THE WORK OF GOD (1)
[p. 375] THE WORK OF GOD (1)
JT The work of God as such is more stressed by John than by any of the other evangelists. In this there is a special correspondence to the book of Genesis, which enlarges upon how God’s work brings order out of confusion. The man in this chapter answers to the state of disorder with which God occupied Himself in Genesis. The Lord said that this man had not sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God should be manifested in him, and so this chapter helps us in connection with all that asserts to be a work of God. The work of God proves itself by certain moral features in those who are the subjects of it. My thought for this reading is that we should acquire a judgment about all that is transpiring and recognise how far these moral traits come into evidence.
HH Does not the first chapter of John’s gospel show the confusion? It says there “He was in the world, and the world had its being through him, and the world knew him not. He came to his own, and his own received him not” (verses 10,11).
JT That passage agrees in a remarkable way with the introductory verses of Genesis. At the outset it is established that God in the beginning created the heaven and the earth, and then immediately the waste condition is referred to, “the earth was waste and empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep”. In Genesis God says, “Let there be light. And there was light”. In the gospel of John God does not simply say, “Let there be light”, but the true Light is there, who, coming into the world, lightens every man; (John 1:9). The work of God consists therefore in light.
AM In what relation does the man born blind stand to those born anew in chapter [p. 376] 3?
JT Everything is taking place here by degrees; one truth building itself upon the other, so that this chapter includes all that has gone before. Therefore when God occupies Himself with this man, His works and not only His work are to be made manifest in him. The works of the devil soon showed themselves. “The Son of God has been manifested, that he might undo the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). Whatever may have caused the confusion in material things, God took in hand to put it away and to produce a state of order.
HH The first chapter of Genesis is accordingly the introduction of the whole work of God which meets us in the Scripture.
JT The unique order of the work of God is very remarkable, and one thing is to be noted, that what God begins, He also finished. It says, “And God had finished ... his work” (Genesis 2:2).
Ques Does all the work of God take place according to the same principle in the Old as in the New Testament?
JT I thought that, and on that account alluded to the similarity between the gospel of John and the book of Genesis. The first thing is light; God commanded the light; He calls the light day — there is therefore progress made, in that God gives a name to the stage of development. The evening and the morning formed the first day, and so the believer by means of the work of God can tell how he is progressing in his soul. It is one thing to call the light day, but another thing to speak of the first day. As soon as the conception of time is brought in, one begins to make progress. It says here “the first day”, so that time has begun.
Rem How do we recognise the progress?
JT As soon as you have an evening and a morning. The light of God is sure to bring certain exercises with it, the consequences of which you can [p. 377] give an account of; but greater light is the result so that you can count the day from the point onwards when the morning has come. God begins with light but with us time begins with the evening.
— L. Does the state which we see in the Pharisees stand related to the night, “the darkness he called Night”?
JT So it is also seen throughout the epistles; believers are looked at as children of the day and not of the night.
HH Does the setting sun represent the death of Christ? Does in this way the light come to us and with it also the following morning?
JT Just so. There is an experience in the soul which corresponds to that. If we consider Genesis 15:12,17, a state of darkness followed the light of God. It says “as the sun was just going down”, and then the word came to Abram in verse 13. The morning is God’s thoughts coming to pass.
HH I am impressed by the scripture to which you have just called attention and which shows us how the people of God arrived at blessing through suffering. Abram’s seed was to go through affliction four hundred years.
JT Many believers, I think, have not learned how to tell the time by means of their experiences.
HD'AC There seem to be many evenings in the history of a believer, by which he arrives at blessing through testing and deep exercise, only to go through another such experience. Is that your thought?
JT Yes, quite so, evenings and mornings. God takes the matter in hand according to our exercise of heart.
PL The Psalmist speaks, in connection with the work of God, of remembering, meditating and musing (Psalm 143:5).
JT Quite so.
AB [p. 378] The progress with the man born blind can be recognised by the great intelligence he had received about the Lord.
HPf When light came into his soul, is that the evening?
JT The darkness which the light exposes in the soul is the evening. Believers are scarcely aware of the terrible state that is in them. In the gospel of Mark the Lord cites thirteen dreadful things which go forth out of the heart of men (Mark 7:21,22). If we honestly receive the light, we see these things in their true horribleness and that causes us much anxiety and can be regarded as an evening.
HD'AC I should like to say to any who are in those circumstances that a morning is coming.
PL When Peter said, “Depart from me” (Luke 5:8), was that the evening? And “To whom shall we go? thou hast words of life eternal” (John 6:68), was that the morning?
JT Quite so.
Rem Is Romans 7, “Who shall deliver me ... ?” an example?
JT Yes, I was thinking of Romans 7. There we have a dark night of experience, but deliverance is “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord” (verse 25). At first, believers are not aware of these terrible things which had a place in them, but the light coming in exposes them. It says in Luke 8:2 of Mary Magdalene “from whom seven demons had gone out”; it does not say that they were driven out; through the light their position had become untenable. How much it must have meant to Mary Magdalene as they were going out. What a dreadful discovery it must have been to her as the light of God came into her soul.
Ques Do you mean, we are not to assume that they all went out at once?
JT It says that seven went [p. 379] out.
HH In Luke 8, that is mentioned in connection with healing. It says, “Certain women who had been healed of wicked spirits and infirmities, Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out”.
JT The discovery of what is within brings the evening; what God has done in Christ, the morning.
HH I think that what you said about the light exposing, in connection with the evening, is good.
HD'AC As far as Paul was concerned, his heart was in a waste condition and then the evening came as he found that in him good did not dwell. Then he saw the Lord as deliverer and said, “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord”, and that was the morning.
JT Quite so.
Ques Did he learn to know the darkness while he was without sight?
JT The “second day” alludes to the place that heaven should have in the believer. It is as if God would remind us that in the work which He has begun He has heaven before Him.
Ques Is it not striking that the prodigal son says, “I have sinned against heaven and before thee” (Luke 15:21)? He mentions heaven first.
JT That refers, I think, to what God had been to men consequent upon the covenant with Noah. Man, although far from God, participated in the blessing of this covenant. The rain, the different seasons, food, and his heart filled with gladness were everywhere an obvious testimony from God that heaven is beneficent. It appears that the prodigal son had to acknowledge this, for it says “what is known of God is manifest among them” (Romans 1:19).
Ques Does not the whole Bible put the relation between heaven and earth in their right place in the souls of men? God puts heaven first, but man the earth.
JT [p. 380] In regard to that, the second day seems to remind believers that God, when He has begun a work in them, wishes to have them for heaven. The third day brings in the earth.
Rem How does John 3 connect with that?
JT The work of God concerning new birth; light about Christ as the exalted Son of man. “He that practises the truth comes to the light, that his works may be manifested that they have been wrought in God” (verse 21). God works in the light, so that whoever practises the truth wishes to be in the same light. The book of Genesis helps the believer to observe his progress so that he recognises his days and reaches the end in view. In connection with the blind man, the Lord says, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (verse 5). He Himself was the light in which He was working and so it says further, “Having said these things, he spat on the ground and made mud of the spittle, and put the mud, as ointment, on his eyes”. As far as the work is concerned, that is the first thing to note — a divine Person is down here as Man. The spittle clearly points to what He was according to His own essence. It is something wonderful when that comes before us, outwardly so unapparent. He who was present was no less than God. He made mud of the spittle; that was Himself, in principle, as Man. It is wonderful to dwell upon it, for by this means we receive an impression of His wonderful downstooping. All that He was in His Being was in Him as Man down here, and in such wise that it could find its application to the condition of man.
Ques Have we in the man born blind the counterpart to the one who fell among thieves in Luke 10? In John we have probably the reverse, the other side.
JT Here we have what the Lord as Man is, according to His Person, but in such a way that it is available for the state of man.
[p. 381] Ques Is there a connection between the spitting on the earth and the dust from which man was made?
JT That is alluded to here. Adam was formed out of the ground but not by divine spittle. All that was said about it is that God breathed into him and man became a living soul. In the gospel of John, on the other hand, it is dealing with the fact that the Word, God Himself, became flesh.
HD'AC But He was quite separated as He became flesh. He did not make Himself one with the human race as He found it.
JT He had to remain alone, except He were to die. If possible, the mud would have made the man’s condition worse. It is therefore a delusion to connect Christ with man in this world, as its wise men do.
HH What you say about the spittle is very impressive and sheds a wonderful light.
JT It touches our hearts to see the Lord presented here in relation to that which He was personally as it comes to expression in this remarkable figure.
AB The greater the light, the greater the darkness. That comes directly into evidence through the contrast.
GRA What comes before us in the washing?
JT There we find the moral thought of sending. The Lord was down here as the “sent one”. That the man answered to that is the proof of the work of God in him and the Lord says in verse 7, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, which is interpreted, Sent. He went therefore and washed, and came seeing”. The going and coming shows what a result the work had in him.
HD'AC They were “the waters of Shiloah which flow softly” (Isaiah 8:6).
JT They were refused. It says, “Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah which flow softly”. These waters were also at that time refused, therefore the blind man here is set over against the perverse Jews who refused to move in the light of God.
HH The overflowing judgment stands in contrast to the waters of Shiloah. We have either wonderful grace or a terrible judgment (Isaiah 8:7).
JT The Lord who in the gospel of John had come down in grace from heaven is like Shiloah, He is the sent One. The believer manifests the work of God when he answers to that, and so it says he went and washed. The waters of Siloam are connected with that; but then we have wrath of God revealed from heaven (Romans 1:18), which the waters of judgment correspond to in Isaiah 8.
Rem The Lord calls Himself, Him whom the Father had sanctified and sent into the world; have we there the waters of Siloam?
JT Just so.
HH It is noticeable how often the word ‘sent’ occurs in John. Why do you think the evangelist uses it so frequently?
JT I think, in order to emphasise that He, although a divine Person here, was fully dependent. In no gospel are His subjection and His obedience so much stressed as in John. So in my judgment the mixing of the spittle with the earth speaks of His humiliation, in that the Lord, a divine Person, could so lower Himself and adapt Himself in such a way to the needs of man. The man is now to respond to that and therefore it says, “He went therefore and washed, and came seeing”.
Ques Why was mud put on the man’s eyes?
JT I think to bring to nought the efforts of the enemy to connect Christ with man in the flesh. I think John wants to show that the man, when that took place, was only worse off, and therefore we have the waters of Siloam, which refer to the death of the [p. 383] Lord. The death of Christ alone can recover man to that for which God created him; but hand in hand with that there is something moral going on in the man — he goes and comes.
HD'AC “He went therefore”.
JT That shows that he responded to the light.
Ques Did the Lord bring about obedience in the man, so that he went and came?
JT If he had only gone, the work would not have been complete, he had to go and to come. One can apply that to a believer, who has not only been blessed but has returned to the Source of the blessing.
Rem Like the one leper out of the ten.
JT Quite so. One leper turned back to give glory to God, and here the man comes seeing.
HD'AC He obeyed the gospel and went.
JT You are glad to see, in a young believer seeking fellowship, one who comes seeing. Such know where they have to turn to; they are not making a leap in the dark, as, I fear, some believers do.
Ques Is the thought here that Christ should be reached in His own uniqueness as the Son of God?
JT This man will have connected the spittle in his thoughts with the Son of God. He knew only too well what ordinary mud was. Afterwards he will have understood that the spittle set forth that which Jesus was according to His own Person, so that the Lord on this account said, “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?”. He answered, “And who is he, Lord, that I may believe on him?”. The Lord said, “Thou hast both seen him, and he that speaks with thee is he”. The Lord lets him look back on his experience. This was in truth the Son of God, of whom the spittle spoke. No other than the Son of God could prepare mud with His spittle, which could open the eyes.
RK Is the man in John 9 not an example of Ephesians 2:10, “We are his workmanship”?
JT That refers to the completion of the work of God in us. What this chapter brings before us is the blessed nature of the work of God, seen in moral features, so that a believer can mark his days, if he follows this man’s history.
Rem He said “a man called Jesus”. Many know Jesus, but only few the Son of God.
HH Do you not think, that behind the Son of God there is concealed a divine universe, into which He wishes to lead the blind man?
JT Yes, I think that in chapters 11 and 12 we can see that the Son of God brings in a new universe, which is characterised by family relationships, but here we have the moral effect of the light which is streaming out, the work of God in this man. The neighbours ask questions. Then you begin to show the operation of the work of God in the very answers which you give to your neighbours. In this way the believer stands here in relation to the testimony of God.
Ques Do we see that Nicodemus could stand at the cross of Christ?
JT He came forward at that time, but we do not need to put it off so long. This man made rapid progress, but not through his own exertions. The circumstances helped him, the neighbours asked him questions and the local assembly is formed in this way. As someone becomes converted the neighbours notice it and at last he is publicly excommunicated. One cannot stand for God in one’s locality if one has not confessed before one’s neighbours.
Rem The neighbours serve to bring us to a confession of the Lord.
Ques What difference is there between this blind man and the blind man in Luke?
JT The wonderful descent of Christ is not brought into expression there. Luke shows Christ down here in His power to heal. John 9 is very [p. 385] attractive because it seeks to attach believers to the Son of God. But I should like to refer to the importance of the neighbours. They received a more detailed answer than the Pharisees; he said, “A man called Jesus made mud and anointed mine eyes, and said to me, Go to Siloam and wash: and having gone and washed, I saw”. He was not in a position to say where the Lord was, but he could give an account of what had happened to him.
Rem The neighbours bring the blind man to the Pharisees.
JT We can be sure of being brought before the religious leaders of our locality. The brethren have to reach their decision from the way in which the work of God proves itself thus in a young believer.
HD'AC Therefore what this new convert says to the neighbours is so important.
JT He gives a report of what had happened to himself and says then, “I saw”. To the Pharisees he only says, “I washed, and I see”. That was an irrefutable testimony; he saw as he was talking to them.
Rem The neighbours seemed to know his earlier history well. They said, “Is not this he that was sitting and begging?”.
JT Hence it follows that in my present local testimony, what I was previously also comes in question.