Lecture I
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.
That’s now what he teaches; and now he brings me up to the object — what God was. That which we have seen with our eyes: “God is light.” The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. The communication of life in the Christian, the height of the source of the life communicated to us; but in the Gospel of John you ‘U find, “Of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace,” which thing is true in Him and in you. “An old commandment which was fi-om the beginning,” now a new commandment. Having life in Him, it became true in Him and in you; so He called it a new commandment, though an old one, a simple truth that Christ Himself is become our life, “that the MSa ot Qlfisrs might be manifest in out TaottoX »ftcL^’9»? poor siimer is converted, he has the life communicated from Christ up there, and yet it comes down to the lowest need in us, and yet how high it rises! The Gospel begins before creation. Genesis begins with creation, gives the scene in which all is to be acted; but John gives Him who created. So also in the Epistle to the Hebrews, ‘’Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foimdation of the earth,” “Thou art the same,” we get Christ before the creation, and then in creation. “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us,” and became the source of life; and we receive our life from Him who existed before all worlds, from everlasting. We received our new nature from, and are imited to. Him who was before the world, and who created the world. And this has a double effect (if right with God), lifting our hearts up in ten thousand thousand thanks, if it does manifest the life of Jesus. The least thing manifests the life of Jesus. Whatever does not manifest Him is of the world; whatever is not the manifestation of the life of Christ in our souls, that is sin, and this should be a cause of joy rather than of sorrow. I would have your hearts enlarged, as the Apostle says,“Be ye also enlarged.” Oh to have Christ so before the eye as io be able to judge everything in His light! Don’t think it ’s great learning. No; there may be the lust of the mind as well as of the flesh, but if in communion with Qod it discerns, I call your minds dacJt to see the way we received the ‘tiSfe — lt ^«fi
THE FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN. y
in the humblest and simplest way; He who came into the world to save sinners. He has made us vessels of His fulness. Thus we have fellowship with the Father and with the Son, and display it. “Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son.” The effect is, we have the Father and the Son, and we have nothing more to seek. I ‘ve the Father and the Son. Can I get truth outside of the Father and the Son? I may have more to learn. If a man is on the ocean, there may be a great deal he has to discover of it, but he has not to get there. He says / am there, so / am in the truth. I have got a great deal to learn; but I ‘m in the Father and the Son, and I ‘m in the truth. I don’t want to seek it if I m in it. I have the very eternal God, in whom I dwelL I ‘ve come to the Father when there is a consciousness of this. Oh, what a comfort! It’s peace. Not only a guarding us from evils without, but a spiritual rest within. If I’m striving to get something I’ve no communion. If I want to get to the Father when I’m in His presence already I’ve no communion, and if I ‘m not brought up there I can’t have the sense of what the conscience ought to be in God’s presence. The joy is, our fellowship is with the Father, and rwt in the hope of getting there.
“These things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.” There is where God brings the saint if there is humbleness, and if tpls&% ^& ^SkSi humbleness we shall slip. ^li<eii n?^ Q!e» *^siRk sense of God’s presence — the sense of it, I say, because we are always in His presence in truth — we are at the point to sin. My natural character or flesh will show itself if I ‘m out of His presence. There is such a thing as the saints dwelling in the conscious presence of God without fear. If there is anything between me and God my conscience will be at work; but when the Spirit is not grieved the soul is in the presence of God for joy, learning holiness, but in joy, because occupied in communion instead of in detection, and that ’s a great thing. There is such a thing as being in His presence without the conscience having to be exercised, and in perfect joy. “My peace I give unto you.” What was that peace? There were no wandering affections, there could not be, and so there was full peace of heart with God. He was divinely perfect — all His affections always in tune with God. Now, through the grace and power of God, we may be brought to that. Christ having been revealed to the soul, the world is cast out, and Christ is everything, and there is perfect joy. This is often what our experience is after conversion; but afterwards the love to Christ grows less fervent, the world creeps in little by little, and we have less joy.
There are three things which characterize a
Christian. First, he is” in the light as God is in
the light.” Now God had said to Israel, “1*11
dwell in the thick darkness,” and at Sinai told
tJ^em to keep off; *’foT if so much aa a heat touch.
the mountain, it shall be stoned.” There was a great deal of good there; but He was in His pavilion of darkness, not seen. So we see God acted towards Israel, but did not show Himself. Now the veil is rent fix)m top to bottom, and all is light. It ’s the very nature of the truth we are in, that God is now manifestly revealed; and He that is come in through the rent veil stands in the light of God’s holiness, perfect purity in itself, and it shows everything that’s not so. Second, fellowship one with another. We are there together, and all have fellowship by the same Holy Ghost dwelling in all. Third, we can be there, because the “blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us tiom all sin.” The more in the light, the more it is seen that there is no spot on us through the blood. That could not be said of a Jew. But now the righteousness of God is set forth, and we are brought into the light as He is in the light. Is this a thing that makes you unhappy, or that gives you joy of heart? If we are true of heart, we shall be glad of the light to detect the darkness in us. “Search me, God.” We don’t want to escape from the light, but to be searched by it; not with a pretension that we’ve no sin, but a consciousness that “the blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin,” for the effect of being in the light is, that we confess our sins. “In whose spirit there is no guile.” There are two things there, the confession and tli lon- ^.^lspl the first to the end of the fouttla. Nets»^ Ha ^Sos there may be no deception; then in the fifth verse, “This is the message we have heard of Him, God is light;” and now that ’s the test Where Christ is known in the presence of Grod, there is no question about sin. How came I there? I came through the blood, then I ‘ve got peace. If I ‘m reasoning about God, that ’s another thing; but if we’ve got there, we got there through the blood, and that gives peace, a peace which is never lost. There is a peace which may be lost. Happy at first, while fresh from conversion, and all is easy and smooth with us, our hearts attracted by the grace of Christ; but if failure comes in conscience is awakened, a sense of sin alarms, and we lose our peace, so that we don’t know where we are. Until we have apprehended we are brought to God, where we never could be brought if there remained a spot of sin upon us, we can’t know settled peace in our souls as spoken of in Hebrews, “no more conscience of sin,” and that is enduring grace. The power of the aflFections of the new nature form a link of fellowship with God, and only as we keep in the light shall we know the practical enjoyment of it. We must be in the light, that the evil thoughts may be shut out, so that we may have fellowship with God. In how many things in our intercourse with one another or with the world self comes in, and is not judged by us. There is a practical consciousness in the Christian that he can’t go on without Ood, anA he judges, waits, and conJeaaea, ,T3La»T^ in God; and thus his heart is kept calm and in peace.
There are two things: 1. The manifestation of the eternal life; for it has been manifested unto us. 2. We are partakers of it. I have fellowship with the Father and Son. He has communicated to us that nature, so that we can delight in His fellowship. The Lord give us to keep ourselves in the love of God, in His presence, in the light, detecting everything that is not of Him, judging it, and thus to be in the enjoyment of His love!