradise, but when Grod’s Son C6une they crucified Him, and now grace comes in; and the Christian goes outside the world to get in God’s rejected Son, the life which is to be had in Him alone. This is God’s record, that He hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.

Amidst all this turmoil and trouble, where shall

I get peace? The moment I get a pierced Christy

I have that which expiates and purifies. All this

not a theory, not a doctrine merely, but a reality;

for the moment my consdeii li^li’^ ta work, I find that by nature I am separate from God, that my carnal mind is enmity against God; that it is not only the world that has crucified God*s Son, but my sins pierced Him. This is an individual thing, for this is how individual souls are brought into the blessing; for when I have real faith in what God’s word tells me about my own evil, then the question arises, What am I to do? All that which makes me a mere moral man declares that I could have nothing to say to God; but through a pierced Christ I have three witnesses that I can have to say to God. The highest act of insolence that it was possible for man to do against God brought out the very thing that put the guilt away, even the blood and water flowing from His side. Suppose it was but yesterday that I wielded the spear against Jesus; the very act that brought out my enmity brought that which put it away. I can’t estimate sin aright till I see the water and blood flowing out of the pierced side of Christ putting it away, when I must be brought to the consciousness that I in spirit was there, my enmity to God did it, my sins pierced Him.

It was thus God addressed the Jews, telling them they had killed the Heir; i.e. their hearts had consented to it. Again, those Jews whom Peter addressed, saying, “Ye have taken, and by wicked hands have slain,” had not actually murdered the Prince of life; they had not held the spear any more than you did; and it is thus God deals with the world. As His question with the ^QdilS&^

What have you done with my Son? and so with Gain, Where is Abel thy brother? and the only answer they can give is, We have slain Him. The moment the Messiah was rejected, that moment all title to the promises was lost to the Jews. All hopes of salvation, everything is now gone from them as a people; and now, if they would get blessing, they must come in as sinners, and have their sin put away by the blood that flowed from the pierced side of their Messiah. Now then, as all title to anything is gone, Grod is giving eternal life. God must direct the heart away from itself (except the sense of its own sinfulness) to Ghrist. Have I estimated my own sin as the murderer of Ghrist? Well, the blood has put the sin away; for the blood has cleansed the man who held the spear that pierced His sida You are nothing but sin. Well, Ghrist was made sin for you; and through a dead Ghrist you get the blood as a witness that your sins are all put away, the blood being a witness of the perfect expiation of all sin. It was what He came into the world for, and He accomplished it.

Observe another thing. There is the watety and what’s that? The water cleanses: “That He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word.*’ While the blood expiates, the water cleanses. The water bears witness to the same life-giving power. “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Idngdom of God.” Ths Spirit of God is the source of life, and acting through the Word gives life. Practically the Word is the instrument, the incorruptible seed, and it is also a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart; and it is that by which God’s thoughts are communicated to us, and it is out of the pierced side of Christ that these testimonies of God flow, thus writing death upon every production of nature, as it is not a modifying of the nature which now exists, but counting everything outside Christ to be dead; so that there is not a thought, lust, or desire about the world upon which Christ does not write death, and thus we get altogether new aflfections. Dead unto sin, but alive unto God through the life in His Son; for the real character of purifying is thus writing death upon everything that flows not from a pierced Christ. The water is the purification, but the purification is through a dead Christ; it’s not out of Adam, but out of God’s Son. Christ all His life through was the pattern in man of what man ought to be.

But there is a third thing. We have not only the blood which expiates, and the water which purifies, through which we are dead to sin, but He has obtained for us the Spirit, the presence of the Holy Ghost as the power of the Word. But it may be objected, I don’t find myself thus dead to sin and purified. But you have a hatred to sin, which is a proof of your having died to it. And “in that Christ died, He died unto sin once;” “so likewise BECKON ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin;” for God ever treats us according to what He has really given us, treating us as though we had realized it all. So in John, the Lord says, “And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.” Now they did know Him who was truly the way to the Father, yet Thomas objected, and said, “We know not the way,” because they had never realized it. The instant I believe in Jesus, I am called upon to reckon myself dead. I am never told to die, but I am told to mortify my members that are upon the earth; but I am never told to die. A man under the law will be trying to die with all his might, but he will never succeed. But a Christian is dead, and his life is hid with Christ in God; and therefore he mortifies his members which are upon the earth, as living in the power of the life he has in the Son of God. Observe, He does not speak of your life being on the earth, for that is above with Christ in Gx)d, therefore treats us as dead; but our members which are upon the earth we are to mortify. He never tells us to kill ourselves, but faith takes God’s testimony as true. Therefore I say I am dead, and because I am dead I have to mortify, my members being as dead to the earth as Christ was; for I have God telling me that I am dead through believing. This is most practical as to peace of soul; for the moment I believe in Christ I am delivered from all these things. I am not seeking to die; for I have the secret of power, and count myself dead.

Here is a practical difficulty as to the water; for how can I say I am washed if I still find myself to be dirty? But I can say I am dead in Christ; for I shall never succeed in killing myself. The moment I believe in Christ, all that He has done as a Saviour is mine, and God appropriates and applies it to me. I may have failed to realize it, but the treasure is put in my possession. Some souls often say, *’ I believe all the value and efficacy of Christ’s work, but I can’t apply it; “and who asks you to do so? It is God who applies it, and He has applied it to you, if you believe in its value and efficacy. The moment we believe in Christ, we have the Holy Ghost as bearing witness: “He shall take of mine and show it unto you.” Just as the Son came down to do God’s will, and then ascended up again into heaven, so at the Son’s ascension the Holy Ghost came down as a Person on the earth; for the Holy Ghost is always spoken of as being on the earth, and it is this which gives the true and peculiar character of the Church of God; and here we get the third witness, in the Spirit of truth coming down to the earth. The moment I believe, I am sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. All that I can produce of God’s good fruits as a Christian is the consequence of being sealed by the Holy Ghost. Bedemption being perfectly accomplished, then the Holy Ghost comes down in Person; so that the position of the Church on the earth is between these two things, thi iftd.^£L^Kssv3L lfiA^^ and the glory in prospect, as the Holy Ghost comes down between redemption and the Church’s glory. The knowledge of being dead with Christ gives me a pure heart, as being myself dead to sin, the world, and law. By the blood we have peace, and a good conscience; and then the Holy Ghost comes down from God. Thus we have perfect peace of heart, having God’s own witness. Well then, I have left the whole scene, I have done with it altogether; my sins are all gone. The blood has put them away, and I am now dead unto sin, and aUve unto Grod, The cross, the wounds of Christ are the door by which I entered, and the presence of the Holy Ghost is the power by which I enjoy the fruits of it.

As we have seen, the witnesses of God on the earth are three — the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and these three agree in one; ‘’for this is the witness of God which He hath testified of His Son.” The heart is constantly looking for God to give it a testimony about itself, but God is giving a testimony about His Son, and not about what you are; for if God were to give a testimony about you, it must be about your sin and unbelief of heart. But no; and it is of great importance in this day of infidelity to see that if God gives a testimony it ’s about His Son, and what He is to the sinner. If you believe that, you will get peace. If I am going about to get a standing before God on the ground of my holiness, that would be self-righteousness, and, of course, I shall not get a witness from God as to that; but if my soul takes its stand with God on the testimony God has given to His Son, then I get the witness in myself. When I have got this faith, I have got the thing in my own soul. For instance, look at Paul before Agrippa: “I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds.” He was so thoroughly conscious in his soul of happiness in Christ, and he was so happy in this consciousness, that he wished the whole company were like himself (except the bonds), having Christ as a well of water springing up within. That which makes heaven to be a heaven to the soul is just this, that he finds the same Christ in heaven that he has in his own soul, and all the subtleties of infidelity cannot touch that soul that possesses Christ thus within; for no reasoning of an infidel can shake my confidence if I am happy in Christ; for if a man came to tell me there was no Christ when my soul was happy in Him, I should not believe him. There may be no intellectual or logical proof on my part; but it will be, to a certain extent, a moral testimony of the happiness of my soul, and the warmth of my affections are centred in Christ. I have often found how much it tells with men of all conditions to assure them that I am perfectly happy in Christ, and quite sure of going to heaven. Are you so? they say. I only wish I could say it. It would ivat «k -^ proof to an infidel, his merely seeing you were happy; but it comes home to the heart of man, as there is a craving in man’s heart that will never be met till they get Christ there; for man is never happy without Christ, whatever he may say.

“He that believeth not God hath made Him a liar.” The sin of man is in making God a liar when they do not believe the record God has given of His Son; for men do quarrel with you when you tell them you know that you are saved. They say. How can you know that? which is just as much as saying that God is not capable of communicating any blessing to man; it is calling God’s wisdom in question as well as His power in the testimony of His mercy and grace. This is what I have felt in the great question about the Bible; it ’s not whether it is the people’s right to have the Bible, but it is questioning God’s right in giving it. The treason is in keeping away God’s message to His servants. It is not merely the servant’s right to have the message, but it is God’s right in giving it that is called in question, as it is interfering with God’s right of communicating His thoughts in His word; and whenever God gives a revelation, man is responsible to receive it. Grod has given a witness, in which He reveals the glory of His Son; and when man calls in question that Word, he is disputing with Qod in the testimony of His grace as to what He is.

Who can explain the riddle of this miserable world without Christ? Go into the alleys and lanes of this vast city, and see the woe and degradation even in this best and most civilized of countries and learn there what sin does. In the drawing-room you may philosophise about it, but it is not in a drawing-room that you will learn what the world is; but when you tell me it was because of all this sin and wretchedness that God’s Son came down into this world to put the sin away, then I can understand it, and that Gx)d gives eternal life; not life for a moment, or a life we can sin away as Adam, but eternal life, which is above and beyond sin altogether, being in His Son, and therefore can never be lost. “This life is in His Son,” who was ever the subject of His Father’s delight; for when down here Gx)d could not be silent in His expression of joy, saying, “This is my beloved Son.” And God, in giving me eternal life, has also given me a nature and capacity to enjoy Him for ever; I am brought into an association with God, a relationship to Gk)d and an enjoyment of God which the angels know not, although holy in their nature and exalted. We are thus brought near that we might know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled with all the fulness of God. In what a wondrous place we are set, if we could but be purged, not from gross sins, but from the vanity and earthlinesa that fills our minds, to enter into all our blessedness and the association which We have thus with God, the very same which Christ has! He hath borne the wrath of God for our eia^li^JKss^5SS^ cup of blessing might be given to ns. In all this Grod would have simplicity of heart A man may talk about many things, but knowledge apart from Christ will never do; but if we possess Christ within Satan can never touch us, and if he comes he will find Christ there, who has overcome him. And it is a sweet and blessed thing that any saint, though born but yesterday, has all in Christ that I have; and if one says, ‘^ I am such a great sinner,” well, the blood has put that away, and settled that question for ever.

‘’And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will. He hearethus.” Here is a confidence in God that applies itself to all the details of life through which I may be called to pass. This is the confidence we have in Him. His ear being ever open to us, we have what we ask for, when we ask according to God’s wilL How wondrous is this, that God’s ear is ever open to us; for surely we should not desire to ask for anything contrary to His will! “And if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petition that we desired of Him.” I am so made to know the love, that if I ask I shall have. If I am really in earnest to do God’s will, to preach the Gospel, for instance, and there are hindrances in the way, Satan in the way, I have only to ask, and I have all God’s power at my disposal, His ear being open to me. If you know what conflict and difiicnltjr are, what a bleasmg la ^3bAa,la Vw God’s ear open to you, and to know if you are doing God’s will, you will always succeed in doing His will.

“There is a sin unto death; I do not say ye shall pray for it.” Temporal death is here intended as chastening in the way of God’s government. “There is a sin not unto death.” And if there be real intercession, God will forgive us. (James v. 14, 15.) If you ask me what the sin unto death is, it may be any sin; it may be the telling of a lie, as in the case of Ananias and Sapphira (Peter did not pray for them). See also in Corinthians, “For this cause many are sickly among you, and many sleep,” &c. The horribly confused state of the Church causes the government to be kept more in the hands of God, and from the saints* incompetency to walk in the power of the Spirit they are necessarily more thrown on the Lord, whose faithfulness to us will not allow our sins to go on unjudged: “He withdraweth not His eye from the righteous.” May we be so walking in the power of holiness, that we may not be struggling with sin under His correcting hands! May we be walking in full communion with His grace! Amen.