Notes of an Address on John 10:1-16; 1 John 1:1-4; 1 Corinthians 1:9; Philippians 3:3
It is always a very delightful thing to speak of Christ. Speaking of church government, very divergent views and feelings are expressed; but speaking of Christ a chord is touched in every Christian’s heart. In the things of which I speak, I want to bring out as clearly as I can the great place which Christ has.
Christ is the Centre and Power for worship, and in John 10 we get the first beginnings of the truth as to this. The Lord came into the Jewish fold, which in His day was a system dominated by position without any regard to condition, and thus was brought about the condemnation of the Lord. It was the system which crucified Christ and cast Him out. The great onus of the crucifixion lies not upon the godless and indifferent; but upon the leaders of religion and the chief shepherds in the fold of Israel.
But when Christ came there was a new beginning. It was in God’s mind that it should be so, for we are told in Romans 3 that the great test of the Law was to the end that every mouth might be stopped, and the whole world be brought in guilty before God. The Law was given to Israel, but they could not keep it and this failure embraces the whole of mankind. Just like a chemist, who analyses a sample. When the sample turns out to be in a certain condition, the whole bulk is proved to be in the same condition.
It is a very delightful thing to see how the Lord begins, and I think this is the keynote. How did the Lord begin? You remember how He went to Galilee by the lakeside, and called Andrew and Peter, and James and John, and others, and His word was “Follow Me.” Such was the attraction of Christ that they followed Him. We can understand this attraction because this blessed Person has touched every one of our hearts. He has engaged our affections, and His word to us is just the same.
We may well ask, Do we follow Him? Or are we drifting? Which sheep does the lion seize? The one furthest away from the shepherd. And you remember, when the children of Israel were passing through the wilderness, Amalek came up against them, and whom did they seize? The stragglers. There is a voice in this for ourselves as to how far we are following the Lord. We read, “Them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice; and there shall be one flock, and one Shepherd.” Observe! Not one fold, but one flock. This is doctrinally spoken of in Ephesians 2, where we read of the middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile being broken down, because they discover such excellence in Christ and His work that they are drawn together in Him
If we turn now to 1 John 1, we find the spiritual and moral side of this emphasized. It leads to the fact that God is seeking worshippers, who shall worship Him in spirit and in truth. What a wonderful time it was in the history of this world when the Lord came—God and Man in one blessed Person. The shining forth of His Manhood and the shining forth of His Godhead were so natural that one did not clash with the other—there was a beautiful harmony. There came in His Person the light from another world—the light of God—in a very remarkable way, so that we may say the revelation of God in Christ, i.e. Christianity, really begins with Him. You cannot think of Christianity without Christ. At the beginning of the word is His own blessed Name.
Now the Apostles were not enlisted from the ranks of the scholarly and intellectual, nor from the Temple at Jerusalem; they were simple, unlearned, ignorant fishermen. If ever there was an education they got it! It was an education which can only be got by being in the company of the Son of God. You cannot get it in the schools or colleges of theology. There is an education, which can only be had by a heart-knowledge of Christ. These disciples for three-and-a-half years had the inestimable privilege of being with the Lord night and day. They heard His words, and they saw works done in a way which no other person had ever done. They beheld the communion between the Father and the Son so that they could say, “We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. As their hearts were moved towards Christ, they were moved towards each other. The closer they got to Christ, the more they were drawn to each other.
The Apostles little by little were drawn to understand the Person of Christ. A little later on in the Epistle we read these words, “If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye shall continue in the Son and in the Father”, and surely there is no better abiding place than that.
What a rebuke this is to the present-day spirit, which is always itching for fresh developments. In Christianity there can be no fresh development. When you fix your eyes upon Christ there can be no further development in Him. There is no room for philosophy and vain deceit. There is no room for ritualism, which is a clear declaration that those who desire it have not found the Substance, or else they would not be seeking after types and shadows. The Apostles declare of the Lord, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of Life. For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show to you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested to us.” And then it goes on to say—and it is so beautiful—“That which we have seen and heard declare we to you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.” These four little books—the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—are indeed surpassingly wonderful! This is where we glean what Christ is, His power, His attraction, His beauty, and as we earnestly contemplate Christ as seen in the four Gospels then we get to know somewhat of this fellowship which the apostles enjoyed.
And they were anxious to pass on that fellowship to us. When we think of the length of time which has elapsed since the Epistle of John was written, and think of Christians today enjoying these eternal verities, it is a wonderful tribute to Christ, and to the Holy Spirit sent from the Father and the Son into this world to witness for Christ. Our fellowship is truly with the Father and with His Son, and that is what I call the moral side of it. The moral side is the vital side, and it is the side which lasts.
If now we turn to 1 Corinthians 1, we read, “God is faithful, by whom ye were called to the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” If we are called to the fellowship of God’s Son, you may be quite sure that we have fellowship with the Father; since the Son and the Father are so completely one. 1 Corinthians presents the truth of fellowship from the side of responsibility. It is a blessed thing to have it from the side of privilege, we have been considering it from that side in John’s Epistle, but I should like to show you one or two things in regard to Corinthians.
The Lord Jesus Christ brooks no rival. Do you want to give Him the first place? If you want to have Christ before you, you must give Him not the first place, but a unique place. It is not the first, second or third place, it is the UNIQUE place. He supersedes all. It is not a question of honouring the Lord first, and then say, honouring the Apostle Paul next. Ah, no! Christ stands by Himself. It is a very great thing to get hold of that! and everything of a practical nature in the way of help down here flows from Him. There is, alas! that which hinders. So the Apostle begins to talk of divisions in their midst.
It is a wonderful thing that God has set His people in association with Christ and with each other, and there is such a thing as a Christian assembly. In the end of chapter 5 it speaks about judging within and without. The “without” consisted in those days of the system which rejected Christ (Judaism), and the pagan world of the Gentiles. In the “without” God judges, but “within” there is a responsibility, resting upon us to carry out the Word of God in all its blessed fulness, and preserve it in its purity.
Now 1 Corinthians is a corrective epistle. What was the mistake at Corinth? We must not be censorious, but remember that they had been converted from paganism.
We have great advantages over them today. If I were to ask all in this company, who had Christian parents to stand up, I am sure the majority of you would stand up. And even if I were to ask all who had Christian grandparents to stand up, I am sure a goodly number would rise. But if I had gone into the Christian assembly at Corinth, and asked the same question, I doubt if any at all would rise to their feet. It takes time to form soul-history.
But Scripture tells us that they were advanced in all utterance, and in knowledge, and they came behind in no gift, yet there was a danger. There were certain brethren whose names are withheld from us for a very good reason. In chapter 4 Paul transfers the rebuke to himself and Cephas and Apollos, the object being to make it more effectual. If he had used the names of the actual leaders they might have retorted, “It’s all very well for you Paul to put us right, but you are seeking to make yourself Pope.” But when Paul rebuked this danger in his own person, he took such a retort right out of their mouths. They were saying as it were, “I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas.” Paul asks pertinent questions “Was Paul crucified for you? Or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?” They had been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, why should they take upon themselves Paul’s name, and the names of the other apostles in this peculiar fashion? Paul says, “All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life or death, or things present or things to come, all are yours.”
We know that the risen Lord has given gifts—apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, but they all are gifted by the Head of the body, the Lord Jesus Christ, and we must take them as His gifts. There have been cases where saints have got their eyes upon a prominent brother and everything had to be framed after his pattern if ministry was to be acceptable. All gifts come from the ascended Lord, and we ought to be prepared to enjoy and profit by every kind of ministry. It is not for us to pick and choose. We should thank God for all, and trace all up to Christ.
Turning now to Philippians 3, we find the verse so framed that it begins at the top and works down to the bottom. If you rejoice in Christ Jesus, you have no confidence in the flesh. If you have no confidence in the flesh, you walk in self-judgment.
I want to emphasise that no one gets into the presence of God for worship unless there is right condition. I believe it is possible for people, less instructed, to be in a better condition than many of us here tonight. Some of us criticise too much, and it would be better if we paid more attention to ourselves. Then there would be more power for worship. Scripture says, “If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine” (John 7:17). I do not underrate position, but the Father is seeking worshippers, who shall worship Him in spirit and in truth. “We are the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.”
When we look at ourselves we feel we are poor wretched things. If we do not feel this, then we have not got very far. If we look at ourselves in a true light, we can afford to look at our brethren. Someone has said that one finds that censorious folks are those who are the most indulgent as to themselves! The one who practises self-judgment, as to the flesh, is the one who is gracious towards the failure he sees in others: because he knows just how far he himself has failed.
The Scripture says, “We are the circumcision.” Before this it speaks of certain people as being the concision. The word concision is a term of reproach for circumcision, when people were relying upon an outward ordinance without the least understanding its spiritual meaning. Here where the apostle speaks of the circumcision he is talking of the spiritual and moral meaning of it. Circumcision was a “cutting-off” of the flesh. We begin by rejoicing in Christ Jesus. We rejoice in our Saviour as Lord, as High Priest and as Advocate, and we rejoice in the hope of His coming again He is our Alpha and Omega, our Beginning and our End.
Let us be honest with ourselves, not by being constantly occupied with our weaknesses and failure; but by being occupied with ourselves to profit in self-judgment in order that we may be bowed in spirit before God and before our Lord Jesus Christ, who is our High Priest in the presence of God for us, and rise to the height of true worship in the presence of the Father and the Son.