CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3

“Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.” When once you come to grace, we have the Father spoken of again. We are called God’s children because we really are so. “Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.” Who? Now by the “Him” is meant Christ. The world knew Him not: it does not know us for the same reason. We have the same life and character that He had. The world cannot recognise and own what is of Christ in us, because it did not recognise it in Christ. It is extremely remarkable and blessed for us to see this Man, the humblest man that ever was, and to find out what He really was, that God really became a man. The Word was God, and was made flesh.

We have got the same life; and when we have found Christ, we know that we have found God in all His blessedness close to us. And the world cannot know us. It does not know God, and cannot know us. You will find persons with a difficulty as to knowing whether it is Christ or God here, because the apostle carefully puts them together.

“It doth not yet appear what we shall be.” It has not been seen what we are to be. The apostles saw it for a moment in the transfiguration; but, as to the manifestation of it, it does not yet appear. But being saints of God, having the same life, we know that we shall be like Him. He identifies God with Christ, and in a sense identifies us with Him. His glory is not yet manifested: but we shall be like Him, for “we shall see him as he is” — not as He will be, but as He is now in heavenly glory at the right hand of God. The flesh could not see this and subsist. Daniel fell as one dead, and John too, at the appearing of it. But we shall be like Him, and therefore capable of seeing Him as He is. This is a matter of infinite blessedness. We are to be conformed to the image of God’s Son, that He may be the first-born among many brethren. If we were only conscious that there was all this blessedness, and yet had the thought, I am not to be like it, this would not be joy: whereas we are in it with the consciousness that we are the same. “We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is”; that is, in glory as He is at the Father’s right hand, and we shall see Him in that way.

“^[p. 225] And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” Ours is the hope of being like Him — “that hath this hope in him,” that is, in Christ — the hope of being like Himself. It does not say that he is pure as Christ is pure. But I have got the glory; and as it is mine, and I am going to be like Him, I must be as like Him as I can now. I must purify myself, and He is the measure of it. We are called by the glory to be up to it practically. The apostle says, “I press toward the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” I have not yet this resurrection from the dead, but I am pursuing it. But when Christ comes, He will change our vile bodies — and then we will have got it. The connection between glory and present walk is striking. As long as we are down here in this corruptible body, there is not a bit of glory. But the Spirit of God applies all this glory to the affections. I long to be like Christ, and therefore I get like Him in spirit. It is like a man that has a bright lamp before him at the end of a long passage. I have not the lamp till I get there, but I get more of it at every step. So with the glory: I have not got it till I am in it; but I get more of it the nearer I move towards Christ.

So in the epistle to the Ephesians Christ loved the church, and gave Himself for it. He was washing and cleansing it, and would take away all spots. But it was that He might present it to Himself without spot. The Spirit takes of the things of Christ and presents them to us, and transforms us into the likeness of Christ. In Philippians he is speaking of the spiritual effect, by actual resurrection, upon the heart. “That I may know him and the power of his resurrection ... if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.” It is the actual thing, and he gets it applied to his heart now. “Not as though I had already attained ... but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.” Christ, in grace, had laid hold of him for the glory. Now he sees the glory, and follows after it. It is the glory in resurrection applied to the man’s heart all along the road. So it is here. “Every man that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.”This bright and blessed glory fixes the affections and purifies the heart and forms the proper Christian path. It is a sanctifying hope — the soul being occupied with Christ, so that it is kept out of the evil.

^[p. 226] He then goes on to another thing. If I go and commit sin, it is the lawlessness of the flesh, and nothing to do with Christ. “Whosoever practiseth sin, practiseth lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.” He does his own will in spite of God if he can. Because without the law sin was in the world. It is a kind of background he is making. If you are not purifying yourselves, as Christ is pure, it is the lawlessness of the flesh; it is entirely opposed to Christ. There is no middle path; for there is nothing good in this world. It is either Christ or flesh. Man is fallen and out of paradise, and there is nothing owned at all of man now. God made paradise, and man is out of it; and He made heaven, and man is not in it. But between the two there is nothing that God owns. God never made the world as it is, nor man as he is, that is, not the moral state that the world and man are in. It grew up when God had driven man out from His presence. Then Cain went and built a city, and established himself and his seed away from God. It must be either “ye are from beneath,” or “I am from above.” “I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.” If the law, then, is applied to the flesh, of course the flesh transgresses it. “And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin.” There was no sin in Him; and He came to put away sin.

Then he takes in the strongest way the opposition between the two. “In him is no sin. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not; whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him.” He is taking the two things as opposed in every way. Because, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,” he says to the same persons. But here, “Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not,” etc. The divine nature cannot sin. The thing that is born of God cannot sin, and that is ourselves so far as we are in Christ. As the apostle says, “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” Of course, that is not sin. The saint is never looked at as in the flesh; but “he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.” It is not merely that you are changed, but you are made partakers of the divine nature. “Little children, let no man deceive you; he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.” He has got the same nature which walks in the same path.

^[p. 227] Christ has died as regards our guilt, and what is spoken of now is the communication of this nature. A man might come and make a great boast of high doctrine, and not do righteousness. Then I say, This is not the divine nature. We have it in Romans 6: “How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?” You are dead. How can you be living in sin? Through carelessness you may fall into it, but that is not living in it. In general he takes what the truth is in itself, that we may know it in all its force. “He that practiseth sin is of the devil.” He takes the opposite thing altogether. “For the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God doth not practise sin.” How can he? “For his seed remaineth in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” It does not say, “he ought not to sin,” but “he cannot.” It is not a question of progress, but of the nature. The nature a man is born of is the nature he has. Take any animal you please, and this is true of it. We are born of God, and we have got that nature, and I say that cannot sin. I have got the treasure in an earthen vessel — that is true. The flesh is there, but the new nature is a sinless nature. It is, “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin.”

“In this the children of God are manifest and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.” There are the two traits which shew themselves in a thousand details of life — righteousness, practical righteousness, and love of the brethren. Mere amiable nature you find in dogs and other animals, being animal nature; but the love of the brethren is a divine motive. I love them because they are of God. I have communion in divine things with them. A man may be very unamiable naturally, and yet love the brethren with all his heart; and another may be very amiable, and have no love for them at all. Lower down, he says, “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.” It is the great test of the divine nature. It is the life of Christ which is in us, reproduced in our ways and walk. It is not merely avoiding sin, because there is more in Christ than the absence of sin. There was the manifestation of the divine nature. He was the divine nature walking through this world, and He had special love to the disciples, as we also have special love to the brethren. He was in the world, and as among men, to manifest God in it. And this is what we have always to do — to represent God in this world. “Ye are the epistle of Christ.” People ought to read Christ in you, as they read the ten commandments on the tables of stone. If they read that, they will not read evil. We have the flesh to struggle against, but not to walk after. It is not an effort to try and be like Christ, but that being full of Him it comes out. Therefore He talks of abiding in Him. So “he that eateth me abideth in me.” He has become our life, but He is our life in every-day exercises. We are sent into the world to manifest God. Then come difficulties and hindrances, and if we are not full of Christ, we give way to them; whereas, if we are full of Christ, we manifest Him in them. If not, we shew heat, temper, or some evil thing. But there is no need of living in the old nature. We never can excuse ourselves for living in it, because Christ is ours.

^[p. 228] We again see in the first of these verses the proof of what “the beginning” is here. The great thing we have to look to, as regards life, and what that life is, is Christ manifested in this world. “This is the message that ye have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.” We get Christ very distinctly there as the One who alone could give us the true measure and character of all else: He is the truth. Divine light, such as this, was not till Christ came. He was the faithful witness. Then you find another thing: there is the evil life or old Adam, and the true life, which is in Christ.

Both principles are at work. In the one there is hatred and his works evil, just as in the other we find love and righteousness. These go together. It began in Cain and Abel and has gone on ever since. Those that are really God’s people are hated. Therefore it is said that “he was of that wicked one and slew his brother.” “In this the children of God are manifest and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.” It was the spirit and nature of the being departed from God, of which the devil was the spring and the strength. “For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Not as Cain who was of that wicked one and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil and his brother’s righteous.”

You must not be surprised, therefore, if the world hates you. It is natural to man. In the first place, Satan is the prince of this world; and, besides that, it is the nature of man as he is. We were in death spiritually, and wherever that was the case, the spirit of Satan ruled and governed, and therefore there was hatred of God’s children. But then there is this new life, and “we know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.” If a man does not love the brethren, he abides in death. That is where we all are naturally. He is looking at the very principle of life. If I only find a sign that it is a wild apple-tree, I know what the tree is. On the other hand, get the life of Christ, and the fruit answers to it. It is not a change of human nature as it is, because this abides in death. But the new life that comes is a life that bears its own fruit, just as that which is grafted into a tree. What sprouts up from the old stock is what came from the nature of the tree before. “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer, and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.” He has not this good graft. It is a clear case.

^[p. 229] Then he rises up to the source of it. “Hereby perceive we love.” What is this love? How can I tell it? In that He laid down His life for us. And if Christ is really my life, He will be the same thing in spirit in me, as He was Himself. Christ kept the law because He was born under it. But the law calls upon man to love God and his neighbour, and that Christ did. But, besides that, He was the manifestation of God’s love to man, and specially to His disciples, when they did not love God. This is what we are to be. Christ, who was the activity of His love, laid down His life. We perceive what the love of God is by this. But you ought to manifest the same thing. It is an immense privilege. Not only am I required to do certain things, but I am called upon to be a witness of God in a world that is without Him. And there is no limit to it. I ought to go as far as Christ went. And there have been some that have done this to death. Many martyrs have laid down their lives for Christ. “We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” Besides the immense privilege, it is an essential truth. We have to manifest God in this world, because Christ is in us. That is, if we are children of God, there is communion with the source of it, and then there should be the display of it in our walk — the epistle of Christ known and read of all men.

“Whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?” We have another mark there in the dwelling of the love of God. It is not merely love to God, because it is the spirit in which a person walks himself towards his brethren. It is the power of this divine nature dwelling in us which will shew itself in love to God and man. The love of God dwelling in us is the way of God Himself, who through the Spirit thereby brings His love into us. It is not God’s love to us, but it is the power of that love working in us, and therefore it will soon shew itself to others. “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him.”

Now he looks to the effect of walking with God, as giving, not the knowledge of forgiveness, but confidence. He wrote to them because they were all forgiven; but if I want to have my heart assured before God, I must walk in this way. If my intercourse with God causes my heart to condemn me, you cannot call it confidence. If I am not walking according to God, I must either get away from Him, or if I find myself in His presence, His Spirit is constantly reproaching me, and that is not confidence.

“For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.” He knows a great deal about me that I do not know myself. If a child has got a bad conscience, he sneaks about, if his father is coming; but if not, he runs to meet him and throws himself into his arms. But he cannot have that kind of confidence, if his heart reproaches him. That is what we have always to look for: to be with God, and in entire confidence with Him — no thought behind that perhaps he has something against us, not as to condemnation, but as to present confidence. How far it goes, the entire full counting upon God — counting upon His present activity for us! It is not only a question of the day of judgment, but it is the present dealing of the soul with God, and of God for the soul. “Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.” In chapter 5 it is said, “This is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us.” We are brought into a present confident spirit with God, so that we expect everything good from Him. If a child is going on naughtily, he cannot go on in confidence. He may say, My father loves me, but he is going to give me a whipping. But when the heart is all right, the child expects everything that flows from his father’s love. So here, “Whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.” This has nothing to do with acceptance, but with the every-day outflowing of the Father’s kindness, so that the child counts upon it. It is the terrible effect of looking at acceptance and forgiveness as the end of the Christian’s course, that this confidence is almost unknown. The apostle began with forgiveness: “Your sins are forgiven you, for his name’s sake”; and now he is speaking of the confidence of the heart towards God. You get this in John 14: 23: “If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him,” etc. This is not the grace that saves. In the epistle John says, “We love him, because he first loved us.” The Lord says, “He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” He is speaking of the present exercise of this love to Christ.

^[p. 231] It is a great thing to say, I have only to ask according to God’s will, and I am sure to get it. He loves us in such a way that I can ask nothing without an answer. I want power and I get it directly. I want some hindrance removed out of the way, and it is removed directly. I may ask my father here for something, and he may tell me, I cannot do it; I cannot attend to you. But this is never the case with God. You can ask nothing, according to His will, without getting it. In a right path I have the whole power of God at my disposal. I may see mountains before me — all Satan’s power. But never mind. If you are walking right, “ask what you will, and it shall be done for you.” You have thorough present confidence in God. He is never too busy to hear us. All that we can come about is ours. “Whatsoever we ask we receive of him, because we keep his commandments,” etc. It is the direct government of God with our souls. This is where the question, between us and God, right and wrong, comes in. As regards our responsibility as men, we were ruined. Now we are saved, and God’s dealings meet us on that ground, and then He delights to do everything for us. It is not what we will, but “whatsoever we ask.” It is the will of the new nature, that is, obedience really. In that path of obedience God always heard Christ, for He was obedient, and God hears us; He puts us, in this life of Christ, into the same place as Christ.

“^[p. 232] And this is his commandment that we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another as he gave us commandment. And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in God, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.” He comes now to another most important point. Not merely that there is life, but that God by His Spirit dwells in us. There is power of communion as well as life. God dwells with Him who is love. It is not merely that I am redeemed. But as it was said of Israel, “They shall know that I am the Lord their God that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them”; so it is said of us, “Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost.” Christ was the obedient One, and God dwelt in Him; and he who is an obedient one now, God dwells in him. Christ said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” In us it is only derivatively by His Spirit, but still He dwells in us. In the obedient man God dwells as in Christ Himself. “And hereby know we that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.” That is, it is the presence of the Holy Ghost with us that gives us the consciousness that God dwells with us. He does not add in this latter part of the verse that we dwell in Him; but simply that the effect of the presence of the Holy Ghost was and is, that we know that God abides in us.