JOHN 3,4
JOHN 3,4
FER It is important to trace the Lord’s passage from Judaea into Galilee, and to see what comes out in each part of it. He left Judaea and went away again unto Galilee. “And he must needs go through Samaria”.
Ques Do you mean what morally characterises it?
FER Yes, the testimony which comes out in each place. The testimony at Jerusalem was, “Ye must be born again”. Then in Samaria it was the gift of the Spirit, and in Galilee He raises the nobleman’s son — He gives the confirmation of the nobleman’s faith. The teacher — Nicodemus — had the most elementary teaching of all, “Ye must be born again”. This was at Jerusalem, the seat of light. Then, too, the Lord was entirely dependent on the will of the Father — “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work”. He depended on the Father, as one might say, for an opening — He did not make one for Himself.
The great importance of this passage to us is that chapter 4 forms the completion of what comes out in chapter 3. The thought that comes out there is that “Whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”. Well, how are you going to get eternal life? How is it to be effected? You get in chapter 3 the statement of the purpose, and how to get eternal life is solved in chapter 4 — “The water which I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life”. You must have the two sides of it; on the one hand the unfolding of divine purpose, that you may know what the mind of God is, and then, on the other side, the making good that purpose in us.
Ques Did you say we get the purpose in chapter 3?
FER Yes. And in chapter 4 the Lord shows how that purpose is to be made good in us. The purpose reaches man through death, “The Son of man must be lifted up”. God could not approach man except through death. Death lay in the way as between God and man. He could only approach man through death, and death lay on man.
Ques I suppose it was not only sin that had to be dealt with, but death?
FER Well, quite so. Man is under death, but that is the way by which God approaches man. You get the same thought in Romans 3. The blood there is the witness of God’s righteousness when it is a question of God’s approach to man — He really reveals His righteousness there. You get here in John 3 the Son of man lifted up, but what lies behind that? “God so loved the world”.
Rem The lifting up was the necessity to the purpose of God’s love.
FER Yes. I think there had to be a demonstration before God of what man’s true state and condition was. That was suitable for the glory of God. It took place on the cross, but the wonderful thing is that, as having made that demonstration, He disappears, and then re-appears as the Communicator of the Spirit in resurrection. That is chapter 4. The Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world baptises with the Holy Spirit. And John the Baptist says, “I saw and bare record that this is the Son of God”.
Ques Is that why the testimony of the gift of the Spirit is given outside Jerusalem?
FER I think so. A slight is cast on the Jew,
[p. 37] and on everything connected with him, all through John’s gospel.
Ques In consequence of the statement in chapter 1 that “he came unto his own, and his own received him not”?
FER Yes. That explains the Lord’s conduct to them all through. A man like Nicodemus, for instance, thought he could be instructed, but what he really wanted was not teaching but a divine work in him.
Ques In what way is salvation of the Jews?
FER Well, God is faithful in that way — the testimony of God always went out from the Jews. Even the apostle to the Gentiles was a Jew. I think you get nothing in the New Testament except through the Jews; even Luke only wrote as he had word from those who were “eye-witnesses of and attendants on the Word”.
Ques Do you mean that any light they had was through the Jews?
FER I do. The Jews were the depositaries of the Scriptures, everything in that way belonged to them — the oracles of God belonged to them. God has certain methods and ways, and He does not depart from them. It was on this principle that He sends the gospel to Jerusalem first. Jerusalem was still owned, in a way. It is interesting to see that there is a sort of overlapping. There is a recognition of Jerusalem, it is not absolutely set aside. Of course, when their perversity came fully out, then the testimony of God left Jerusalem.
Rem But they had another chance, as it were.
FER Yes. As Peter said to them, He shall send Jesus back to you; Acts 3.
Rem I was thinking about what you were saying as to new birth just now. It says in Galatians, “Jerusalem which is now, for she is in bondage with her children”, but “the Jerusalem above is free,
which is our mother”. You must have a new start, you must be born of Jerusalem which is above.
FER Quite so. Of course, too, the guilt of the Jew was not then complete; but when the testimony of the Spirit came and there was knowledge, and yet they rejected Him (Acts 7), then the testimony of God left Jerusalem. But, even then, God did not repudiate her. His eye is upon her still, though she has been set aside for the Jerusalem above. “The gifts and calling of God are without repentance”, and God will begin again with her. “The desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband”.
Rem So Jerusalem is called “the holy city” even after the crucifixion.
FER The fact is, that when Jerusalem is set aside there is nothing but Babylon here. That is one very great reason why I should not be disposed to take any part in Jubilee festivities, because, in the eye of God, it is Babylonish. It is times of the Gentiles, and Jerusalem is trodden underfoot, but God still has His eye upon her. He does not lose sight of Babylon either, for that matter. All the glory of man is Babylonish in the eye of God. It is not conferred of God — its source is really man. I believe it is a great mistake not to see this.
Rem It is striking that what passes away from Jerusalem goes to where the false temple had been, that is, Samaria.
FER Yes. But I think it is not difficult to understand the complete change and newness of what had come in. When He speaks of what He would give, all was to be completely new. On God’s side there was nothing new, but on the woman’s side everything must be completely new.
Rem I suppose it would be easier for her to understand the necessity of all being new than it would be [p. 39] for Nicodemus.
FER Yes, I think so. The fact is, God has not altered; it is only that He has expressed Himself. The love of God was just as much a reality at the beginning as when it came out — there was no alteration on God’s side — but there was a moment when the love of God came out, and what that love brings to light is that God has opened a door out of this world. It is not that He has reinstated man, but He has opened a door for man into a new sphere. The point you have to reach in chapter 3 is the Son of man lifted up — the Son of man risen from the dead. If that were not a necessity, it would mean that you could have eternal life without Christ, but we find it is to him that “believeth in him”. The man must reach the sphere where Christ is, and that is not this world. You could not bring resurrection into this world. Now “Easter Sunday” and “Whit Sunday” are the most incomprehensible institutions that I can conceive of. I can understand “Good Friday”, but how can you make events out of what the mind of man cannot possibly take cognisance of? Man’s mind can take cognisance of death, but it cannot touch resurrection.
Rem And how is a man going to commemorate His death who does not know His resurrection?
FER Just so. I can understand their commemorating anything that comes within man’s cognisance, but Christ has gone into a sphere which is beyond the cognisance of man’s mind. No one can get there but by the Holy Spirit.
Ques Then death would be the door out of this world?
FER Yes, I think so. It is a very important point to see that God has opened a door. The door is open. I may have a very great deal to learn, but still God has opened the door.
Ques Why do you lay such stress on that?
FER Because it shows that everything is clear on God’s side — all is clear for God. Take the simplest believer — God can communicate to him the gift of the Spirit. That would not be the case if the flesh had not been ended for God. It would be impossible for God to communicate the Spirit unless the flesh had been ended. It is a long time, perhaps, before we come to it on our side. God approaches it from His side, and we have to come to it in another way — not quite so quickly as God has done — but we reach the same point. Many a lesson has to be learned on the road to it, and before I can say, “I am crucified with Christ”.
Rem You must pass through the door.
FER Yes. But I think faith passes you through the door, and then you have really got experimentally to reach Christ after you believe. You believe in Christ — that is the ground of your faith — and you receive the Spirit, and then you have to reach Christ experimentally where He is. It is like Romans 8, but you have to go through chapters 6 and 7 to get there.
What a wonderful picture it is at the beginning of the chapter (John 4) — the Lord wearied, and sitting just as He was on the well! And then the poor sinful woman comes to draw water, and the wonderful thing is that He does not wait for her to approach Him, but He approaches her. He begins, and says to her, “If thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that says to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water”. If man is to get anything at all, it must result from God’s first approaching him. God only can save. He sought, and man must be sought.
Rem A Jew would have said that the Lord had gone very far afield this time.
FER Yes. And the woman, too, looked at things in a kind of casual way, a natural way. It is the great hindrance with people still.
[p. 41] Rem In the state in which she was, she could not have seen things in any other way.
FER No. And when you come to think of it, the Spirit of God dwelling in one is an astounding thought, even to us. To think of having “a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life” — “living water” — is wonderful. She could not have had the feeblest idea of the line upon which God was giving; and people today do not enter at all into the goodness of God, nor do they see the line upon which God gives — they do not understand His “giving”. It is the last thing they will allow — the goodness of God. All they think of is how to prepare themselves to be suitable to Him — instead of apprehending how entirely unsuitable they are. The ignorant heathen seek to appease God, and the respectable and civilised seek to be made suitable to God. Man fails to see that God has come close to him in order that He might communicate to him the gift of the Spirit. I think that is the great point to which everything tends. The work of the Lord here was really to prepare a little company to receive the Holy Spirit, and He only comes consequent upon the rejection of Christ.
He “sat thus on the well”. To all outward appearance He was just a wearied traveller, but the real truth was that He was presenting God to the woman — God was here. I think we fall short altogether if we do not apprehend that He was presenting God. God has been manifested in flesh. It was the moral power in that One which affected souls and drew them.
Rem It is very helpful to see how the Lord received and dealt with particular cases.
FER Yes. It is that which makes the gospels so essential to understand God’s approach to man — you see it there in the Person. Neither could you understand the truth of the church except as you saw what the Lord was in the midst of His disciples. No amount of doctrine will give it to you. You must see the [p. 42] tenderness of the Lord to His disciples, and the way He came down to their capacities, and His affection for them, to understand what the Lord could be to the company now.
Rem You could not conceive a lower place for the Lord to come to, nor a lower person for Him to talk to, than this poor sinful woman, and the Lord has to bring light to her conscience such as she needed. He did not tell Nicodemus of the well of water.
FER I think she serves as a foil to the Lord in order that grace might come out. It all shows that not a bit of man in any form was to be recognised. The best, as well as the worst, has to go. You take any human quality you like — it will surely break down if pressure is brought in. I think you may look upon every purely human quality in that way.
What comes out in this chapter (4) is that eternal life springs up from what a believer has within. Life is subjective, and the truth comes out in this chapter that eternal life springs up from what is within a man — that is really deliverance. I think the Spirit comes as living water from above to make a man’s heart conscious of what has already been given to him. No man knows the love of God until he has the Spirit. You may believe the testimony of it, but no man can know anything of it but by the Holy Spirit. You cannot have the thing experimentally in any other way. The first principles of the gospel are righteousness and power, and then you become conscious of another thing, and that is, the love of God. That is His nature. I think that when the Holy Spirit comes to shed abroad the love of God in the heart, then it is we have the well of water springing up.
Ques It is the love side that is presented to Nicodemus, is it not?
FER Yes. But that is from God’s point of view. The Son of man was lifted up, but the secret which lay behind that was the love of God — “God so loved the world”. You may attempt to preach the gospel to other people, and you preach from what you know, and from where you are, as the Lord Himself says, “We speak that we do know”; but as to their apprehension of things, that is quite another matter. I think Romans makes that quite clear. The first thing presented to man is the righteousness and power of God. These are principles which a man must know first. I think the point with God is to lay a foundation in a man’s soul, and righteousness must be first. It would be no good to lay a foundation of love in the soul of a sinful man — you want righteousness first. Then, too, I do not think that love in itself would give you ground for hope in God; what gives you hope is the knowledge of His power, and then, when the Spirit is given and sheds the love of God abroad in the heart, you know the well of water that springs up to eternal life. The Spirit springing up is a well of water in the believer, and you are formed in the divine nature. It is the formative work of the Spirit. You are filled and fashioned and emancipated. I believe that is the great thought in the passage. That is the way a person can be really emancipated from sin — practically set free from the control of sin.
What came out in connection with Nicodemus was really the setting aside of man, but here it is more the positive side. The Lord does not say a word to Nicodemus as to the subjective side, but here what you get is that you are formed, subjectively, by the new power. You are drawn away from everything here by a new power entirely, and as you grow in it, you are practically set free from sin. I do not think there is any emancipation otherwise. Deliverance must come in concurrently with the divine nature, otherwise you would have the flesh delivering itself, which is impossible.
Ques Is not that the common thought of man?
FER Yes, I think it is. But it is ineffective — it [p. 44] will break down somewhere. The fact is (as before referred to), man has to travel a long road to the cross, whereas God has travelled by a very short one. I mean as to the end of man, which is where the gospel starts from. The death of Christ was all there before God, but, as we see in the case of the children of Israel, the man was gone for God at the outset, but they had to travel for thirty-eight years to reach it. That is why I have said that Numbers 21 is concurrent with chapter 1. The first twenty chapters are concurrent with what comes in in chapter 21 and after.
Ques In what way do you mean?
FER Well, like Romans 8, that is your beginning; the communication of the Spirit is the beginning of the Christian’s history. He begins “in the Spirit”, not “in the flesh”. You begin now where God begins, but then you have to come to it. Until then you have not apprehended a single bit the good of it. That is where the earlier chapters come in.
Rem The springing well, then, is the apprehension of what lies in the Spirit?
FER Well, not entirely, because one follows on the other. The gift of the Spirit follows upon the cross, and so the Lord could talk to a poor sinful woman about the gift of God, and she would get there from the outset; but then she would have to learn all the lessons of Numbers 1 - Numbers 20, what the flesh is, and to learn, too, what the ways of God are with a people in the wilderness, with a view to their moral education. The wilderness is a necessity for us, and not for God. If you did not learn certain things, you would not know the secret of the water from the rock, or the necessity of the water of purification. He meets the need of the people, it is true, but the need must be learned.
It is very important to distinguish between the principles on which God works and our apprehension of it all, and the way in which we reach it. God [p. 45] reached it in His own way, entirely independent of man, but we have to reach it by the road proper to man. I am sure of this, that you must not only have faith, but you must reach experimentally the point which God has reached, in your own soul’s history. It is only in that way you enjoy fully what God has given. “We are the circumcision, which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh”. We have to come to that, although it takes a long time with some. God arrives at it quickly, but it is a great mercy to us that we get the good of it without having to wait to reach it experimentally. You really have it by faith, but for the full good of it you must have it experimentally. There are many things we must learn; the waters of Marah were to be drunk, and we have to find out the indisposition of the flesh to enter the land, its inertness, and all that, so that we may learn how indispensable God’s provisions are for us while in the wilderness.
The fact is, only God knows our need, and He has ordered His ways from His knowledge of man’s need. You may think to find a short cut into the land — as people say, a matter of eleven days or so — but for all that, you will find that this is a scene of dead bones, where you want the water of purification, and a dry and thirsty land where you will want the water of refreshment.