(A sequel to "Our Genesis" in the Bible Treasury, No. 156, May, 1869.)
"They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world."
1871 262 The disciple who has accompanied his Lord through the various scenes which served to call out His personal glories both by words and works in the first twelve chapters of John's Gospel, must have been prepared in some measure for His departure "out of this world to the Father." Nor is this rupture to be accounted for because of what men were when brought into the presence of the Word made flesh, though an early intimation reveals the secret that "Jesus did not commit himself unto them because he knew all men;" and a later one declares "they loved the praise of men, more than the praise of God." But other reasons are at hand.
The group of men and women who had been attracted out of the world by what He was, and gathered round Him with true-hearted affection, had to learn that they could not follow Him. "Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow till thou hast denied me thrice." But further, that little enclosure at Bethany where Jesus was at home with Martha and Mary and Lazarus whom He loved, and which shone out in such heavenly light and grace, would not satisfy the heart of the Lord: He must have them with Himself, in His own life and likeness and glory. All was at its very best — "there they made him a supper and Martha served." Lazarus too, who had been dead "was one of them that sat at the table with him." And Mary took her ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair. Moreover, "the house was filled with the odour of the ointment," and He who brought His glory into it, was there as "the resurrection and the life." Measuring themselves by themselves, why was the house at Bethany broken up? and why did the Lord give that strange character to Mary's act, "against the day of my burying hath she kept this?" The glory of God had been the rule and object of Christ's action at the grave when He cried with a loud voice "Lazarus, come forth;" and so now, in His renewed intimacy with them in Bethany, He accepts no other measure. Lazarus, though raised from the dead, was still in the image of the first man earthy.
The Son of the Father passes beyond all their thoughts into the depths of His own love about them, and is as truly in intercourse with "the voice from the excellent glory" in John 12:28 as when upon the mount of transfiguration about the matters of the kingdom and its glories, and His own personal majesty. "Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again." In John we may remark the entire absence of the holy mount, of which Luke and Peter give the account. They were occupied with "the Son of man coming in his kingdom," when His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light: though at the mount of transfiguration, as in the house at Bethany, He accepted the decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem, as His appointed pathway into the kingdom and His personal glory. John's occupations are different, and have other objects, though there is this point of similarity, that the house of Bethany, where Jesus was anointed for His burying, is transferred to another day; just as the transfiguration scene was folded up for the millennium, when Jesus accepted "his decease" from that mount.
John's Gospel introduces us to the Father, and the "Father's house," during this dispensation, while the kingdom glory is in abeyance, and its king rejected and seated at the right hand of the throne of God in heaven. It is therefore with these new relations, as one with Him who has left this world and gone to the Father to prepare a place for us, that John 13 begins, though founded upon His decease and the day of His burying — "except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit." The home of Bethany has given place to the Father's house and its many mansions. The hour has come and gone, that the Son of man should be thus glorified. The voice from heaven has verified itself by glorifying the Father's name, and glorifying it again in the resurrection of Him who was "lifted up from the earth," that He might draw all men unto Him. Other and new associations have been formed between the risen One and His own by redemption through His blood, never to be broken up — with those who are not in the flesh, nor of the world, but born of the Spirit, and in life, and in union with Christ. Himself said, "Go tell my brethren I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; to my God, and your God." Lazarus was dead and risen, but in the likeness of Adam. The redeemed are dead with Christ, and risen in Christ, and new creatures in Him. In Christ we have passed out of the judgment that man in the flesh, and the world, and Satan are judicially under and are going into. "Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out." A parting word was uttered by the Lord in John 12 before all was closed up in darkness, "while ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. These words spake Jesus and departed and did hide himself from them." They have lost Him: the light of the world has gone down in obscurity. Israel is in thick darkness; the life that was the light of men has been refused; and the Anointed One of Bethany has passed through His "burying," and become the glorified Son of man at the right hand of God.
It is in this position, where man never was before, that we who now believe in Christ are called out to know Him, and by grace to take a portion with Him; and this fact amongst others necessitates the new ministry of the water and the towel and the bason between the Lord and ourselves that we "may have part with him." From John 13 onward we shall find our heavenly relations opened out consequent upon the break-up and the break-down of the earthly ones, proposed to Israel by Him who rode into the city of Jerusalem upon a colt, the foal of an ass. Before we leave the first twelve chapters of this Gospel we shall do well to remember that "the Word made flesh" had presented "himself to his own, and his own received him not." As a worshipping people He went up with them to the appointed feasts of the first and the seventh months; and then in His own person took the place of the Passover and of the feast of Tabernacles. He had visited their temple which should have been the house of prayer for all nations, but found it a den of thieves; and been compelled to challenge a ruler of the Jews, the one who owned Him as a teacher come from God — "if I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?" After this He publicly convicted the nation, or at least the two tribes, "I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you," and prophetically adds, "I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not; if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive." Israel after the flesh had set itself aside, "ye will not come to me that ye might have life."
The Lord has become glorious in other eyes by departing out of this world to the Father — He has made us one with Himself where He is. The revelation of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost had been made in the ministry of our Lord when on earth, and especially in the Gospel of John; but it is by the anticipated departure of Jesus in the chapters we are now about to consider, that we are put into relation with the Father by the Son through the Holy Ghost. That which constitutes Christianity, three persons in the Godhead, a trinity in unity, would be repugnant to the mind of a Jew, for he seemed instructed otherwise, "the Lord thy God is one Jehovah." These chapters therefore become the basis, and declare the character of the present dispensation: that is, if the Church can be said to be in any. Moreover this period between the ascension of the Lord and His second coming, and our gathering together unto Him, is not only marked by this full revelation of the Trinity, and our relations with the Father's house; but by the descent of the Holy Ghost consequent upon the departure and ascent of the Son. Nothing can be so important as this, if we would rightly understand the peculiarity of our dispensation — one that is marked, and indeed constituted by the Father's glory in the heavens — the Son's departure from this world to the right hand of God — and the Holy Ghost's descent to this earth as the Comforter, and the Spirit of truth during the Lord's absence. This revelation of the unity in trinity, and this change of places as regards the Son and the Holy Ghost, is characteristic of our new position and standing, consequent upon the world's rejection of Christ. He beheld the Person in heaven, in whom the counsels and purposes which were hid in God from before the foundation of the world are now connected; just as when the Lord was upon the earth Jewish promises and prophecies and types found their yea and Amen in Him.
The Holy Ghost by the apostles has made known to the Church since Pentecost, that hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory. Another book has also been written, "the Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto him to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass," and which tells us of the marriage of the Lamb, in the coming day of His espousals when His Bride shall have made herself ready. But the Church soon lost consciousness of the fact "that she was espoused as a chaste virgin to Christ," as well as of her portion with her Head and Lord in heaven, and her place of testimony on earth. It is this forgetfulness of what the Church of God really is to Him and to His Son and to the Holy Ghost, that makes it so difficult to recover the members of Christ, from the Babylon and harlotry of these many centuries.
Enough has been said perhaps to lead some to the discovery of the peculiarity of the Christian, which these precious chapters of John's Gospel so abundantly and plainly declare. Indeed so entirely is our calling and portion with the departed One in heaven, that He must needs say, "I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am, there ye may be also." There was really no place anywhere "for his own which were in the world:" only they were confident in His love, who loved them to the end. From the river to the ends of the earth had been given by covenant to Abraham and his seed in the earliest times; and moreover the Seed and Heir of the world had them in possession by incarnation and righteous title. The kingdom and its glories were also His, as we have seen at the Mount of transfiguration; but neither His kingship, nor His heirship, nor His sonship with Abraham and David, would He enjoy alone. No, the love He bore to the earthly people led Him to talk of His decease with the men in glory, just as He interpreted Mary's anointing for the day of His burial; that so He might at a future time take His place as the true Boaz, and lead His redeemed people into the inheritance.
In the meanwhile He forms an entirely new dispensation with the Father, according to the hidden wisdom and secret counsels which were hinted at by the Lord to His disciples; but which became the glorious subjects of Holy Ghost revelation and testimony, when the earthly order and course of Jehovah with His nation and people were set aside, for the millennial age. There was thus no place on earth for the followers of a rejected Lord, and certainly no place in the heavens, for Christ was not as yet ascended, though all was perfect in counsel and in purpose, but a mystery hidden in God. Nor does the peculiarity of the Christian's position apply to place merely; for it was equally so as regarded any relation to God Himself. In truth we were orphans, without a father, and without a house or home — outside of the dispensation to Israel, of which as Gentiles we never formed a part: and not yet introduced into this new dispensation or economy which was about to be opened in heaven.
It was that we might not be left in this state that these chapters from xiii. to the end were written, and which open up to us the new sources of life and love which the departure of Jesus to the Father, formed for Himself and us. We were orphans; but new revelations and heavenly relations were at hand, and thus Jesus said, "I will not leave you orphans [comfortless], I will come to you." "At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you" — blessed portion! Two abodes for those who have part and place with the departed One are opened out in these scriptures: the first is in the Father's house for the orphans but the children of His adopting love; and the second is on earth, and in ourselves — "if a man love me, he will keep my words: and may Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." The intercession and communion are thus maintained between the Father and the Son and the children, by the descended Holy Ghost in the power of life in our inner man; and in a known understood fellowship, which makes us partakers of Christ and with Christ, in love and joy and peace. For instance, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." He puts us also into the same place that He held with the Father. "Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full." So in reference to love, His own love, "having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end," and as regards His Father's love, "I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them."
It was indeed this hidden communication, so real and yet so unintelligible at that time, which led one of the disciples to ask, "Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?" How entirely different was this kind of intercourse from what they had known with their Messiah on the earth, in the days of His flesh, and which was closed up at Bethany! He who was once seen with their eyes and heard and looked upon and which their hands had handled is now the invisible and departed One — the absent and the missing One-but nevertheless to be known and enjoyed in a new way, and in such a manner as would surpass all they had ever felt or understood before, even when their hearts burned within them, as He talked with them on the Emmaus journey! "We have the mind of Christ" — they had the opened understanding.
In a certain sense the general acknowledgment of Christians is a true one, and most important when intelligently made, that this period in which we are living is "the dispensation of the Spirit." The Holy Spirit has come down consequent on the Son of man's glorification, "I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter that he may abide with you for ever" — fruit of the intercession of Christ above. Besides this, the Holy Ghost has descended in virtue of the title and right of the ascended Lord in His own person, "when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, he shall testify of me, and ye also shall bear witness," etc. But further, as to ourselves, "howbeit when he the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth, for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak, and he will show you things to come." Proceeding from the Father, sent by the Son, and dwelling with us and about to be in us, He is the glorifier of Christ, the Son of man in power and glory on high; "he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you." Finally, and to complete this full statement of blessedness during our Lord's absence, and that we might not be left orphans, it is added, "all things that the Father hath are mine; therefore, said I, that he shall take of mine and show it unto you." This is what the apostles in their varied epistles bring out to us, under the anointing and teaching of the Holy Ghost.
The descended Spirit, thus standing in relation to Christ's own which are in the world as the Comforter, takes a place of convicter towards all who are not His: "when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment." He is the evidence and witness, from the departed One who is with the Father, of the world's sin, which cast out righteousness in the glorified Man, and of the coming judgment of God upon those who did it, and of the casting out of its prince. The presence of the Holy Ghost upon earth is all this, whether men accept the conviction and receive their forgiveness through faith in the blood of the Lamb, or not. These chapters contain the great characteristics of this parenthesis (so to speak) in which we are living, and which bring out the requisite revelation of the purposes of God respecting us; and unfold the relations with the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, till the Lord comes again to receive us to Himself, and to present us in the Father's sight, holy and unblameable and unreproveable.
The Church of God does not properly form the subject of the Son's ministry, and is therefore not found in this gospel; but the Father, whom He came to reveal, and the Father's house which He is gone to prepare for us, and the joint manifestation of the Father and the Son making their abode with us while unmanifested to the world, are the prominent features of these chapters. Some details which they present, as the Lord was teaching these mysteries to His disciples, may now be examined. Two things in the beginning of John 13 which refer to the Lord alone need be stated, that we may understand the ground on which He personally acted in their midst. The first is, "Jesus knew that his hour was come, that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, and having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end," so that go where He may His own are one with Him. The second thing to notice is, "Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God, he riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments, and took a towel and girded himself; after that he poureth water into a basen, and began to wash the disciples' feet," etc., and this ministry of love connects the Lord with us where we still are. "If I wash thee not [as he said to Peter], thou hast no part with me," explains and accounts for the object of this loving service to "his own which were in the world," though because they were no longer of it.
Strange and contradictory powers are brought into view in this chapter: on the one band, Jesus in the activity of love, which has girded Him afresh for new ministry; and, on the other, the devil corrupting the mind of Judas Iscariot, and putting it into his heart to destroy his Lord and Master. The devil and man are together, but as they never were before, nor ever can be again; "and after the sop Satan entered into him. He then having received the sop went immediately out and it was night," and a long and dreary night it has been from that hour to this, save as divine grace has broken into it, to "turn men from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God." But let us return to Jesus, and witness the self-sacrificing devotedness of His heart to His disciples. Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of His own whom Jesus loved, and this place of confiding rest for the head of a disciple is as necessary, in order to have part with Jesus where He now is, as that He should gird Himself and wash and wipe a disciple's feet in order to maintain the character by a walk on earth, with the departed One in heaven.
Besides this devotedness of heart and hand to His disciples in the active services of His living love, the hour was come, when by His dying love He reached the point where the Son of man found His glory, and where God was glorified in Him. Connected with this — yea growing out of it — Jesus adds, "If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him." His perfect obedience in life, and by laying down His life, His decease at Jerusalem, and His burial, were the steps by which He reached these glories for Himself and His Father, till lower He could not go. He had secured everything for God against the full power of Satan by going down into "the lowest parts of the earth." In His own thoughts with the Father, as to the causes that brought Him to this hour, and the consequences in glory both now and hereafter which were about to be declared by His death and resurrection, He must of necessity be alone: and this leads Him to say to the disciples, "Little children, yet a little while I am with you, ye shall seek me, and, as I said to the Jews, whither I go ye cannot come, so now I say to you." His departure out of this world raised the inquiry in Peter, "whither goest thou, and why cannot I follow thee now?"
The present One was soon to be the absent One, and thus a new trouble filled their hearts; nor was their faith able to understand the fact, how He would become the object of their confidence and hope, in the place where ascension would soon carry Him. "Ye believe in God, believe also in me." Yea, every further word that Jesus spoke was a trouble of heart to those that were to be left behind Him, and when He said to them, "Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know," Thomas replied at once, "Lord we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way?" Difficulties thicken, as they necessarily must, between Him and them, nor are they lessened when He adds, "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also; and from henceforth ye know him and have seen him." This declaration of the identity of the Father and the Son leads Philip to say, "Lord show us the Father, and it sufficeth us." What does this strange but blessed intercourse between our Lord and His own which were in the world prove to us; but the love which was thus giving them "a part with himself" for communion and joy with the Father, and the Father's house, that they might not be orphans when He was gone? The last question, and one of equal importance perhaps, arises as to the required and adequate link between the Father and the Son in heaven, and His own upon the earth, by which this living communication should be maintained in an existing relationship. Fruitful in loving affection to Jesus from whom such blessedness flows, Judas said, "Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?" These four questions from Peter, Thomas, Philip, and Judas, served to reveal and lay the basis, or at least to bring out all that was needful for them and ourselves, as regards our intercourse with the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, in a known peace, "my peace," which the world could neither give nor take away. Moreover this intimacy is maintained by the Comforter "who dwelleth with you, and shall be in you" upon the footing of an obedience in which love delights: so that Jesus declares, "he that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me; and be that loveth me shall be loved of my Father; and I will love him and will manifest myself to him."
All is thus formed and complete that is requisite for a heavenly people to have part with the Son in the Father's house, till He comes again to receive us to Himself. He has girded Himself for our feet, and displayed Himself in a love which draws the disciple's head to His breast. He stands revealed as the way, the truth, and the life, by whom we come unto the Father, and declares, "he that hath seen me hath seen the Father;" adding, "believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me, or else believe me for the very works' sake." What remains, but that this same love should bring Him back, and crown itself by receiving His own to Himself, "that where he is, there we may be also."
In this interval, and while the Holy Ghost is dwelling with us, John 15 shows the Vine and its branches, with the clusters of fruit whereby the Father is glorified. The producing powers are in the two preceding chapters which have mainly occupied us; and plants of such planting, branches in such a vine, cannot but yield fruit of the quality which is to the eye and heart of the husbandman. Indeed this chapter of responsibility naturally follows the others which declare our portion with the Son in the Father's habitation, and stands in relation to us as the Book of Deuteronomy did to Israel and their Exodus — a book which, though given by Moses on this side Jordan, has much to do with the other side, when the people had come into the land and had crossed over, to 'whom he taught the manners and customs and behaviour that suited the nation, when in the midst of idolatrous countries that knew not the God of Israel, as His people were called out to know and to obey Him. John 15 is really a continuation of that same love which, having carried His own upward, when Jesus departed out of this world, desires to associate us with Himself as the true Vine on the earth, and that we may have part with Him in bringing forth fruit whereby His Father may be glorified, down hero in the place of true discipleship. What can be plainer or more inviting than the ground He states? "As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love." The Lord only knows one path for Himself as for us, and with the same result to both. "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." Part, and place, and position, with Him everywhere and in everything, in heaven and on earth, are His only rule towards us, and He has planted us with Himself in life and blessing above, where He is gone, that we may bring forth fruit below, where He is not!
Again, in John 16 He spake of His absence to them: "A little while and ye shall not see me; and again a little while and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father." But this little while was as much a parable to them as when He spoke in John 14 and said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," by whom they could alone come to the Father. Indeed Jesus Himself said, "These things have I spoken to you in proverbs, but the time cometh when I shall no more speak to you in proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of the Father." What a time was this for the disciples! The Father revealed, but not known; the Holy Ghost not yet given, because the Son of man was not yet glorified; and the Lord whom they had known and loved and who loved them, separated from them first by His death, and then by resurrection from the dead. "Sorrow had filled their hearts." Was this what He had chosen them for? Was it for this they had left all and followed Him? to be carried outside the fold of Israel and left homeless in a world which was about to cast Him out, and in which they would be houseless and fatherless, orphans and without a hope! They said, therefore, "What is this that he saith, A little while? We cannot tell what he saith." Jesus knew they were desirous to ask Him, and said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, that ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy." But all this was a darkening parable to their minds, till the womb of death gave forth the dawn of the third day. They would then rejoice "that a man was born into the world" by resurrection, and remember no more the anguish. Ye now therefore have sorrow, "but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you, and in that day ye shall ask me nothing." This daytime, bright with their risen Lord, chased away the shadows, and turned their night into day. In "that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: for the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God." He now reveals Himself to them, in the light of His own personal glory, a light inscrutable to the natural mind and in language unintelligible to the human understanding, but nevertheless received and held by the simplest faith, in the confidence of a love which does not doubt Him, in word or deed. "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again I leave the world, and go to the Father. His disciples said unto him, Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now are we sure that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee," etc.
It seems at first sight disappointing, when their thoughts are at rest about Him and themselves, and just beginning to embrace Him in the light of that day of resurrection which was to follow this night of sorrow, to be thrown into yet deeper darkness and distress by their own failure. Hitherto He had spoken of His leaving them but now He says "the hour cometh, yea, is now come that ye shall be scattered every man to his own, and shall leave vie alone, and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me." It is this unchanging and unbroken link which is now to be manifested and to take the place of every other, for all else had gone or were about to give way, and "leave him alone." In view of this, and to take their own thoughts away from themselves, He said, "These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace." This is what He was to them; and they would prove all creature-cisterns to be just what they were to Him. If they could receive it, the associations which He had formed for them with Himself and His Father were of such a nature as to have completely changed their relations to all former things, and even to the world itself. "In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world;" and it is with Himself and upon His own ground of victory and triumph that He puts them, that His own may have part with Him everywhere and in everything. His work is complete, His path trodden, the next step is before Him, and the very last: and having to do with Him who sees the end from the beginning, and who calls things that are not as though they were, He passes into His own solitudes with His Father.
The wonderful John 17 opens this intercourse to us, and lets us in where angels' feet had never stood. It is as the overcomer of the world, that He enters it, and "lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee." He holds His place too, as "the glorifier of the Father upon the earth," and the finisher of "the work that was given him to do." Power had also been given him over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as had been given him; "and this is life eternal that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." It is such an One, in righteousness upon the earth, and in righteous title as the fulfiller of all that had been entrusted to Him, who can lay claim to His own essential glory; "and now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." God hears man upon the earth speaking these words: righteousness is with this Second man, and joined with perfect obedience, so that God can come back again into the habitable parts of the world and begin His delight with the sons of men. "The glory which thou hast given me, I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one."
The Word made flesh has prepared this earth for God by redemption, and God has found a place for the Son of man in heaven by resurrection; nor have these changes, mighty as they are, either shut us out, or left us orphans; for Jesus said, "I go to prepare a place for you; and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." Blessed portion, one with the departed where He now is, in the unseen but well-known fellowship with the Father; sealed by the Spirit of adoption — part with the coming One, in all the glory of which this unparalleled chapter witnesses. "That the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me." Nor is this blessedness known only as the fruit to us of accomplished redemption while unmanifested to the world, nor of glory and power by resurrection to the Son of man, who is to be manifested in the glory of the Father, and in His own glory, and the glory of the holy angels, when He sits upon the throne of His glory; but witnessed as perfectly before God, when in the veiled perfection of His incarnation. "Being in the form of God, he thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." As the anti-type of the Hebrew servant, who loved his master, and his wife, and his children, and would not go out free; faithful to Him that appointed Him, with the ear bored, or the ear digged, as in the Psalms; as the ear opened, morning by morning as in the Prophet Isaiah; till, passing all that the type could betoken, He gave His back to the smiters, and His cheeks to them that plucked off the hair, and hid not His face from shame and spitting; "Made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed; and He made His grave with the wicked, and with the rich in His death, because He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth. By such steps as these has God been glorified by the Son of man. Finally, by the perfectness of His loving obedience unto death, He brought back the righteousness of God in company with Himself into the same descending path in which lay our deliverance; till at the grave's mouth the glory waited on Him who lay there to vindicate and claim Him on the third day by taking Him up, "Raised from the dead by the glory of the Father." The Second man began another history, as seated in the heavens, after that God had been first brought back into the earth, through the intrinsic righteousness of the righteous One, on whom the Spirit of God rested in the form of a dove, and who was anointed by the Holy Ghost. The heavens were first drawn aside as a curtain to look down upon this Man whom they have since received, and who now sits there on the right hand of God.
John 18, 19 give us in fact and in detail what we have been considering in full accomplishment. Led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before His shearers, dumb, so He opened not His mouth. Judas, who dipped his hand with his master in the dish, betrayed Him with a kiss. Caiaphas the high priest condemned Him, and Caesar crucified Him. Collective and concentrated human enmity, instigated by Satan, got their vent on the person of the Lord, and found their complete outlet at the cross where He was hung — nailed to the accursed tree by wicked hands.
The descent of the Holy Ghost as the glorifier of Christ, the teaching of the apostles in the various Epistles, and our own anointing and unction from the Holy One, have made this Gospel (and especially the part which is so peculiarly characteristic of this present period since the departure of Jesus) plain and intelligible to us who have part and place with Him where He is. It is on this account perhaps that we are so little able to understand, much less to enter into, the difficulties and disappointments that filled the disciples' hearts.
Trouble and fear took possession of them at the announcement of Jesus "departing out of this world to the Father," as we have seen; but an additional fact or two may serve to make their dilemma plain and intelligible to us who were never in it. The example of Mary in John 20 shows the bewilderment of mind in which she stood at the sepulchre weeping, and said to the angels, "they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him." What was she for the moment, but a disappointed, homeless, forlorn woman, in truth an orphan in her destitution? But He who said to them, "I will not leave you comfortless [orphans]; I will come to you," appeared to her, though she supposed Him to be the gardener, and knew not that it was Jesus.
As the risen One, alive again from the dead, He made Himself known to her, first of all, and then bade her, go tell my brethren, "I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God and your God." He has made true His own promise by coming to Mary, and thus He put them into relationship with Himself in life and union, and as sons with the Father in heaven. Moreover "He breathed on them and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost" bringing them thus into closer association with Himself in the power of life, as the risen man, the Son of God, and Lord.
The two disciples on their road to Emmaus who talked together, not of His decease or burial but of the empty sepulchre, were in the same perplexity and sorrow as to their Lord as was Mary when she found Him not. The narrative in Luke shows their disappointment and how to their own thoughts they were cast upon the world, friendless and fatherless, orphans in very deed. "We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel; and beside all this today is the third day since these things were done." The words of the women too, who told the apostles of the empty sepulchre and of the missing body of the Lord Jesus, "seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not." In fact, if Christ in resurrection was not their hope nor even upon their minds as bound up with His own testimony to them before His betrayal, what must have been their desolation? They had lost Him, and were in this sense of all men most miserable. Personally He had attached Mary to Himself in resurrection, and in this same character He joined these disciples who communed together and were sad. Mary mistook Him for the gardener, and these suppose Him to be a stranger in Israel: yea, so little had the third day brought the light of His resurrection-morn to their thoughts, that they only mention the fact to Himself as the then measure of their desertion by His death. "Today, is the third day since these things were done." Then He said unto them, "O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken, ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory? And beginning at Moses, and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures, the things concerning himself."
Thus by personal intercourse with one and another, and by opening the scriptures and opening their understandings at one time, or else by coming into their midst when the doors were shut, and saying, Peace be unto you, and showing them His hands and His side, He reestablished their confidence. "Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord."
But neither this redemption nor His own reappearance in their midst and intercourse for forty days had served to disconnect their minds from the world, so as to have part and portion with Him in His departure to the Father; and what the Holy Ghost would come down to bring to their remembrance or to reveal. When they were come together in Acts 1, they asked of Him, "Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?" And He said unto them, "It is not for you to know the times and the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power." Perplexity, if not disappointment, had still hold of them, and especially now that the resurrection which had just given Him back to them must be superseded by an ascension that would take Him away again where He was before. What were these hundred and twenty disciples to do, shut out from the world in an upper room where they continued in prayer and supplication; no longer any hopes of the kingdom-glory, or of the nation's blessing as a present thing; shut up to the heavens in the new-born expectations of what "the promise of the Father" should mean, and "the baptism of the Holy Ghost" could be, which they had heard from their again departed Lord?
Further, He had said, "Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you; and ye shall be witnesses to me both in Jerusalem," etc. And when He had spoken these things, while they beheld, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. But these were the necessary paths for Him to take, that they might pass out of their orphanage into the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to the Father, according to the good pleasure of His will. Their confidence was restored and unshaken, as they saw the cloud receive Him, and angels waiting on Him, and the heavens claiming the rejected One of the earth.
Judas and a band of soldiers had come out against Him with lanterns and torches, as against a thief — the high priest had condemned Him as a blasphemer — Pilate had crucified Him — and the grave had shut its mouth upon Him. It was this dark and dreary path downward into the lowest parts of the earth that had awakened their fears. He was in the region and shadow of death and dead! But now "they look stedfastly into heaven," and see the risen One, the glorified Son of man by ascension, going up to God in the power of life to be crowned with glory and honour, and to be set over all the works of His hands. And behold two men stood by them in white apparel, which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus whom ye have seen taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner," etc. Then returned they to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, "and when the day of Pentecost was fully come, there was a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and filled all the house where they were sitting." They are no longer forlorn or destitute. All fear of being left orphans is at an end, for there appeared to them cloven tongues, like as of fire, which sat upon each of them; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. By this baptism of the Holy Ghost the disciples were united to the risen Lord and Head of His body, the Church, and had part and portion with Him in all that the Father hath made Him to be and put into his hands. We are heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. "All things are yours," the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, all things are yours, for ye are Christ's and Christ is God's. And whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
But to return. The object and character of the Son's ministry on earth was to declare the Father, and to lay the foundation for this intercourse with the children of His adopting grace: the Holy Ghost as the Comforter came down to dwell with them and to be in them, of which these chapters treat. He had glorified the Father on earth and finished the work that was given Him to do. Founded on this fact Jesus said in John 17 "Now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." As to His own, He adds, "I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world;" and again, "I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me." Further, He says, "I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them." He stood between us and God, upon the question of our sins, confessing them and putting them away by the sacrifice of Himself. Here He stands as intercessor between us and the Father, touching His own glory; and the glory which had been given Him as Son of man — bringing us before the Father in love, upon the same ground He took for Himself in righteousness. Yea, more than this, He puts us into the Father's care, because He is about to leave the world: "Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are." The circles of the Father's glory through the Son — of the Son's glory with the Father — of the Holy Ghost's glory, as proceeding from the Father and the Son — and of the church's glory as the body and bride of Christ; the pillar and ground of the truth; the church of the living God (though not brought out in this gospel, yet consequent upon the Holy Ghost's presence on earth) are all complete. These describe the peculiarity and blessedness which is our portion, who are called out to take part and place with the departed One, while hidden in the heavens, till He comes to receive us to Himself.
John 21 is another proof of the incapacity of the disciples, previous to the descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, to connect themselves with Christ in resurrection — and the last one. They put themselves in relation to their former pursuits, as deserted and forsaken — left to their own resources as comfortless. "Peter saith to them, I go a fishing. They say unto him, We also go with thee. They went forth and entered into a ship immediately; and that night they caught nothing." But He who had said "I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you," appeared on the shore to take part with them, in their unsuccessful fishing; and to leave another proof behind Him, that as the risen Son of man (who had put them, in John 20, into relationship with His Father, and His God, and was Head over all things) He had also all things put under His feet, "all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beast of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea." In the exercise of this title He said unto them, "Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it, for the multitude of fishes."
They no longer ask of the "little while and ye shall not see me, and again a little while and ye shall see me, and because I go to the Father," for the Lord had rejoined them, "having loved his own which were in the world, be loved them unto the end." They have passed out of their trouble and fear, though as yet, not at home with the risen one, who had afresh charged Himself with the care of His own, and all that concerned them; so when they were "come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread." He has girded Himself anew and come forth from death and the grave to show Himself to them, and to serve them, in these new titles by resurrection, on his way up to the Father; and to His place on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens. The sorrow that filled their hearts when He left them has given place to satisfaction, though none of the disciples are at ease with Him, in these new ministries of His love, any more than when He girded Himself with the towel, to wash their feet; yet they "durst not ask him Who art thou? knowing that it was the Lord." As the risen Son of man, Jesus has proved to them, that He is the Lord of the seas as well as of the earth on which He stood, and then "cometh and taketh bread and giveth them, and fish likewise." This is now the third time that Jesus Himself to His disciples after that He was risen from the dead. They have seen the Lord and He has made Himself known to them in breaking of bread, and by the net full of great fishes, a hundred and fifty and three. "Part with me," as Jesus said in John 13, was the object before Him, in regard to His own, when leaving the world to go to the Father; and the ways by which this fellowship has been formed and secured till He comes again to receive us to Himself (by the descent of the Holy Ghost, and His abiding presence as the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, and the glorifier of the Son, both by indwelling power for our communion, and by outward testimony to the world), have been the subjects of the intervening chapters. But there remained in John 21, for the Lord to take His place with Peter, as the Shepherd and Bishop of souls, by restoring that disciple who had denied Him, to the confidence of that love which was stronger than death, and which no denial could turn aside. Subjected to this searching care of the soul, piercing even to the dividing and discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart; another sorrow takes hold of this disciple, and he judges himself for not taking part with his Lord when blasphemously accused and condemned. Conscience and heart do their work, when Jesus said the third time, "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?" "Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time Lovest thou me? and he said, Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee." It is in this character of "the shepherd and bishop of souls" that the departing Lord thus established Himself in grace; and it is this disciple, whose feet had been washed at the beginning, and whose soul had been restored at the close, who consistently speaks to us, in his epistles, of our Lord in these two offices. The confidence of Jesus in Peter, by this recovery under the Bishop's care of his soul, received an immediate proof by the Lord's saying to him, "Feed my lambs." As the great Shepherd of the sheep, brought again from the dead by the God of peace, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, He said again, "Feed my sheep:" and the last chapter of Peter's first epistle is very full and complete, in the recognition of our Lord and himself in this responsibility as an under-shepherd, in view "of the crown of glory that fadeth not away."
In every fresh relation in heaven with the Father, and on earth, as caring and feeding these "other sheep which are not of this fold" (see John 10:16), these disciples have part and place with their Lord; and these positions and their corresponding services, form the peculiarity (as we are tracing) of this present period marked by Christ's absence, and the descent of the Holy Ghost.
But there was yet one more proof, by which a disciple might have part with his Lord; and of this Jesus speaks to Peter, before He finally leaves the world for the Father's presence. "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake he, signifying by what death be should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me." What could unjealous love do, but set "His own" in the road He had Himself trodden down to death, as the new pathway by which a disciple could have part with his Lord — and in which glory on earth was to be reached, and God glorified by the laying down of life? Another disciple was standing by, whom Jesus loved, who also leaned on His breast at supper, and said, Lord, Which is he that betrayeth thee? Peter, seeing him, saith to Jesus, "Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith to him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me." Here also is a last and crowning instance of the love of the Lord to "His own, which were in the world," and of the character of the love, in which "He loved them unto the end." He sets John in the ways of His own steps to wait for His coming — just as He had put Peter to follow Him in death — a death by which He should glorify God. Love, divine love, Christ's most perfect love, had identified His own with Himself in all that His departure out of the world to the Father would carry Him up to; and this love had set us to have part with Himself there in the springhead of life, everlasting life, and at the fountain of all blessing, the only source of righteousness, and joy, and peace. Himself is now the unfailing and untainted channel of supply to us, through whom these living waters flow, Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith and this same Christ too the hope of glory, the glory for which we wait. The Holy Ghost, the Paraclete, who dwelleth with us and is now in us, has become the living power in the new man, for this fellowship with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ into which we are thus called. Moreover this ministry is known and understood by us, inasmuch as it is we who are strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man and according to the riches of His glory. Under such operations of the Holy Ghost in us, what could be the corresponding effects in a disciple so inwrought but what we have just seen the Lord introduced Peter to by death — a death by which he should glorify God, and John by the patience and suffering in continuous life till the Lord came, a life by which he would tarry, if needs be for the glory of Christ? Peter knowing and calmly telling the church of God, "that shortly he must put off his tabernacle, as the Lord had him," and John writing to us as a "brother and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ."
If we go on in our thoughts beyond the relation to disciples, in which the Holy Ghost thus works to bring out the resemblance to, Christ in death, or in life; and consider the church and what we are, as members of Christ's body, of His flesh, and of His bones — such meditations would carry us beyond this Gospel, or even the Apostle John's writings, and beyond the subject of this paper.
There are three distinct ministries in the New Testament; one is the blessed ministry of the Son when on earth, which made known the Father and brought us into the place of adopted children that we might not be left below as orphans; the Son Himself going away to the Father's house, and the many mansions, to prepare a place for us; that we should not be left destitute and homeless.
The next ministry is that of the Holy Ghost by the apostles, gathering out the members of Christ into living union with the ascended Lord, and forming them into a body with the risen Head by the baptism of the Spirit, thus constituting the Church of the living God, the body and bride of Christ, the Lamb's wife.
The other ministry is "the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto him to show unto his servants the things which must shortly come to pass," and has to do with the kingdom, and with the holy Jerusalem, the city corning down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband, "having the glory of God." It was with the first of these three glorious ministries and revelations we have had to do, as children with the Father, and what the Father's love in counsel and the loving and perfect work of the Son in death and resurrection opened out for us during a period like the present, when the world which cast Him out, neither sees Him, nor knows Him. May the Lord give us individually to prove how real and true an abode the Father and the Son have with us now, and with the family, by an obedience which is the element in which divine love lives and dwells! "If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his lore."
In conclusion, if these chapters in the Gospel of John, from chapter 13 onward, open out to "His own who are in the world" our new connections and relations with the Father, through the departed One, and by the living fellowship of the Holy Ghost, as the abiding Comforter, till the Lord comes to receive us to Himself, how immense must be their value!
If Satan's blinding power can be brought in anywhere, so as to obscure the light which so brightly shines; or close the eye against the knowledge of this glory, in the saints, we may surely expect his wiles and artifices would be directed here: and so they have been, and alas with too much success. Else how can it be accounted for, that the blessed hope of the Lord's coming and our gathering together unto Him, should have been for ages lost to His people? How else can it be understood that His own descent from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, should almost by common consent be postponed to the last day; and that consequently our being caught up to meet Him (which depends upon His own descent into the air) should be also put off to the remotest point of time? The newborn hopes and expectations of His own were no longer to rest on the restoration of the kingdom to Israel according to Old Testament prophecy; but upon His departure to prepare a place for them in the Father's house; leaving them this assurance, "If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also." "If I will that he tarry till I come "is the only measure that a disciple who estimates everything respecting time and place by Christ, will consent to adopt as the rule of his faith, or the guide to his hope. But, thank God, the fact of the Lord's second coming as a present hope to the souls of His own, that they might not be left orphans, has been recovered to the church in this century — but how revived or restored, if it had not been lost? Many thousands, in various parts of christendom and the world, have also been awakened by the cry: "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him:" but how aroused, if they had not all slumbered and slept?
The withering power of Satan's craft has likewise settled upon and blighted as an understood and present fact, the descent of the Holy Ghost to dwell with the saints and to be in them.
His presence as a divine Person, has been reduced to a mere influence, and thus the great and distinguishing peculiarity of "the promise of the Father," by the descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost upon the disciples, as the abiding Comforter, is as much out of mind as a fact, as the coming of the Lord has been as a hope. It is the Holy Ghost who has taken the place of Christ upon the earth in the midst of His own; and occupies the interval between the departure of the Son to the Father, and His coming again to receive us to Himself.
What a masterpiece of the devil's policy was it, to wrest these facts and hopes which the love of Christ to His own had provided, that they should not be comfortless, and, by stripping the Lord's people of their unfailing resources in the heavens, and the Paraclete on earth, put them back into the very place of orphans! How else can it be explained, that such multitudes of Christians are found praying for the Holy Ghost, in the forgetfulness that their responsibility is, "not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God, whereby they are sealed to the day of redemption?" Certain consequences must follow these grave denials of the coming of the Lord as a present hope to His saints; and the personal presence of the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, during the absence of Christ, to dwell with us, and be in us; yea, and to carry out the counsels and purposes of God upon earth, respecting Christ and the church. These consequences have followed, and are equally a matter of confession and for a lamentation as when Jeremiah wept and said, "Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us, and consider, and behold our reproach. We are orphans and fatherless. We labour, and have no rest. We have given the hand to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread. Princes are hanged up by their hand, and the faces of elders were not honoured. The crown is fallen from our head: woo unto us that we have sinned. Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk; their visage is blacker than a coal, they are not known in the streets. The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of a potter!"
Besides the personal state which these quotations from Jeremiah so plainly and affectingly describe as suited to the present day; the particular revelation which was opened in the ministry of the Son, as we have seen, and continued by the Holy Ghost through the apostles, when the departed One took His place as the glorified Son of man, at the right hand of God in heaven has been obscured, if not lost to the Church. For example, a rejected Christ, rejected and cast out by the world, is not followed in the pathway that caused His rejection; nor is the departed One any longer the missing One, any more than the absent Lord, the expected One. On the contrary, "my Lord delayeth his coming" not only characterizes Christendom as the Lord prophesied; but the evil consequences have followed thickly amongst the fellow servants. In the lamentable forgetfulness or ignorance of their proper relations with the Father and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and to one another as the body and bride of Christ — as waiting for His coming, and the marriage of the Lamb: the enemy and the "evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God" have turned the thoughts back again to Egypt, and the providential mercies of God to be enjoyed in this world. How else can it be accounted for, that such multitudes have turned aside to ordinances and ritualistic observances; and the distance from God in which a worshipper must consciously find himself who is so employed?
Nor indeed is there any other alternative for a believer, a man in Christ, but to "grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ," or else fall back on a previous economy and its religion, and become Judaistic, or in modern language a Ritualist. Though evangelicalism may escape this condemnation, by accepting Christ for worship and faith, and by a refusal of the shadows which served till He really came; yet the retrograde steps are equally plain, and for a lamentation upon another ground. How else can the practice of such be understood, in their organizations for the conversion of the world, and the restoration of the Church upon this earth; when they unhesitatingly turn back upon the Old Testament scriptures and the prophets to prove a good time coming, and find a warrant for their work? Solomon and his prosperity as a centre on the earth, with all his might and glory, is accepted as the type for this corrupted Christianity; instead of Christ and the cross, and a present crucifixion to the world by it, in true loyalty of heart to the rejected Lord, and in a willing allegiance with the departed One, till His shout announces Him!
"I have given them thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world even as I am not of the world:" — what word was this?
It is of the greatest moment, for our communion and fellowship with the Father and the Son, as well as for our true guidance in service for today, to give the place and authority to the words of our Lord over us, to which He refers in John 17, "I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee:" — what words were these? And again as to the truth which came by Him, both as regards His present position to us, and ours to the Father, "Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth: and for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified through the truth." No, we are not left orphans, to eat the crumbs that fall from another's table; nor to steal the earthly promises that belong to the people of Israel; on the contrary, it was said to the Hebrews, that "God had provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect."
"Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us; unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages." J. E. Batten.