JOHN 5 (2)
JOHN 5 (2)
FER What we see here is that the perversity of the Jews just became an occasion of bringing out more light and truth. The same thing comes out in the next chapter. When they ask the Lord for a sign, He turns it into an opportunity for opening up more truth. The perversity and crookedness of man is turned to account in that way.
Rem You get the same thing, too, in regard to the woman in chapter 4. The Lord takes the opportunity of bringing out the truth in regard to the Spirit.
FER Yes. And again when she speaks of worship, the Lord uses it as an occasion to open up what the will of the Father was, and so on, with regard to worship. Here they charge the Lord with calling God His own Father, and the Lord takes occasion to bring to light the relations which existed between the Father and Himself, and what comes out so solemnly is this, that if they saw Him they saw the Father. The Lord [p. 57] was doing what the Father showed Him — the works really showed forth the Father.
Ques Why did you say, “The Son can do nothing of himself save whatever he sees the Father doing”?
FER It is the participle — it is characteristic. It indicates that whatsoever the Father might be doing, He showed the Son, “For the Father loveth the Son”. The expression really is, “For the Father has affection for the Son and shews to him all things whatsoever he is doing”. He shows it all to the Son.
Rem It makes it all the more solemn that they should have refused Him, for all the works that He did were of love and of mercy.
FER Yes, they were really the works of the Father. It has been pointed out that, in John, when it is a question of what God is morally, it is GOD who is spoken of, but when it contemplates the activities of grace, then it is the Father, “My Father worketh”. It comes out rather remarkably in the previous chapter, where the Lord says, “The true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him”; and then, in the next verse, “God is a Spirit”. That has to be taken into account. He is not worshipped materially — you cannot worship Him in material things, but it must be “in spirit and in truth”.
Rem He is not “worshipped with men’s hands”.
Ques Is that distinction between “God” and the “Father” kept up all through Scripture?
FER Well, I do not know that it is quite that in all Scripture, but it is so very markedly in John, especially in the gospel.
It is important, if you are to understand things at all, to see that there is a progressive development of the truth in these chapters. What I mean is that there is a method, a definite order, adopted by the Spirit. In chapter 4 it is what God gives — the living water; but what you get in chapter 5 is what is brought to us,
[p. 58] the light of the Father. The well of water is to be in you, while the Father is revealed to you. The great point in chapter 4 is the emancipation of man from irregular and unsatisfied desire — that is what “thirst” means in Scripture, that which is characteristic of man naturally. It is not only unsatisfied, but irregular desire. It takes irregular lines, not the lines that God intended. It is lust in the principle of it. But what you have to meet that is the Spirit; the Spirit is to spring up in order to emancipate the person; as Paul says in Romans 8, “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death”. You see, even with a woman such as you get in chapter 4, there is no doubt that she has affections, but then her desires were taking irregular direction. It was to emancipate her from this that the Lord promises the “well of water springing up into everlasting life”.
But now the point in chapter 5 is that the Father is brought to you, not you to the Father. In chapter 4 the well of water springs up — Christ becomes the Object of affection to you. It is in that way that you get everything corrected — all affections take their proper place and course, and in that way you get emancipation. Then in chapter 5 Christ brings the Father to you when He says, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work”. He was only presenting the Father, for “the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that himself doeth”, and what the Father was doing, the Son was doing likewise.
Ques What are the “greater works” (verse 20)?
FER Well, there were much greater works to be done than raising up a lame man. The works which come out in this chapter are dispensational works; for instance, the raising up of Israel in the future is a dispensational work, but the works which are “greater” are not dispensational. There are works which the Father does which are outside all dispensations.
[p. 59] Ques Is what verse 25 brings before us a moral raising up of the dead?
FER Yes, quite so.
Ques Would not the judgment be, in a way, one of the greater works?
FER The Lord only brings in judgment incidentally. Even that is coming in on the line of dispensations, but it is for the purpose of securing the honour of the Son. It is a greater work, in a sense, than raising up the man at the pool.
Rem The work at Pentecost was greater.
FER Yes. At Pentecost the work was outside the course of dispensations, and the church is properly outside of them.
Ques Would you say that all the signs are in connection with the dispensations?
FER Yes. They were according to what the Jews might have understood — what might have come within the range of their knowledge; but in each of the signs the great point is that the Lord uses them as a peg upon which to hang something greater.
Rem It comes out very markedly in chapter 6.
FER Quite so. “Moses gave you not that bread from heaven”, and the bread with which He had fed the multitudes was not the bread from heaven. “My Father giveth you the true bread”. Chapter 6 completes the testimony. There you get the appropriation of the death of Christ, and Christ as Priest, and that brings you deliverance from the whole system in which flesh lives. You must have chapter 6 or you would not have the testimony completed.
Ques What is the intent of bringing the revelation of the Father to you?
FER Well, if you take as an illustration the conditions of human life, as far as I know, they are three — you must have water, light and bread; and you get these three things in these three chapters. There are very few people who could get on without [p. 60] them — in fact, none. If you shut up a man in prison darkness and deprive him of bread and water, you would soon make an end of him, and I think it is the same in regard to our life spiritually. There is water in chapter 4, light in chapter 5, and the bread in chapter 6. These chapters bring out all that is necessary to meet the conditions of life.
One point is that you are no longer in the light of “Jehovah”, or of “the Almighty”. You have the light of both, but you go beyond this — you have the light of “the Father”. The great thing is that it is the revelation of God in His nature. “The Father loves the Son” — it is God revealed in His nature. “Almighty” is not God revealed in His nature, it is one of His attributes; neither is “Jehovah”, which brings out what God is in His eternal faithfulness — “the Eternal”, as it is rendered in the French. But when you come to the revelation of “the Father”, it is God in His nature — “The Father loveth the Son”. I do not think it could come out until there was an adequate object here, but when the Son became Man, then the love of God could come out, there was an Object adequate.
Ques God is spoken of as light and love. Is it the whole of His nature which is contained in those two statements?
FER Well, I would not exactly speak of light as being the nature of God. The nature of God is summed up in one word, and that is love — “God is love”. Light means that everything is detected, but the nature of God is love. That is what is characteristic of Him.
Ques Would you say that the Father was working with a view to this coming out — in view of the divine affections coming out?
FER I think so. God, in the revelation of His nature, was to pervade all, but until the Son became Man it could not be declared, there was no means.
[p. 61] See how it works out — the Father loves the Son, and then the Son had affections towards those whom the Father drew to Him. The Father’s love reached to the disciples through the Son, and the Son had affection for them as those whom the Father had drawn to Him.
Rem It shows unity of purpose and nature.
FER Yes; and in that way the Father’s love descended to them, and in One who Himself had part in the love of God, and who alone knew it. No one but a divine Person could declare the love of God.
Rem It gives great force to the word, “The Father loveth the Son”.
FER Yes; and in that sense every work was the outcome of love. The revelation is the declaring of the Father — of God. What the Lord is bringing out is the light in which our souls are to live, not just a power within us to emancipate us from this or that, but the light in which we are to live, and we must have the light of the Father’s revelation. The names of “Almighty” and “Jehovah” had failed to hold man, but now you get another thing, most important, coming out here, and that is the light before which a man can be entirely and completely subdued. It is the love of God that subdues a man, but light is the accompaniment of love, because if God shines out, everything is detected in the light of God — detected and exposed — and light and love thus work together, they are inseparable.
Rem The light not only subdues, but it satisfies.
FER Yes, it does. This chapter seems to me to be the most profound in Scripture — that is the idea I have of it. To attempt any kind of exposition of it is a most difficult task. The Lord here undertook to declare the terms on which He was with the Father, and what His presence down here meant — what was really expressed in His Person down here. Who can open that out?
The force of verse 19 is that the Father was not [p. 62] doing anything which the Son was not doing too. The marvellous thing to me is this — I do not quite know how to put it — that God Himself comes down and really anticipates the judgment that lay upon man. God Himself comes into the judgment in the Person of the Son, into all that lay upon man, and, in the very fact of coming into it, it is annulled, and nothing is left but the light, and that light is to be the life of our souls.
I think we may have looked at Christ too exclusively as the sacrifice, and have lost sight of Him as a divine Person who came forth, and who, having entered into death, brings into it the testimony of God — the light of God. The other side comes in, of course, He did offer Himself a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour, but in holding to that side, it does not do to overlook the other. He brings into death the testimony of God, He anticipates our judgment. We were under death and the curse, but Christ has come and anticipated them, and they are annulled by the fact of a divine Person coming into them. And what is left? Why, the light is left, that it may be the life of our souls. God Himself is revealed in it; the testimony of God comes out in the death of Christ. It did not come out in its completeness in the life, but in death. So God sends forth His Son to redeem. Redemption was accomplished, but at the same time God is revealed, the light of God is brought into death.
Rem “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin”.
Ques What about “The hour is coming, and now is”, etc. (verse 25)?
FER Well, but it is because He has come into death that you hear the voice. You hear it in the place of death. It is in that place that you hear the “voice of the Son of God”. He could not remain in [p. 63] it because He had life in Himself. It is in the apprehension that He has come down to where we were in the eyes of God — every one was under death — that we hear the voice, and those that hear shall live.
Rem It is beautifully illustrated in the parable of the good Samaritan — he came down to where the man was.
FER Yes, it is most striking. He came as a divine Person to accomplish a divine work, and then, when accomplished, He went back: “again, I leave the world, and go to the Father”. And you get the same thought again in Hebrews 1, “when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high”.
Ques When it speaks of the Father showing Him all things, it is “the Son”, but further down it is the “Son of God”. What is that?
FER “Son of God” indicates that He has become Man, it is the title under which He is revealed; the title could not exist until He became Man. When it speaks of what He is eternally, it is “the Son”, in distinction to “the Father”, but as Man, He is the “Son of God”. Who but a divine Person was coming to reveal the Father to us? Who could take up the Father’s works and say that the Father showed to Him all that Himself was doing? Who could know that but the Son? An angel might come from God and kill thousands of Syrians at a stroke, but that was not the presentation of God; he was but obeying the commands of God, as we should do, but it is a very different thing here, the Son presents the Father.
Ques The Son presents the Father in His love?
FER Yes, that is just the point: “The only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”. In one sense He never left the bosom of the Father, but yet He comes out from it in order to declare God in His nature — not simply in His power or righteousness, but in His love. There [p. 64] was nothing that the Father did which the Son was not doing, and he that saw the Son saw the Father.
Ques Is verse 21 a moral statement or actual?
FER It is not raising men up to judgment, but quickening them, making them live. It was not the pleasure of the Father — the work of the Father — to bring them up to judgment. It takes in the whole thing — body and all. Raising up men for judgment only comes into the passage incidentally to secure the honour of the Son.
Ques Why do you think it puts “raiseth” first?
FER Well, it looks upon men as actually dead, but the Son quickens whom He will; it does not say “raises” in regard to Him. Then it looks on to the coming of the Lord. He comes out in that light — He quickens; He comes in that way in regard to all here. That is what Christ will do when He comes. “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive”.
Rem In chapter 11 He says, “I am the resurrection, and the life”.
FER Yes. But then He goes on to say, “He that ... liveth and believeth in me shall never die”. They will not be raised, but they must be made alive. We get it in a spiritual sense now, but quickening, in the strict sense, applies to the body, because death came in on the body. “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive”.
I think Christians would be very wonderful people if they were really in the light of this chapter — really living in the light of the Father. It is not so much the light of Christ’s glory here, but really the light of the Father. We have had the revelation of Christ, and the power of the Spirit, but in this chapter He brings in the light of the Father. He is the Son of the Father, and He brings in the light of the Father. It is, “Is not this the Christ?” in the previous chapter, but this chapter is the distinctive testimony of the last Adam. The last Adam is the Son of God, who comes ([p. 65] in order that He may be the last Adam) into death itself, and He annuls the power of death, and takes up the position of last Adam in resurrection, and becomes a life-giving Spirit. He has brought into death the full light of God. “Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness”.
Ques Is the order of these chapters similar to that of Romans 6 and 7?
FER Well, I do not know if you could make John run with Paul in that way. Chapter 4 runs more with Romans 8 in taking up the state side, but I am sure I do not know where to put John 5, although it connects itself, in a way, with Romans 8. You see, John deals so exclusively with the state side, but Romans with our responsibility.
Ques Why do you say He brings into death the blessed light of God?
FER Well, where do you get the testimony except in death? It is there you get the full testimony of God’s love. God appeals to you in that way.
Ques Would you say that in verse 24 a man is viewed as “in Christ Jesus”, where there is no condemnation?
FER Oh, but there is more than that. It is not simply that there is no condemnation, but it is the kind of people who have passed out of death into life — into the new region.
Ques Is “in Christ Jesus” “passed out of death into life”?
FER Yes. But then the extent of it there (in Romans 8) is only that they have “no condemnation”. Here it is, “not come into judgment, but is passed out of death into life”. It is more positive. John is so extremely comprehensive. We get a somewhat analogous statement in the epistle, “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren”. Death and life stand in the strongest possible contrast in John. Death is where Satan [p. 66] acts — life is where God is revealed and known. It is all darkness and death in Satan’s sphere, but on the other side all the light of God had come out, and it is life, “The life was the light of men”.
Ques Verse 24 does not apply to a soul in his responsibility?
FER No, that is not the point.
Rem But this verse has been used much by the evangelist to that end.
FER Yes. But he has given that up now, I think. It was used to give people an idea of security, a kind of short way out to security, and it has failed, therefore, to give to people what it was intended to convey, and people, too, were deceived by it. What it means is this, the Lord has brought out the light, and the effect of it is that “he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me” does not come into judgment, but is passed out of death into life. The reason why he has passed out of death into life is because he has passed out of darkness into light. I think His “word” is more the revelation, not just the works He had done, but the revelation of the Father.
Ques What is the force of “hath everlasting life”?
FER The point is, I think, that he has reached it in that way, and it is that kind of person who has it. It is the one who hears the voice of the Son of God. There are certain people in the world who have eternal life, and they are thus characterised.
Ques The one characterised by hearing the voice of the Son of God?
FER Yes, quite so. The moment has not come for bringing eternal life dispensationally into the world. If it were, you would not want this sort of knowledge to discern those who have it. As the psalm says, “There Jehovah commanded the blessing, even life for evermore”; but what marks the present [p. 67] moment is that certain people in the world have eternal life, and they are marked by hearing the voice of the Son of God, and believing His word.
Ques What is the difference between verses 24 and 25?
FER Well, I think that the “voice of the Son of God” indicates that He Himself has come into death, so that the dead might hear Him — that is what it conveys to me. He comes within the range of the dead, comes into what was upon man. He does not remain there, He could not be holden of death, but He comes into it and brings into it the testimony of God, and those who hear His voice live.
Ques And then they follow Him?
FER Yes. But the first thing is, they must live. You could not follow until you live. It is not responsibility in this chapter, but life; neither is it in chapter 10. When they follow Him, they do what is congenial and natural, “I know my sheep, and am known of mine”. Then, too, they “go in and out, and find pasture”. It is privilege.
There are two steps — “The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live”. If you want to know them, it is characteristic of those that live that they “hear the voice of the Son of God”. It is in that way that they are detected. They hear the word of Christ — it is in that way that they get life. I think that the first moment that they begin to live is when the love of God is discerned. That is, as it were, the first breath, and you must have breath as a sign of life. With a new-born babe the first mark of life is a breath, and so it is spiritually. In the beginning, when God created man, He “breathed into his nostrils ... and man became a living soul”. And what man ever breathes spiritually until he has the light of the love of God?
Now Christ has really brought into death the testimony of God’s love — if you can understand the [p. 68] expression. He has really come into that circle — broken through the fence — and brought in there the testimony of God’s love, and the moment a person apprehends that he begins to breathe to God. That is life.
Ques The Son hath “life in himself”. Does that refer to resurrection?
FER Well, He could not be holden of death. It is only a divine Person who could have life in Himself. It refers to the place He has taken as Man, that it is said to be “given” to Him. Here you have the incarnate Son on earth, and everything is looked upon as given to Him. He takes the character of receiving everything from the Father in this gospel, even things that properly belong to Him, as in the words, “Glorify thou me ... with the glory which I had with thee before the world was”, chapter 17.
“All that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth”. He carries the thought out to its fullest limit and boundary. “They that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment”. It is not simply that He exercises quickening power on those that believe, but He carries it out to the utmost boundary of death. It is all put on that kind of moral ground so as to cover everybody.