JOHN 5 (3)
JOHN 5 (3)
FER We were speaking last week of the dead hearing the voice of the Son of God, and that those who heard lived. I believe the thought is that the Son of God comes as low as the dead, so that they might hear His voice.
Ques So that those who were in death might hear Him?
FER Yes. What I mean is that He goes down [p. 69] into death to bring into death the testimony of God’s love, as you get in Romans 5, “God commendeth his love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”. The voice of the Son of God speaks from the dead in that way, and the dead hear, and they that hear, live. The dead hearing the voice of the Son of God indicates to me that He goes among them, so that His voice may be heard.
Ques It is not quite like quickening, is it?
FER Well, it is hearing His voice. He does quicken, of course.
Ques When would you say it is heard?
FER Well, it is when a person apprehends really what it meant for Him to come into death. It is then when the dead hear. “Voice” is a very difficult expression when applied to divine Persons. It is a human figure applied to divine Persons. The dead are those who are under the judgment of God — it is the place where they were, and it is there that He speaks. It is His voice expressing the love of God to man: “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.... God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”.
Ques Does this include new birth?
FER Well, the Lord is not taking up the divine side now, but the human side.
Ques Do you mean that He has previously in this chapter taken up the divine side?
FER Yes: “As the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will”. Later on He speaks on the other side; it is to the dead here, it is our side. We have the two sides in that way — one side is God’s activity and working, and the other side presents what the dead hear: “the voice of the Son of God”.
Ques Does not “the voice of the Son of God” go altogether beyond new birth?
FER Yes. He quickens, and quickening goes beyond new birth a great deal. It really goes on to the raising of the body. The point is that His voice ministers to you an impression, and the question is what impression has the voice made upon you?
Rem Yes, I see that we have confined it — at least I have — too much to certain words spoken.
FER But it is a very much wider thing than that. He spoke when He was here upon earth, but, to my mind, His voice in death has much more significance than when He was here. It is that side of it that comes out in these verses. He had spoken in regard to the divine working, “My Father worketh hitherto and I work” — the Son working in line with the Father, and in the communion of the Father — but now He takes up the other side. It is not new birth or quickening, but the impression of the voice of the Son of God upon the soul. If you ask when a person lives to God, I can tell you, with positive certainty, that it is when the soul apprehends the love of God. That moment the soul begins to live to God.
Ques Is it like the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than Abel’s?
FER Well, morally it is so. It is analogous to that.
Ques Is it as we say sometimes, “It speaks volumes”?
FER Yes, that is it, exactly.
Rem It puts an entirely new colour on these verses.
FER Well, do not take it upon my word simply. It is a great thing to be orthodox, you know. I ask any one, what peculiar significance to you has the voice of the Son of God? Just as I might say, What is the voice of Isaiah to you, or of Jeremiah? Each prophet has a certain significant voice. I think the “voice” of the prophet is the predominating idea in that prophet, but now we have come to someone better than a prophet, and what is the predominating idea in the voice of the Son of God? Well, without doubt, the great idea in His “voice” is the presentation of the love of God. That is the “voice of the Son of God” to me — it is what is peculiar to Himself.
Rem You can well see it in the case of the prophets.
FER Yes. Each prophet had his own peculiar significance. He had a “voice” in that way; and the “voice of the Son of God” had its own significance too.
Rem John the Baptist speaks of himself as being a “voice”.
FER Yes. And it was a voice that was peculiar to himself. It was the voice of the one who came before Christ. Now the Son of God has a voice, and when that voice is apprehended in the soul, then that soul lives — “They that hear shall live”. It is that you come into the region of life, you “pass out of death into life”. The region of life is where God is, and where God is revealed.
Rem It is a very great transition from death into life.
FER Yes, it is. I think the idea is that you pass into a new scene, a new region.
Ques. Who are the “dead”?
FER Oh, I think all. The Lord comes into a scene of death: “If one died for all, then were all dead”. All are dead before the eye of God, but here it is that you wake up out of death, and then you pass out of death into life; you pass out from under the judgment of God into all the full light of God. It involves a tremendous passage for a soul.
Ques There are two ways in which a man is “dead”, are there not?
FER Yes. Death is on man; the judgment of God stands between God and man. God imposed [p. 72] that sentence upon man, and it stands between them. You are not literally relieved yet of death, but between God and a man’s own soul it is gone. I feel we should be better able to talk of these things if we were more in them. I believe the great difficulty in accepting these things is that we are not in them. You cannot talk about a thing that you are not in.
Ques What is the connection between all this and His having “authority to execute judgment”, etc.?
FER It is to show that His authority extends to all. His rights, having become Son of man, have to be extended over all. If it had been a question simply that those who heard “lived”, it would have meant that He would have nothing to say, in a sense, to the others. They would have continued under the judgment, but then judgment must be executed, and that is given to the Son, “that all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father”.
Rem But that is the “Son of God”.
FER Yes. But then it shows farther on that He has authority to execute judgment, “because he is the Son of man”. He has been presented to man in that form, and the crucial point between God and man is Christ. The One who is rejected in the world is not exactly God, but Christ. Men will tolerate the idea of God — they have not given up the idea of God yet, they are not prepared for that — but I think that every one of us must be conscious that Christ is rejected among men. These people shut themselves out from all hope if they will not accept this Man; they really shut out the possibility of God presenting Himself to man. I think it is a very extraordinary thing for a man to assume the absolute impossibility of God presenting Himself to man, and yet, as you know, men do assume it.
Ques Next we come to the resurrection of the body, do we not?
FER Yes, I think so. “The hour is coming, [p. 73] in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice”. There is a very great difference between the voice that speaks now and the one that will speak then, and yet it is the voice of the same Person. The character of the “voice” will be altogether different. The effect in the one case is “living” — it is moral; but the effect in the other case is resurrection — an actual physical effect; and I think you will always find — it is a principle with God — that the physical follows the moral, the physical is subordinated to the moral. I believe you will find it a principle all through Scripture. God is bringing about at the present time certain moral results, but it will be followed by the physical.
Rem It is so in the case of the palsied man. He first says, “Thy sins be forgiven thee”, and then, “Take up thy bed, and walk”.
FER Yes. The Lord settles the moral question first, and then He raises up the man, and the resurrection of the man is the proof and testimony to the moral — you see life. The Lord calls it here “the resurrection of life”, and “the resurrection of judgment”. You see, life really demands resurrection. How are you going to carry it out, how is life going to be made good, if there is no resurrection? He evidently has not got it this side of death, and on the other hand, if a man is to be judged he must be judged in his body, for a man is not a man apart from his body. Now if neither judgment nor life comes in on this side of death, then both judgment and life demand resurrection.
Rem “If the dead rise not, we are of all men most miserable”.
FER Quite so. There may be a suspended state of existence, but a man is not properly a man apart from his body. As the Lord said to the Sadducees, “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living”. They had died as regards men, but they lived for [p. 74] God, and the Lord brings that forward as a proof of resurrection. If you are prepared to give up the thought of life or of judgment, then I can understand you will not want the thought of resurrection, but I think you would be reduced to a curious position. Just think of a man being really formed, by the Spirit of God, in the divine nature, and the whole thing terminating in death! he never actually lives at all. And then, too, think of this world of confusion — the wicked prospering, and the evil really triumphing over the good — and yet that there should never be any kind of moral solution! You are reduced to a most extraordinary position if you look at it apart from Scripture. If it is such a scene of confusion to you, what must it be to God — and yet to have no solution of it! But here you get the solution of it — they hear the voice of the Son of God, “and come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of judgment”. The Lord puts it on moral ground, too, and not on the ground of faith or unbelief, or anything of that, but “they that have done good”, or “evil”. No system of faith sets aside the simple question of right or wrong. It is not put in here as an actually occurring event — as far as that goes, there is no time specified, though in the mind of God the day is fixed — but it is moral. Life has its resurrection, and judgment has its resurrection — each thought has its resurrection.
Ques In what sense is it, “They that have done good”?
FER It is maintaining the great principles of good and evil in the world. If a man does evil, then judgment will overtake that. The Lord puts it specially on moral ground so as to maintain the immutable principles of right and wrong, of good and evil.
Rem Like as in Romans 2, he that does good is approved of God.
FER Yes, and so Paul puts it elsewhere, “I [p. 75] know that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and of the unjust”. You see, if you go back to Old Testament times, there were no “Christians” then, and yet men did good. Wherever a man had light from God, he did good. How is it possible for a man to do good who has not light from God?
Ques Then it is not a question of conversion?
FER Well, it involves it, but a man could not do good apart from God. You would make a man independent of God if it were possible to do good without light from God.
Rem No dispensation sets aside the principles on which God acts.
FER No; there are immutable principles on which God acts. The fact is, that every bit of good that has been wrought in this world on the part of man is the effect of his getting light from God. Men are not very good judges of right and wrong; they have made themselves a god superior to revelation. The fact is, they have no god at all except one out of their own imaginations or reasoning. You may conjure up a god — an intelligent man may do that — but, after all, the real basis of it must rest upon what light he has got from the Bible. He cannot help being affected by the Bible if he has been brought up under the influence of it, and though his mind may conjure up a god which he considers superior to what is found in Scripture, it is really based upon what light he has obtained from Scripture.
Rem Yes, and outside Scripture you get the hideous things of India and other heathen places.
FER For my part, I do not want to follow scientific men. They have got no god, or only one conjured up by their own mind. If you have not got revelation, you have no god at all. These men have only got an idea of God which their own minds have conceived.
[p. 76] Now I think from this point the Lord passes on to another ground — it is the ground of conviction. He brings forward the various testimonies which left the people without excuse (verse 30). You will see that the point was that He was not simply speaking as a man down here — “I can of mine own self do nothing, as I hear, I judge”, and then, “I seek not mine own will”. His judgment and His will, in that sense, both came from above; they did not find their source even in Himself. It was not a man speaking here from his own mind, but it was bringing down here into this scene the light of what was above. He was morally perfect Himself too.
Ques He was the only One fit to judge, because He had no will. “As I hear” refers to what He heard above, not what He might hear and form an opinion on?
FER Oh, no, I do not think so. It is, “As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me”. He could have no will apart from the Father. “The Father loves the Son”, and though man could not accept or believe it, there it was, “As I hear, I judge”. I often think they must have been struck with the certainty of the Lord’s words. It was not a man just indulging in platitudes, but there was a certain distinctness about what He said. He spake “as one having authority”. “We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen”.
Then He goes on to say, “If I bear witness of myself my witness is not true”, because if He had borne witness to Himself, He would have isolated Himself from the Deity. He would have made Himself a separate and distinct Person. But the truth is, the Lord never did a work, or said a word, that did not involve the whole Trinity, as He said, “The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works”. And anyone who knows anything about Scripture can [p. 77] see that everything the Lord did and said was in the power of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit does not testify to Himself. The Lord really takes here, if I might say so, the place of the vessel of the testimony.
Rem In chapter 8 He says, “I am one that bear witness of myself”.
FER Yes. In that way He could bear witness of Himself, but not as an independent Person in the Godhead.
Rem And the very fact of His testifying of Himself in that passage is to bring out the Father — “If ye had known me, ye would have known my Father also”.
FER Yes, exactly. The point here is that He did not take any place but that of a Vessel. He refuses the place of being the Source, and in taking the place of the Vessel He was true to that place.
Ques In verse 32 is the “another” the Father?
FER It is not “another” in the sense of a different one, but He says, I am conscious “that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true”.
Ques. Is that the Father?
FER I imagine so.
Ques Not John the Baptist?
FER Oh, no. I do not think the Lord would have said He was conscious that the witness was true if it had been the witness of John. And then, too, He goes on to say, “Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness unto the truth. But I receive not testimony from man”. I should suppose that in verse 32 He refers to the Father, that is one witness, and then He speaks of the works as bearing witness, and then to the Scriptures — three witnesses.
Ques Was the witness of the Father what was spoken from heaven?
FER Yes, I think so. I think He refers to that further on when He says, “The Father himself ... hath borne witness of me”.
Ques Does it make man [p. 78] more responsible?
FER Yes. It was not a question simply of their refusing Himself, but that the full presentation of God was refused. You will constantly find through John’s gospel that the rejection meant the rejection of God. “Now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father”. There remained but one thing more to be done, and that was to reject the Holy Spirit, and that was done in the case of Stephen. “As your fathers did, so do ye”. They resisted the final testimony in that way.
Ques Is it from “man” or from “the man” (verse 34)?
FER It is “the man” — evidently referring to John’s testimony. It is plain that man could not bear testimony to God. Christ was Himself the testimony. It would be equivalent to saying that God could not bear adequate testimony to Himself. We do not need testimony, for example, about the sun. If a man were to ask for testimony about the sun, you would think he was out of his mind. So in regard to Christ, if He could not make Himself felt, then it was no good men bearing testimony to Him. You find it constantly coming out in the earlier part of this gospel; “Come and see”. The point was to “Come and see” the One who was there before their eyes and needing no testimony.
Rem In verse 35 John bears witness to the truth, and yet the Lord does not receive testimony from man. I do not quite understand the two verses.
FER The point is this — they would have to believe in Christ on His own testimony, not on John’s. So, too, a man may preach to you at the present time about Christ, but if you are going to believe in Christ, it must be on His own testimony. A man never really believes in Christ until he cannot help it. He believes in Christ because he cannot help believing.
Ques John’s testimony was not set aside, was it?
FER No. But John’s testimony was not on the [p. 79] ground of faith. People were exercised by his ministry, but Christ Himself was the ground of faith. So at the present day, you do not simply believe on Christ on the word of the preacher. If you do, your faith will not stand, that is certain. Christ appeals to certain moral necessities in the soul of a man, and he is shut up to the work of God — the work is entirely of God.
Ques Is Moses brought in as a witness?
FER No. I think He simply brings Moses in for conviction. They were hoping in Moses (verse 45), and the Lord takes them up on that ground. “Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me”. What is so striking is that He really seems to put the Scriptures as more authoritative than His own words. “If ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?”
Ques We have generally heard that there is a fourfold testimony here. Do you go with that?
FER Well, it is so in a way. There is His own testimony, and then the Father’s testimony, then that of John the Baptist, and then that of the Scriptures. The effect of the whole passage, and it was necessary that the Lord should speak thus to them, is to leave them entirely without excuse.
Ques But if the Lord did not receive testimony from man?
FER Well, the Lord Himself, in a certain sense, was the sum of all testimony. If John bore testimony, it was simply by the power and grace of Christ. He could not bear witness otherwise.
Ques Is “witness” the same idea as testifying?
FER Oh, yes, I think so. It is very solemn to think that, although they would not receive His testimony, they will receive the “man of sin”. “If another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive”. The truth is that Christ appeals to certain moral necessities of man, and Antichrist will appeal to certain lusts of man, and, therefore, you see man [p. 80] receives Antichrist much more readily than he would Christ; and how people are deceived by these things — how they run after them. The whole system of the world adapts itself to some lust in man, and when Antichrist comes he will just appeal to some desire of man for greatness, or glory, or such like. The very principle which led the people to reject Christ is really Antichrist.