John 14:20.
There has been no day in the world's history to exceed in privilege the day in which we live, whether we view it as the Spirit's day, or even as the close of God's dispensation, which is in faith. Nothing previously could compare with the day of the Lord's sojourn on earth, even as the Lord said, "For I tell you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them" (Luke 10:24). We can recall the privileges of the patriarchs, of the prophets and the kings of the Old Testament dispensations, how Jehovah appeared to them, and spoke to them; but great as these things were, they could not compare with the presence of the Son of God incarnate, and the words He spoke and the works He performed.
In spite of the greatness of the privilege of seeing and hearing the Son of God on earth, there were comparatively few who really benefited in that day from what they saw and heard. True, He healed very many sick and leprous, opened the eyes of the blind, unstopped deaf ears, raised the dead, and fed the multitudes; but many of those who partook of the benefits of the Lord's miraculous power did not benefit from the words of spirit and life that fell from His lips; and only those who benefited in this way had lasting blessing.
We are living in a day when the Spirit of God has given to us the record of what the Lord Jesus was, and wrought, in Manhood here, and of the words He received from the Father to communicate to men, words of eternal life, gracious words that show the deep compassions of the heart of God, and tell of His desire to bring men into richest blessing. Moreover, we have the Spirit of God indwelling us, so that we might enter into the thoughts of God, whether made known in the Old Testament, or revealed by the Son of God on earth. Added to all this, the Spirit has opened out to us the present glories of Christ in heaven, the eternal counsels of God for the accomplishment of His purpose; and all that God is about to do on earth before the introduction of the kingdom of Christ, and the new heavens and the new earth, where righteousness shall dwell.
These words were spoken by the Son of God as He was about to leave this world. He had spoken of the coming of the Spirit of truth, of His going to the Father, and "Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also." These things were to mark the day of which the Lord was speaking, the day of His absence from the world, and the day of the Spirit's presence on earth. It has been often remarked that what marks the present day is that a Man is in heaven, and a Divine Person is on earth.
It is a day of faith, for while the Lord is unseen by the world, by faith He is seen by His own, even as we also read in Hebrews 2:9, "We see Jesus … crowned with glory and honour." But it is also a day in which the disciples of Jesus live in the divine and eternal life that He has communicated to them. He revealed the eternal life in Manhood here, went into death to make it available to His own, rose from the dead, and went to His Father's right hand that from there He "should give eternal life to as many" as the Father gave to Him. This is one of the outstanding features of the day to which the Lord referred: His own live in His life, because He lives. We could never have had eternal life had the Son of God not gone into death; but we could not have had it had He remained there. He must needs come out of death to bring us into the heavenly life that He manifested, in which there is the knowledge of the Father, and all the divine affections and relationships belonging to the Father's Name.
This wondrous day of which the Lord spoke is marked by special knowledge. Each dispensation has had its own revelations, and those who benefited by these revelations lived in the knowledge of God as made known in them. So it is at the present time. The revelation of the Father by the Son has brought the knowledge of the Father to every babe in the family of God (see 1 John 2:13). Moreover, the Spirit given to every believer is the Spirit of sonship, "And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father" (Gal. 4:6).
Anyone at all acquainted with the writings of the New Testament epistles knows that both Paul and John often write "we know." There is that great body of common Christian knowledge in which believers live, that is life, light and joy for their hearts as they pass through a world that is ignorant of God, even as the blessed Lord said, "O righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee." A sample from the writings of Paul is found in 2 Cor. 5:1, "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." One from 1 John 5:20 is, "And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life." What amazing knowledge! These are things beyond all human thought, which the greatest men of this world cannot acquire in the schools of men, but which the babes in Christ have in the divine nature, and through the Holy Spirit that God has given to us. The babes in the divine family learn from the Son of God the divine secrets of the Father, and the very words which reveal them to them hide them from the wise and prudent, the great of this world.
Writing to the saints at Ephesus, Paul prayed that they might have the "spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge" of God (Eph. 1:17); and told of the gifts being given "until we all arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God" (Eph. 4:13). In his prayer for the Colossian saints, the apostle desired that they might "be filled with the full knowledge" of God's will (Col. 1:9); and his prayer for the Philippians was that their "love may abound yet more and more in full knowledge and all intelligence" (Phil. 1:9). It is evident from these Scriptures that the writer is calling attention to the wonderful unfoldings of Christianity, the knowledge peculiar to the Spirit's day, when He has brought to us the rich unfoldings of the secrets of God's heart and counsels which centre in Christ glorified at the Father's right hand.
This great and precious truth speaks of the place that ever belonged to the Son. It was true of Him in the past eternity; it was true of Him in Manhood here; but it is true of Him in a new way now at God's right hand. Earlier in chapter 14 the Lord said to Philip, "Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?" (John 14:10); it was then, and is still, what is presented for faith; but in the verse we are considering the Lord does not say, "Ye shall believe," but "Ye shall know that I am in my Father." It was the coming of the Spirit that brought this knowledge to the disciples.
Things that are real to faith are also present knowledge in the heart because the Holy Spirit indwells the believer, and because the believer has the divine nature. In John 17, the Son speaks to the Father concerning His disciples, saying, "They have believed that Thou didst send me" (verse 8); but in verse 25 He says. "These have known that Thou hast sent me." Although not yet having the Spirit, the disciples possessed in the divine nature the knowledge that the Father sent the Son. Again, in 1 John 4:16, it is written, "And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us"; after having written in verse 13, "Hereby know we that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit."
Only of a divine Person could it be written that He was in the Father. It is true that we read of "the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father," and almost the same words are used at the beginning of both epistles; but there it is not of individuals, but of the local assembly, and no doubt it is in the way of endearment, because of their having but recently been brought into the truth and confession of Christ.
The Son was in the Father as one with Him in the fulness of the Godhead, one with Him in all His counsels of love and grace, and one with Him in all the activities that would give effect to His eternal purpose, and secure those that the Father had given Him to be His companions in His own house for evermore. This was the place rightly belonging to the Son who dwelt in the Father's bosom, and who was the object of the Father's affections whether in eternity or in Manhood. As being in the Father He was one with Him in all His desires, thoughts, feelings and movements; and the resources, power and attributes of the Godhead belonged to the Son as to the Father.
Only faith could perceive that this place belonged to the Son when seen as Man here below; but now we know that this is His place where He is in heaven, a Man sitting on the Father's right hand. As we look up to heaven we see Jesus in the place the Father has given to Him, the place into which the Son alone could enter, and according to the desire of the Son, when He said, "And now, O Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was." In the midst of the vast profession of Christianity only true disciples, only those in whom God's Spirit dwells, know the greatness of the Person of the Son as One with the Father in the fulness of the Godhead, though Man at His right hand.
If the Son of God has entered into a new place as Man, He has secured a new place before the Father for His own, and this new place is described in the words "Ye in me." In wondrous grace it is His own place as Man that we share before the face of the Father. As He has been accepted by the Father, so have we been in Him; His place is both the measure and character of our acceptance. Not only have we been accepted in all the efficacy of the work that He accomplished on the cross, but we are accepted in all the grace and affection that are His.
This was something the disciples could not know until the Son took His place on high; it belongs to this day, even as the Lord said, "At that day ye shall ask in my Name … for the Father Himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God" (John 16:26-27). The Lord spoke to the disciples of the great love the Father had for them, but they could not then know that it is the great love that rests upon the Son where He is in the Father's presence that rests upon those who are in the Son before the face of the Father.
The Apostle Paul presents our place in Christ in quite a different way; indeed there are different aspects of it in different Scriptures. We are "in Christ" in contrast with the place we once had "in Adam," for Christ is our Head, and there is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. This is our standing in divine grace before God, and is the portion of every true believer in Jesus. But "in Christ" also speaks of the new state that is ours, even as it is written, "If anyone be in Christ (there is) a new creation" (2 Cor. 5:17). We have been brought into an entirely new order of things, where all is of God, and where all is spiritual, heavenly and eternal, everything of this order being seen in Christ Himself. Moreover, "in Christ" we have been blessed "with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places" (Eph. 1:3), and this according to the eternal counsels of God. This is our blessing now, and it is the earnest of that which we are about to enter into when Christ comes to take us home to enjoy with Him, what God has given to us even now in Him.
On earth, Jesus was with His own, now He is in them. This is the consequence of His going on high and of the coming of the Holy Spirit to indwell the Christian. Christ is in us by the Spirit who is the Spirit of life, and the Spirit of Christ; and having the life of Christ the features of Christ can manifest themselves in the saints. Christ is in us that there might be the continued manifestation in the saints of the life that was made known in its perfection in Him when He was here.
The manifestation of the life of His Son on earth is a wonderful triumph for God. When Satan put the Son of God on the cross he no doubt imagined that he had secured a mighty victory over God and His Son; but the resurrection of Jesus for ever destroyed Satan's power and his plans for defeating God through the death of Christ. How delightful it must be for the Father to see the features of His own dear Son in those He loves, even though it is accompanied with the weaknesses that belong to our present mixed condition.
But Christ is not only in the saints individually, He is also in His body, the assembly, here below, as it is written in Colossians 1:27, "Christ in you, the hope of glory." Of old God dwelt among His people Israel, and in the eternal state the tabernacle of God will be with men, "and He will dwell with them"; but now Christ is in the vessel that will soon display His glory, but which now manifests His life in this world. The assembly is a divine conception and formation, it is the body in which the life of the Head is expressed now, and in which His mind will be expressed in the coming day of glory.