CHRIST AS LIFTED UP
[p. 306] CHRIST AS LIFTED UP
John 3:14 - 16; John 8:28, 29; John 12:31 - 33
JT I was thinking of these three passages in John’s gospel which allude to the lifting up of the Son of man. The teaching relative to each of these statements is in mind: first, Christ lifted up as a necessity, as He says Himself, “Thus must the Son of man be lifted up”, John 3:14; second, the persons who lift Him up, as He says, “When ye shall have lifted up the Son of man” (chapter 8:28); and third, the statement, “and I, if I be lifted up out of the earth, will draw all to me”, chapter 12:32. I hope we shall find that the teaching connected with each of these statements of the Lord applies to our present exercises.
The first is a necessity. He said “must”, and connected it with Numbers 21, a chapter that has been very current among the brethren for many years as bringing out the teaching of the gospel in view of eternal life.
ARS This expression “lifted up” refers to the crucifixion of the Lord, does it not? But why does He use that expression? Why does it not say, When ye have crucified the Son of man? It is a peculiar expression.
JT It is. It would point to the fact that He was made a spectacle of ignominy, lifted up between heaven and earth. It is for us to understand spiritually why the expression should be used. Clearly the thing was not done in a corner, nor was it done to shield the Lord from anything. It was to expose, so that everything connected with the Lord’s death might be seen. The crowd that stood around and jeered and commented enters into all this, and an [p. 307] examination of what happened will, I think, enable us to arrive at the meaning of the words.
AR Is John 3 to expose man’s state? That is, in Numbers 21 everybody was dying as the result of the serpents’ bite.
JT Hence the “must”. God could have removed the fiery serpents, but He did not. The only escape from their bite was this provision that He made. God could remove sin out of the world and destroy Satan if He wished, but He has His own way of meeting emergencies, and the brazen serpent was one way. The fiery serpents were all around, so that it would be most urgent to look at the serpent of brass. It says in Numbers 21:4 - 9, “and the soul of the people became impatient on the way; and the people spoke against God, and against Moses, Why have ye brought us up out of Egypt that we should die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, and no water, and our soul loathes this light bread. Then Jehovah sent fiery serpents among the people, which bit the people; and much people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, in that we have spoken against Jehovah, and against thee: pray to Jehovah that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. And Jehovah said to Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole; and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, and looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole; and it came to pass, if a serpent had bitten any man, and he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived”. These are the facts of the brazen serpent, and the fiery serpents are not said to have been removed. God is not altering external circumstances, He is altering us. He lifted up this thing outside of the range of man, so to speak, so that everyone could see it. If it had been on the level of the crowds of people who were seeking healing by [p. 308] a look, they would, have had to jostle one another to get a view; but it was put where everyone could see it. Millions could see it, and everyone that looked lived. But it is a look that is steady.
ARS Would the serpent being put up on a pole convey to the people looking at it that at the cross of Christ the serpent was vanquished?
JT The first point to see is that it was lifted up on a pole. That is a question of altitude, visibility. Religion would bring it down and befog it, but it is clear of all human influences or darkening thoughts. It is away beyond these elements, according to divine direction, so that everyone can look. It says, “Make thee a fiery serpent”, Numbers 21:8, that is, make one like the ones that are biting the people, “and set it upon a pole; and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, and looketh upon it, shall live”. So that the serpents were still there; the point was to look.
JS Is that taking account of sin in the flesh?
JT It is. “God, having sent his own Son, in likeness of flesh of sin, and for sin, has condemned sin in the flesh”, Romans 8:3. But this was not exactly “in the likeness of flesh of sin”, it was in the likeness of a serpent. It is the condemnation of sin in the flesh, only that the serpent has to be borne in mind as being annulled. Yet the benefit is not in that fact alone; I have to look, and look steadily. So that instead of the removal of the serpents the state of sin is corrected.
ANW Did you wish to bring out the uplifted position in John 3 as advantageous to us whereas the passage in chapter 8 is possibly more an exposure of us?
JT That is so. There is a certain responsibility in the persons who lift Him up; but the idea of the lifting up in chapter 12 is that He draws all to Him, and it is “from the earth”. It would allude to the [p. 309] court of the tabernacle and the entering in on those lines as drawn to Him; because John is not ecclesiastical in his terms, he gives the facts. The Lord is lifted up from the earth and all are drawn to Him.
APf In the beginning of John 8 the expression as to lifting up is twice used. It says in verse 7, “he lifted himself up”, and in verse 10, “Jesus, lifting himself up”. The woman looked and got the blessing. Has that a connection with this?
JT That is good. The Lord had been doing something before He lifted Himself up. It says, “But Jesus, having stooped down, wrote with his finger on the ground. But when they continued asking him, he lifted himself up and said to them, Let him that is without sin among you first cast the stone at her. And again stooping down he wrote on the ground. But they, having heard that, went out one by one beginning from the elder ones until the last; and Jesus was left alone and the woman standing there. And Jesus, lifting himself up and seeing no one but the woman, said to her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? Has no one condemned thee? And she said, No one, sir. And Jesus said to her, Neither do I condemn thee: go and sin no more”, John 8:6 - 11. There is much in that, as to what He was writing. He stooped down and wrote with His finger on the ground, according to verse 6, and in verse 8, again stooping down He wrote on the ground. The allusion is to Sinai rather than to Numbers 21. It is a question of the Person who was there, and of the authority He had to write. He was writing His own death, you might say. He was going to die for her or He could not have said, “Neither do I condemn thee”. The law would and did condemn her, but He was adding something.
ARS It does not tell us what He wrote.
JT Spiritual or intelligent persons would ponder what He did, and seek to discover what was meant.
As the Lord says, “But when he is come, the Spirit of truth, he shall guide you into all the truth”, John 16:13. The Holy Spirit helps us as we ponder these incidents to get at the truth of the matter. But clearly it is not here lifting up from the earth, it is lifting Himself up from writing on the ground, alluding to His death. He did it Himself.
JS The first writing put the legalists out of court.
JT And the second kept her in, so that she did not need to go out. The Lord says, “Go and sin no more”. She is under His rule. He did not tell her to go out. She is like a person on parole; it is a question now of how she will behave herself. It is not like John 11:44, where the word is, “Loose him and let him go”. She is under surveillance. If she sins more, a worse thing will come upon her.
JS The man in chapter 5 went and sinned again.
JT The man at the pool of Bethesda, you mean. Exactly.
FHL Does not the lifting up of the Son of man involve the thought of being accursed? “Cursed is every one hanged upon a tree”, Galatians 3:13.
JT That is the thought, the bite. Anyone that was bitten and looked would be a convicted person, because the type requires that any person bitten and looking shall live.
GVD Is there a connection between the necessity for the lifting up of the Son of man and the necessity for new birth?
JT They are often put together. There are two “musts”, you must be born again, and the serpent must be lifted up. The first “must” is the work of the Holy Spirit in the believer, and the second is the work of redemption accomplished on the cross by the Lord Jesus. They both go together.
GVD I was thinking that the one arises out of the other.
JT They really stand together. New birth alone [p. 311] will not do. We must have redemption, that is, sin has to be dealt with.
AAT Would the bite of the serpent be Romans 7?
JT Quite so. Romans 7 shows that you are. bitten.
AR Does John 3 and the history of the first man introduce another man? Looking at Christ you see another kind of man, a man who lives.
JT Quite so. That the Lord Jesus was made sin and was made a curse are great objective thoughts. They are solemn thoughts. We have to take them in, and one who is bitten will do so, because if he is bitten he feels the thing. Thousands do not feel it at all.
ABP In Numbers 21 the emphasis seems to be on the word ‘fiery’; Moses was told to make a fiery serpent. The word ‘serpent’ is in brackets, as if the emphasis would be on the kind of thing.
JT That is the kind of serpent it was. It must allude to the external view, the impression produced on the mind.
ABP That possibly would be more in evidence than the form of the thing.
JT The word ‘fiery’ is stressed, the word ‘serpent’ has to be added to make the sense. Then it says, “Moses made a serpent of brass”, (Numbers 21:9) as if he were intelligent in what he was doing, because brass is a symbol of judgment.
ABP In that sense we not only have to trace the thing to its source, but also to have a right judgment of what the character of sin is.
JS Is it as Son of man that He takes upon Him sin in the flesh, and becomes that? In chapter 8 He is Son of God.
JT He says in chapter 3: “thus must the Son of man be lifted up”. “Son of man” is a convenient term in the Lord’s own mouth, and is seldom used by any other. It conveys what He is in relation to [p. 312] men, as of us, and to establish our confidence, indicating that He is on our side.
FHL It is a position of power according to Psalm 80:17, “upon the son of man whom thou hast made strong for thyself”. Why is it that the truth here in chapter 3 is for an individual, whereas the other two scriptures seem to be spoken to the Jewish crowd?
JT Well, this is the basic part of our subject. The three texts taken together form one theme, and obviously this is the basic one, for the “must” is attached to it. There is no hope of God accomplishing His thoughts in man at all unless this “must” is carried out. The Son of man has come in to carry out the divine thoughts in regard to the human family, not the angelic family, because John stresses that the life was the light of men. It is a question of men, and the first thing must be the dealing with sin, not only the transgression but the thing itself; and that is what the serpent means, that the thing is dealt with there, in the likeness of the thing that touched the people.
CAM The fact that it was a serpent shows that John is dealing with the source in keeping with the whole setting of this part of the gospel.
JT Yes; man is not the source; that is important. The word ‘serpent’ takes you back to the beginning, for the devil sins from the beginning. He is the author of sin.
CAM In connection with this idea of the bite, are we warranted in saying that there was poison in it? It was a poison that got into the blood-stream of the person.
JT I suppose it is well known as to the serpent family, that its power lies in injecting the poison so that a man is thoroughly affected by it, and the type would show that [p. 313] he dies.
ABP Would there be a connection, between this and Satan’s entering into Judas?
JT I do not know that it is blood-stream there. That is more Satan entering; as entering he himself is an active agent.
ABP I had more in mind the thought of the serpent as the source. Satan personally is seen active as entering into Judas.
JT That is true; but we have to differentiate between the poison injected and Satan himself, because what is dealt with is really sin in the flesh, not Satan in the flesh; it is the poison of sin, and how that is introduced.
JS Would Judas be more the vessel?
JT It was a personal matter with him. Judas himself was a devil; that is, a personal active agent against God. But this is a virus, it is a poison. Mary Magdalene had seven demons in her. That is not in the blood-stream. That means she had accorded them a place through her conduct; her conduct was dreadful, and one after another got in there. But it says that seven demons went out of her. That is not sin in the flesh, it is the injection of beings who find a place in a man or a woman and act against God. Then the position is made untenable by the light of Christ coming into the soul. It is not the dealing with sin in the flesh, but the ejection of a being that has got in to act against God. That raises a wonderful range of thought as to satanic activity. In heathendom, of course, it still has scope. We cannot say very much about it in Christendom, but in some countries there is certainly scope for satanic activity in persons.
ANW That would show that there was a moral reason why Paul was able to shake off the viper into the fire, and was not vulnerable to its bite.
JT Just so. They looked to see him fall down dead, but he did not, he was immune. There was [p. 314] power against that. Something had happened, in him before, or he would not have been immune to it.
AR The woman that had had seven demons would be a place for the demons to live, whereas this bite would affect the whole constitution, sin working in the flesh.
JT That is it, sin getting into the constitution. It is a figure of speech. What happened in the garden was that Satan injected this poison into Eve’s mind. It was a bite.
CAM Without this instruction of John which goes to the very beginning of things, I suppose the human mind would be deceived, because Satan’s approach was an attractive sort of thing.
JT It certainly was. He must have found some sort of means of attracting Eve. This is found in books now.
RWS Did you allude to new birth as the conviction that the virus is in me?
JT New birth I understand to be some sort of element, called “spirit”. “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit”, John 3:6; not the Spirit, but “spirit” in quality. It is like a thread or fibre in the garment. It is inserted and it affects the whole being, only in a modified way. New birth is not redemption, but it is something in the constitution or fibre of the person that will affect the whole being in time. The word ‘again’, as you know, means ‘throughout’, from top to bottom. Whether the subject be a learned man like Nicodemus, or any other type, it has its effect. The Spirit operates, and the Lord calls it being “born anew”, “born from above”, it may be rendered. But it was never intended that a man should be left just with that. New birth is only the beginning of things. Redemption is necessary, and hence the second “must”, that the Son of man is to suffer on the cross as lifted up. The allusion is to the serpent, of course. So that [p. 315] everyone who is bitten, can see, and in seeing not only lives but has everlasting life. It is a settled matter according to divine purpose. It is not simply that one individual lives at a time, but the idea of eternal life is there for all.
CAM That matter of “spirit” in connection with new birth is very enlightening, because I suppose it would be right to say that the immediate result of what Satan did was, in principle, to divorce the spirit from God, so that bodily appetite governed instead of spirit. If it is right to say that, it seems to help greatly to see that new birth is the very first action with regard to the spirit of persons.
JT Yes; it is clearly an initial action. Whether it happened in Eve and in Adam in the garden is an interesting question. I believe it did, but the truth of new birth did not come out then. It was too soon to bring it out, because man after the flesh had to have his day, and the law had to be given to bring out what sin really was, “in order that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful”, Romans 7:13. We have to learn from God what it is. God will have this thing brought to light. He will give thousands of years to work it out, “that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful” (Romans 7:13).
Nicodemus, a teacher of the law, should have known all about the law, but the Lord has to tell him about new birth and then about the serpent in the wilderness, these two “musts” and the settlement of the whole matter that began with Eve in the garden of Eden.
A B. It does not say that Eve got her name until after the fall: “And Man called his wife’s name Eve; because she is the mother of all living”, Genesis 3:20. I was wondering whether the use of the word ‘Eve’ suggests another generation, like new birth?
JT It does. It is living in the true sense of the word which would confirm that the idea of new birth [p. 316] must have taken place there, but it was not yet named. The time for it had not yet arrived. God could have settled the whole thing in Eden, but He did not. He let it have its full scope that it might, by the commandment, become exceeding sinful, then He dealt with it in the cross. The worst kinds of sinners are contemplated, such as Mary Magdalene, Saul of Tarsus, and the woman in John 4. It is where sin is exceeding sinful that God shows that He has dealt with it and forgiven us.
RWS Like the centurion? He observed the things that were happening at the cross and he confessed the Son of God. Might new birth work quickly?
JT Why would it not? Apparently others with him were affected too. God can do things very quickly. The thief on the cross must have been affected just there.
TH Would you say that it necessitated an anointed Vessel in flesh to deal with sin in the flesh? “God, having sent his own Son, in likeness of flesh of sin, and for sin, has condemned sin in the flesh”, Romans 8:3.
JT The Lord Jesus had to come to take the matter up Himself, the thing was so awful. Take the serpent itself, what an awful thing it was to deal with! So that Satan is called “that old serpent”, meaning that he is the author of sin and is old in it. But he is taken by one angel and chained, according to Revelation 20. Only the Lord Jesus could really take up the matter because of its age, its extent, and its history, covering so many centuries and so many countries. So that now the Son of man has come to take up the whole matter, and He says, It must be done. Unless it is done, He says in effect, there can be no life, no eternal life. The primary thought of God is eternal life. It was promised, and without this act, this lifting up of the Son of man, it could [p. 317] not be reached. But it is reached, and that is the teaching connected with the lifting up.
JTJr Is that connected with the thought of believing? Believing on the Son of man as lifted up? It is not the look exactly in John, it is believing.
JT Quite so; the word for believing in the New Testament means that one is brought into it.
CAM The “old serpent” that we are considering seems to give a great thought as to eternal life. John deals with the very beginning of time and goes right on to the end, so that this life is a matter that surrounds it all.
JT It is eternal life because it is a question of God’s purpose, and that must be reached. When we proceed to the second and third scriptures I think we shall see that the Lord would bring us, according to John’s way of teaching into the divine system. He would bring us into the tabernacle, so to speak, where we enjoy the blessing. No one should be outside. “I, if I be lifted up out of the earth, will draw all to me”. That is from the earth, notice. He is drawing us away from that. He is not talking about earthly blessing.
AR In John 12 He is the Centre of another world.
JT That is it, but He is lifted up between earth and heaven. The tabernacle system comes into mind. The holiest is not in view of the public, but the court is. He is lifted up there to be the Centre of attraction, and all that is behind it is for us.
JTJr Are there degrees in the thought of eternal life and in our apprehension of it? In the first scriptures it is a question of believing, but later in the gospel it is brought forward in another connection. In chapter 8 it says, “I go away, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sin; where I go ye cannot come”, John 8:21. That seems to be a further idea. He had put the question to them as to believing,
[p. 318] and now tells them that He is going away and that they would die in their sin. Does not the idea of believing enter into the initial matter? And then in John 4 there is the water in us, there is something in us now springing up and we are moving on; but still the initial idea of eternal life is there first.
JT Quite so. The springing up, it says, is “into eternal life”. So that you are drawn along in a current in chapter 4; but here in chapter 8 the Lord is dealing with the Jews in a judicial way, and He says, You will die in your sins if you do not believe that I am He (verse 24). And in our verse it says, “Jesus therefore said to them. When ye shall have lifted up the Son of man, then ye shall know that I am [he], and [that] I do nothing of myself, but as the Father has taught me I speak these things. And he that has sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, because I do always the things that are pleasing to him”, verse 28, 29. Now He is becoming attractive, it goes on to say, “As he spoke these things many believed on him”. He would go further and liberate them, but He is saying, When you have lifted Me up as Son of man, then you will know I am He. That would mean that His true deity and all that He is would come to light through this means.
GVD Was that not brought out in the centurion? He said, “Truly this man was Son of God”, Matthew 27:54.
JT He was simply saying that as to who the Person was. We must remember that his confession of the Son of God was not just the same as Peter’s. His confession was based on objective knowledge, what he saw. Peter’s knowledge of the Son of God was by way of a revelation, that is the idea in Matthew 16. We are in the realm of revelation, not simply what appears outwardly, but what is inward by revelation. The centurion did not have a revelation, nor did the men in the boat (Matthew 14:33) who [p. 319] believed that He was the Son of God. They believed because of what they saw, but Peter’s knowledge of the Son of God was by revelation, and we are in that. It is not simply objective knowledge.
AAT The centurion heard the Lord give a cry and saw Him give up the ghost. Then he said, “Truly this man was Son of God” (Matthew 27:54).
JT Yes, that is what he saw and heard. Others had seen the same thing, but Peter had had a revelation. That is Christianity. Let us see that Christianity is revelation, not objective presentation, in the sense of signs that everybody can see, but revelation.
CAM That is an instructive remark, because it was really the creation that was this lesson-book for the centurion, but for us it is a greater thing than that.
JT Yes. You get a true grasp of the Son of God by the Father’s revelation.
AR This apparently is not from revelation but from standing by the cross and contemplating the person lifted up. As I stand by the cross and contemplate Him light comes into my soul and I begin to know who He is.
JT Then the Lord says, “I, if I be lifted up out of the earth, will draw all to me”. That does not only mean when He was on the cross. The real drawing was after He went to heaven. The Holy Spirit draws us into all the truth. The Lord went up to heaven, He was lifted up out of the earth, but now He draws all to Him, and what precedes that is that the world is judged. “Now is the judgment of this world”, verse 31. So that we are drawn out of it into Christianity, into the assembly, into the court and into the holiest.
FHL Mr. Darby uses the word ‘out’ of the earth. Would that suggest not only the cross but ascension?
JT Taking the figure of the tabernacle it is that [p. 320] you are taken into the court. The teaching of this passage is, “Except the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, it abides alone”, John 12:24. That is another necessity; but this time it is the death of the Lord Jesus to bring out of the earth a people like Himself. He bears much fruit, so that Hebrews says, “For both he that sanctifies and those sanctified are all of one”, Hebrews 2:11. We go into Hebrews from this chapter; there we have the tabernacle system and all that enters into it. It is Christianity as drawing near to God.
ABP Is the Lord emphasising that the Jews would know and be condemned? “When ye shall have lifted up the Son of man, then ye shall know that I am he”, (John 8:28).
JT The “ye” would not mean that every one of them would know. It is an abstract idea that would be known. It is the knowledge of the Lord Jesus as to His Person that is in question in this chapter, “for unless ye shall believe that I am he, ye shall die in your sins”, John 8:24. And the lifting up would mean that whoever did it would be responsible. It would not be to condemn the Lord Jesus but to bring out the greatness of His Person, which the Jews did not intend at all. The Lord says of the Comforter, “having come, he will bring demonstration to the world, of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment”, John 16:8. The Holy Spirit would do that, and that is involved here; but the truth of Christ’s Person is what has come out through His being lifted up. He is a divine Person. He came out of the grave Himself, and ascended up into heaven Himself, and sent down the Spirit Himself. It brings out just what the Jews did not intend. They thought He was just a Galilean, but instead of that their action brought out the greatness of His Person.
ARS What is the force of “draw all to me”? It does not mean everyone is going to be converted.
JT [p. 321] Not at all. It is a question, of the attractiveness of the Lord, that He is going to draw all on the principle of attraction, as lifted up out of the earth. He is before everybody’s eyes because He is lifted up, but as out of the earth. Where is He going? He is going to heaven. It is Christianity that is in mind in the whole teaching of this section. It is the corn of wheat that falls into the ground and dies. So that it is the true Christian that is drawn to Him.
RHS Looking at Him in heaven — would that include others or are you applying it only to the saints?
JT The assembly is in mind, but you might include all that are Christ’s at His coming. If you look into it you will see that the teaching bears on what this verse says, that the Lord is lifted up out of the earth. Am I going to live on the earth? He has gone away from the earth into heaven.
AR In the end of the section it says, “Jesus said these things, and going away hid himself from them”, verse 36. I suppose John 12 is the conclusion of the matter outwardly and John 13 is the beginning of what you are speaking of as the holiest. It is the beginning of the opening up of another sphere.
JT Quite so. He says to Peter, “Unless I wash thee, thou hast not part with me”, John 13:8. It is part with Him. It is not negative teaching now as we go on after this twelfth chapter. But in chapter 12 Andrew and Philip tell the Lord that the Greeks desire to see Him. They thought the Greeks were great people and that it would be interesting to the Lord that such great people were coming to see Him. But He says, “Except the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, it abides alone”, John 12:24. We sometimes sing, “No longer now alone”; our verses in chapter 12 refer to the persons that are to be His companions. They are to be like Him, they are to come up out of the grave with Him, and He is to be [p. 322] so attractive and so influential that He draws them to Himself. Are we drawn to Christ? The next thing is, What will He do with us? He is off the earth, He will not come back on to the earth for us, He is going to take us up there. He will come to meet us in the air. He is so attractive He will take us all up. That is the teaching that enters into all this. We do not want to live and to be somebody on the earth, because the world is judged. The Lord is so powerful in His attraction that He will lift us out of the world.
JHS In the Song of Solomon it speaks of the chiefest among ten thousand. Is that not a distinguishing thought?
JT That is the idea exactly. He is so attractive that you cannot stay away from Him.
CAM Referring again to the court of the tabernacle, I suppose an element like the Greeks could not approach into those precincts. Unless they came into the blessing they could never go where the Lord was going.
JT They would have to lose their Greek reputation. That is the principle of it. No importance is attached to men and their reputation here below. We read of the seven thousand names of men slain; that means that their names are of no value.
ABP Is Lazarus seen in John 12 as one who is attracted to Christ in this way, drawn to Him? He was loosed and let go, and he was one of those that sat at table with Him.
JT That gives the idea of it. I think the Lord is moving on to Christianity in our verse, because He speaks about falling into the ground and dying or else abiding alone. He must bring out a race of His own, a humanity that is according to God. It is man, but man of a new order. Even the Jews will not do.
RWS There is altitude and there is depth. You alluded to the pole as altitude, but falling into the [p. 323] ground would allude to the heart of the earth. All that makes Him very attractive.
JT That would enter into the measurements in Ephesians: “that ye may be fully able to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height”, Ephesians 3:18.
CAM The thought is surrounded with the universe itself — the immensity of all that is involved in the Lord coming into time.
JT The teaching throughout this chapter helps. We have already alluded to verse 20: “And there were certain Greeks among those who came up that they might worship in the feast”, John 12:20. They would see Jesus. Philip and Andrew tell the Lord about them, and it says, “But Jesus answered them saying, The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, it abides alone; but if it die, it bears much fruit. He that loves his life shall lose it, and he that hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal”, John 12:23 - 25. This is the process by which we arrive, in a moral sense, at being of His order. If we hate our life in this world we keep it to life eternal. And then it says, “If any one serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there also shall be my servant. And if any one serve me, him shall the Father honour”, John 12:26. That is all developing the truth of the much fruit that comes out of His death with Him. The coming up is an act of God, but the moral side is in hating your life here. You do not belong to the earth at all, you belong to heaven. You love the Lord, and if you serve Him you will be with Him where He is and the Father will honour you. Then the next thing is, “Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. But on account of this have I come to this hour. Father, glorify thy name. There came therefore a voice out of heaven,
[p. 324] I both have glorified and will glorify it again. The crowd therefore, which stood there and heard it, said that it had thundered. Others said, An angel has spoken to him. Jesus answered and said, Not on my account has this voice come, but on yours”, John 12:27 - 30. So that you see, dear brethren, this teaching is to draw us into the current in which the Lord is. The voice is not for Me, He says, but for you. How God would bring us into the current of what is in His own mind! How interested He is in us! The Lord says, It is on your account this voice has come. Then He says, “Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out: and I, if I be lifted up out of the earth will draw all to me”, verse 31, 32. So that you see how the power of attraction comes in; He is the chiefest among ten thousand, ten million, all that there are! He is the chiefest in beauty. But all this involves His going up to heaven and the Spirit coming down and working in us, so that we may be attracted and brought into all that He has in mind for us.
ANW It is striking that He should again deal with this matter of lifting up. A mortal man could not do it literally, but He has in mind to attract all to Himself.
JT You can see the force of the word ‘attract’ or ‘draw’ here. It is not in the other two references. The “must” does not imply this. The first is the dealing with sin in the flesh; and the second is the Jews exposed and the deity of Christ coming to light; but here He is drawing. It is the supreme attractiveness of Christ as lifted up ignominiously on the cross.
AR He takes us out of this world, and becomes the Centre of another world. I suppose we do not have to wait until we get to heaven to work this thing out.
JT It is going on now. It is a question of whether I am drawn to Christ. We must examine our own [p. 325] selves to see whether He is the supreme attraction to our hearts, because the teaching surrounding this statement involves that we are of Him. There is that in us that responds to Him, but the moral side is that I hate my life in this world.
AR Paul says, “But surely I count also all things to be loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, on account of whom I have suffered the loss of all, and count them to be filth, that I may gain Christ”, Philippians 3:8.
Pages 326 to 429 — “Family Affections”. Detroit, September, 1922 (Volume 56).