CHILDREN OF GOD (2)
CHILDREN OF GOD (2)
JT Our subject for this time is most precious to us, that is, the manner of the Father’s love to us expressed in the fact that we are called the children of God; not simply that we shall be that but “that we should be called the children of God”. This is to bring out the Father’s love. What we had this morning stressed largely the right accorded to us by Christ to take the place of children of God. Now we are to consider the love, the Father’s love, in the fact that we are called children of God, and what is based on it or produced from it: “For this reason the world knows us not, because it knew him not”, it knew not Christ. This brings out the relationship of children, and involves that we are like Christ in external character; we are not known as He is not known. This raises the whole question of Christianity, what it is characteristically. In this world we are not known, hence there is opposition, suspicion, distrust and even division.
EMc Is this ‘calling’ different from “called saints”, 1 Corinthians 1:2?
JT I think it is; what we have here is a designation, but there it is a matter of saints being called, a called-out people. It is not in the sense of designation there, but the fact that we are called out is very much involved in the assembly. In Acts 11:26 it says that “the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch”, it was God’s mind that we should be designated in that way. It is the fact that we are called Christians that indicates the manner of the Father’s love; we are known in that sense as children of God. I suppose that in John the large use of the word ‘children’ would bring this point up, how it conveys the Father’s love, and the manner of it.
Rem You spoke this morning of “I have loved Jacob, and I have hated Esau”, Romans 9:13. Would not this be more that kind of love?
JT It is the exalted character of the love. The Lord Jesus spoke of the Father’s love, that the love wherewith the Father loved Him might be in us. It is the same kind of love He has for Christ that He has for us, and He would that this love should be in us. The Lord had in mind in John 17 that the Father’s love for Him should be in us. That we should be called Christians is a very remarkable thing; this title suggests the character of the work of God at Antioch. Paul laboured there for a year, we are told, in the assembly and taught a large crowd. The ‘crowd’ would gradually diminish as merging in the idea of the ‘assembly’. The nations also were affected; the idea of the assembly developed and in that connection we have it that the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch. This is clearly to bring out the quality of the service of Barnabas and Paul in that city. But here it is the manner of the Father’s love; who has so called us is not stated, but it is the fact that we are called “children of God”. We are called upon to think of the thing, to meditate or think of what has been bestowed upon us. In John’s gospel it is stated that we have a right to be that, but here the kind of love is set out, the Father’s love. The fact that we are called children of God must imply that there is a reason for it, that we are like the Lord Jesus; we are not known, as He was not known. It is said the world knows us not because it knew Him not. The fact that the love is given to us is remarkable, as if the apostle John, knowing love so well (he is the disciple whom Jesus loved), would bring out how lovable the children of God are.
EMc Would you say that the right to this as stated in the first chapter of the gospel is not enough,
[p. 245] we need the attraction of affection now which is found in this passage?
JT It is given distinctively to the saints of this dispensation. The Father names all the families: “Of whom every family in the heavens and on earth is named”, Ephesians 3:15. But we in this dispensation are especially distinguished in having this revelation made to us. We are of that character, so that people call us that.
HH What about John 14:6, where it says, “No one comes to the Father unless by me”?
JT John 13 - 17 deal largely with how the Father and the Son are occupied with us, or with the disciples, and in chapter 13 the Lord Himself calls them ‘children’, as if He were Father; He had acquired that place among them and He says, “By this shall all know that ye are disciples of mine, if ye have love amongst yourselves” (John 13:35). Love amongst ourselves would enter into what we are saying, the manner of the Father’s love given to us that we should be called the children of God. The manner of the love would mean that the saints of this dispensation are peculiarly lovable.
HH That last remark in regard to being lovable seems to help, that we might respond to this divine love bestowed upon us.
JT These chapters would treat of it. Think of the place we have in the affections of divine Persons! The Spirit keeps Himself out of it as to name, but He is the power of all this. It is a question of the Father and the Son. Think of the dignity attached to us as having the right to take this place! What we are saying now we shall not be able to get hold of unless we appropriate this right, and then having appropriated it we come to see what the Father thinks of us, the manner of the love which He has given to us.
HH Conditions are necessary in that way, in order to understand and respond to [p. 246] divine affections.
JT The Lord laboured that the conditions should be there.
HH Does this scripture throw light upon the scripture that, “To us there is one God, the Father”, 1 Corinthians 8:6?
JT It does. “God, the Father” is God, and you can understand how that would work out in us, what God is to us. Who is God to us? It is the Father.
EMc The Father’s love would throw light on this particular passage.
JE The outcome of that is that we may be able to cry, “Abba, Father”.
JT That One is God to us.
JF There is evidently a difference in the two thoughts; what we had this morning is that the world may believe, and here the world knows us not.
JT That brings out what we are going through just now. The young brothers who have to appear before the authorities find that the world does not know us; we have to be very patient towards them as they do not know us, we are not understandable to the world. Our position and manner is mysterious and we have to suffer because of its very mysteriousness.
HH “Which none of the princes of this age knew” (1 Corinthians 2:8).
JT I think that is one of the most difficult facts we have to contend with just now. “For this reason the world knows us not, because it knew him not”.
HH It is amazing to see how the high priests and Pharisees and elders all refused that life in Christ, and yet it is the only thing worth having. God is drawing our attention in a peculiar way in these last days to the vast value of what there is in Christ.
JT It implies something come down from heaven and taken up again into heaven; it is distinctly [p. 247] heavenly. Christianity is not a worldly thing, it is an out-of-the-world thing. There are many dispensations and each dispensation has its own products. Christianity is a heavenly thing come down to earth; its origin is up there and its testimony is heavenly; presently it will be up there, caught up like the vessel that was let down to Peter three times and taken up and finally stayed there. The world does not know it. The word is, “Such as the heavenly one, such also the heavenly ones”, 1 Corinthians 15:48. That is the secret of our being unknown. The more the world knows us the more we are of the earth and the less we are heavenly. It is by our conformity with the world that the world comes to know us.
CT Is your thought that I am not to be known in the world?
JT Well, actually we are not known by the world; that is what it says here and it is because it knew Him not; that refers to Christ.
RQ Would not the thought of the world knowing us involve the thought of the mystery, that they neither accept nor understand it?
JT ‘The mystery’ is the word covering the assembly because God made it a mystery, it is still hidden as far as the world is concerned. Here the idea is that Christ is heavenly, and that when He was here He was not known by the world. We take on His character, have the same love and are like Him; so that it brings out what we are and whether we have been reconciled to suffering for Him, or whether we would rather be known by the people in the town and honoured by them. Many prefer to be so known and honoured. John has in mind that you will be unknown as you are really in the truth of children of God, because you are like Jesus.
CT One reason we do not find growth is because we are known in the [p. 248] world.
JT We like to be honoured naturally, but Colossians says our life is hid. It is because of what we are, we are not intelligible to the world any more than Jesus was, although we move about among men. They do not know us because of our character, our ways and our outlook.
JF There is no one plane on which we can be with the world, is there?
JT There is not. There is something near to it when the apostle used the word, “For in him we live and move and exist” (Acts 17:28), but this is merely a creative thought. There is no question of our minds being on the same level.
Rem In John 8:19 the Lord Jesus says to the Jews, “Ye know neither me nor my Father”. Now we have a family of that character, those unknown by the world.
JT Very good.
EMc We are not intelligible to the world.
JT They do not understand us. You give a reason for the hope that is in you, but you cannot give a reason for everything because the thing is not intelligible to them.
EMc The natural mind does not understand the things of God.
JT Just so.
JK “I have given them thy word, and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, as I am not of the world”(John 17:14).
JT We are not only not known, but we are hated.
JF That is a further development that we have to accept.
JT It enters into the present moment. You have a questionnaire to fill out and you have to tell everything, but you cannot really tell everything. What John is dealing with is what we are constitutionally, that we are what Christ was constitutionally; we are [p. 249] given the same love. But still, you have to tell pretty much all that relates to you, and especially what relates to God and how that enters into your citizenship in this world, the government’s claim on you. To some minds what you say is very unreasonable and this sometimes breaks out and severe penalty is involved. Well, these are facts that we have to face. The things that we prize most are the occasion of suffering, and if we do prize them most they will be recompense for the suffering. That is the way the truth of Christianity will be developed; it is worth while. The names of the twelve apostles are in the foundations and are adorned with precious stones (Revelation 21:19,20); that refers to the sufferings. The recompense is worth while.
Rem Would that recompense be the sense you have of the Father’s love?
JT It is given to us to suffer (Philippians 1:29). It is an honour given to us.
HH Would not the thought of righteousness come in in John 17, “Righteous Father, and the world has not known thee”?
JT That is quite so, “The world has not known”; it involves the Father, the Son and ourselves.
HH It is right for us to be in this position and it is wrong for us not to be. Righteousness is what is right on the highest rung of the ladder.
JT The Lord’s expression in His prayer to His Father in John 17 may be taken as a standard for our calling, the highest level. Think of the Father’s love being given us here, “That the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them”(John 17:26)! Think of the Lord asking that!
CT The men of the world understand that we do not belong to the world.
JT The difficulty is very great because we have to do with men in the world. We are obligated to [p. 250] them, but we are a people that are as unknown to them as angels are. We are as unintelligible to them as angels.
CT In regard to Peter they said his speech was like a Galilaean; his speech made him manifest.
JT Just so, showing how far away a Christian may get from what he is abstractly. I hope tomorrow we may see how the matter of being born of God is worked out; but now the point is the Father’s love, the manner of it, the manner of the love that is given us that we should be called children of God, and that we are not known because of this.
HH It would involve how perfectly Christ has made the Father known.
JT Quite so, the Father and the Son and the saints (the saints involve the Spirit) are bound up in these chapters that you allude to (John 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17). We are speaking of how we are brought into that, and especially now in this manner of love, the manner of love the Father has given to us.
JF It is remarkable that the Lord, the Son, is in that way brought forward as an example of being unknown by the world.
JT He was here in their midst and they did not receive Him, “He came to his own, and his own received him not”. John really had that in mind, he had the Jews in mind, they did not know Him. So that the application today would be to the religious world, the leaders of religion; they have a status of their own to defend.
Rem So that this thought of the kind of love that the Father has bestowed upon us is distinct in that particular way, as indicating the peculiar character of the love the Father is pleased to bestow upon us, no less than that.
JT It is the same way in which Christ loved His own. “We have contemplated his glory, a glory as [p. 251] of an only-begotten with a father”(John 1:14); well, this love is in addition to that.
HH Was that seen when He was about thirty years of age, not as the Babe lying in a manger, but when the twelve contemplated a Man in whom all this was set out? “We have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a Father”.
JT In chapter 17 the Lord says, “I have manifested thy name to the men whom thou gavest me out of the world”, and then goes on to delineate them and says, “The glory which thou hast given me I have given them, that they may be one, as we are one”. He spoke about their being one and that He had given the glory to them that the Father had given to Him; it is a question of family glory. Then He goes on to say, in verse 24, “Father, as to those whom thou hast given me, I desire that where I am they also may be with me, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me, for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world”.
JK It says ‘men’ there, but we have been speaking of the thought of ‘children’.
JT The word ‘children’ refers to us down here and sonship refers to us up there. We are down here as derived from God and essentially like Him, “As he is, we also are in this world”. You can only understand that in an abstract sense, that we are viewed as holy as being born of God.
P So that this idea of ‘children’ is distinct from the idea of “little children”.
JT The word here is the most exalted word used for the relation in mind.
HH I think what you have just said is very important, that we are derived from God so as to be essentially like Him.
JT It is the manner of love. The love that is spoken of is surely worth while; it is surely a recompense.
CT [p. 252] Is that what we are today?
JT That is the idea; that is what this epistle is for, to give us the full thought over against what there may be otherwise. We are looked at in just one way.
ABMcC This can be known in time.
JT It is a question of this dispensation; it is not a question of what we are in heaven; it is a question of the dispensation here in 1 John, how it was inaugurated in family relations, how these family relations involve the supreme love of the Father, and that we are unknown, but that it is worth while to suffer because of the manner of the love of the Father. The more we look at the position the more we are convinced that suffering is the only thing for us, and God will make it worth while. John shows here by the Spirit that it is not what we shall be, how we shall appear up there, but it is down here. When we shall see Him we “shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is”. In the first verse it is present, “That we should be called the children of God” now.
EMc You mean that when we are manifested it will be intelligible?
JT This is not manifestation. This is something that men cannot understand but “what we shall be has not yet been manifested”, but “if it is manifested we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is”. This is a moral thing that we are dealing with now; it is what we are down here.
Rem In that way the “thing is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing and the true light already shines” (1 John 2:8).
JT The ‘thing’ there is eternal life. What is true of Him is true of us now. We are dealing with likeness and similarity to Jesus personally, and therefore sufferings are unavoidable, but then it is worth while.
[p. 253] HH Do you think we are to be like Him now? We shall see Him as He is but we are to be like Him now.
JT We are to be like Him in this moral sense. I think we have to make this allowance, that what Jesus was in the forty days down here is not just what He is now. What He is now is described in “body of glory”.
HH Why do you bring in the forty days?
JT Because they were for a purpose in relation to the testimony. The point is spirituality in the forty days; they bring out the kind of condition He was in as risen, not as glorified.
HH “What we shall be has not yet been manifested”.
JT The forty days’ condition was manifested, but that was for the testimony. Paul saw Jesus in glory and that was to impress Paul for the testimony down here. When the Lord comes for us it is not simply that we shall be like to His spiritual body, but like to His body of glory. So that there is something yet that we have not seen, the great thing we are coming into.
RQ In what sense is the word ‘if’ used here (verse 2)?
JT It is a matter of being like what Jesus was when He was down here in the days of His flesh. Now we are the children of God, but what we shall be is not yet manifested. You cannot say what it will be, nor can anyone; we know that when it is manifested we shall be like Him. There is no doubt about it. The force of ‘if’ is in the sense of ‘when’, it is left in the indefinite future. When it is manifested then we shall know. I do not think anyone has seen Him as He is yet, though Paul saw Him in His glory. When it is manifested so that we shall be brought into it for eternity, when we shall see [p. 254] Him, we shall be like Him. The apostle here connects what it is with our seeing Him; we shall be impressed in our whole being with what we are seeing.
RQ That would really go beyond the thought of manifestation in the day of display, would it not? It is what we are to be in our eternal abode.
JT The Lord presented Himself living, that was a sort of appearing to the brethren; it is in a particular way. But what we are to be and what we are to see in heaven is yet in the future.
EMc Do I understand you to mean that this manifestation of what we shall be is for us in the future?
JT No one can tell you what it will be. A man will rule over a city or five cities; the idea of rule is invested in us. If I am ruling over a city I must have something to indicate my office; but when it is a question of what I myself shall be like, or Christ Himself apart altogether from testimony, we have to wait to see how it is going to be.
HH Would not this carry with it the thought of union, that is, the assembly is Christ’s fulness; would it reach out in that direction? There must be a proper parallel between Christ and the saints in that way; they are not morally on a lower basis or level than He Himself.
JT I think that is in order, but when you get to wifely conditions, then you are on another line of things, although these truths are interwoven. We are to be with Christ in family relations eternally; what is to be seen then is no question of testimony or service, but pure enjoyment and love, simply being for divine Persons.
JF The statement that the life has been manifested is in view of testimony, but this is not in view of testimony.
JT [p. 255] No, not when you correspond to what He is; that does not allude to any particular attitude. In Colossians 3:4 it says, “When the Christ is manifested who is our life, then shall ye also be manifested with him in glory”. That is all for a public testimony — “manifested with him in glory” — but to see Him as He is, that is the eternal thing. We shall be like Him because we shall see Him as He is.
Think of the Lord Jesus giving them the glory that the Father had given Him, as we are told in John 17:22! We should be in complete correspondence with Him, although we do not come into the Deity, into the glory which He had with the Father before the world’s foundation. You feel that John had a wonderful place! Peter had a special place in administrative work, John in love work, and Paul in the mystery. These are three outstanding servants.
HH That bosom and that breast are available for you and me now!
JT Just so. So that it is worth while to suffer for these wonderful things that are held for us.
CT I suppose our young brothers are suffering for these things.
JT God is bringing them before the governments of the world. The world, the powers that be, have to be looked at as of God without any reference to their knowledge of God; so that God can take up any of them even though they do not know Him. Then there is the world in another sense, “The whole world lies in the wicked one”, 1 John 5:19. But looking at the world as used of God in regard to our young men that are called by the authorities, it is a question of whether these great truths are sufficiently in their hearts to make it worth while, so that they should be a testimony here in suitability.
HH Some of our best brethren are the men who went through the last war; many of them did, it [p. 256] was the making of them. They have been a very marked testimony ever since.
CJ How do you account for the fact that there seems to be no particular enquiry as to the future? Naturally I suppose there is more or less inquisitiveness as to what we shall be, our state, but here it seems to be just restfulness in knowing that we shall be like Him.
JT The Lord usually had to correct the disciples; they were very inquisitive. They say to Him in Acts 1:6,7, “Is it at this time that thou restorest the kingdom to Israel?”. The Lord would not have them ask questions on these lines. He had said, “The Father himself has affection for you”. In John 16 they are very doubtful about things and they do not ask the questions that you would expect them to ask, so that when they say, “Is it at this time that thou restorest the kingdom to Israel?” they ignore John 13, 14, 15 and 16. But the Lord says, “It is not yours to know times or seasons, which the Father has placed in his own authority”; He has reserved that to Himself, indicating that we should be occupied with the main things in our dispensation. The Spirit will disclose everything, much greater things than the restoration of the kingdom to Israel. So that it goes on here in verse 3, “And every one that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure”, that is, hope in Christ.
EMc In regard to this manifestation when we shall see Him as He is, it is touching that we shall have bodies of glory like His.
JT That is what is meant. It does not appear as though anyone has yet seen Him as He is; John puts it in the future. The present state is not glory. What is opened up to us is that everyone having this hope in Christ — that we are going to be like Him when we shall see Him as He is — purifies himself. But that is a higher level of purity than [p. 257] the ordinary.
What we are dealing with now refers to supreme refinement.
CT Is the thought that I must have the hope that you have been speaking about in order to purify myself?
JT “Every one that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure”; think of the standard we get represented to us! The furnishing of the tables involved purity, washing; a large amount of water was required for the lavers and the vessels for carrying water for purifying; and then there were the ashes of the red heifer. All these are essential and we can hardly be Christians without them. But here we are dealing with the refined thoughts of God; He is pure, of course He is pure, but why should this be brought in? It is a supreme standard of purity, the most fine gold; that is the idea; God is preparing us for our translation and why not take these things in and let them work in us? He that has this hope in Him is pure.
HH Pure is over against unclean. You referred to the ashes of the red heifer; this is a plain word for us all in regard to uncleanness: it makes the way for supreme refinement.
JT Why should it be said that He is pure?
JF Is it on account of lack of water of purification in the second chapter?
JT You cannot possibly be conformed in the physical sense while you are down here. But think of what you will have when you see Him, a body of glory! We shall be like Him, the supreme Standard of everything. If you have that hope you have it in Christ who leads into the purifying now of the supreme kind. John would lead us into more excellent things.
CH We should be morally conformed to the image of Christ now; later we shall be so [p. 258] physically.
JT He alludes to the physical change when we shall see Him and that sight is connected with the transformation of ourselves.
EMc I think that is most helpful, nothing else has a purifying effect like this.
JT God would just like to prepare our hearts to go in for the greatest, the most blessed, and the supreme things. I think that as to the resurrection, even before we come out of the grave we shall have some intelligence. We shall be conscious that things are being done; in fact we have here the word, “We know that if it is manifested we shall be like him”, showing that God is contemplating that we are conscious in these things. The Lord will visit the graves to take us out and something will happen in us, conformed to the full transaction. “Lazarus, come forth”(John 11:43), for instance: when the name was mentioned Lazarus moved and the dead came forward. They that are in their graves shall hear His voice and come forth. Something happens in them, and when we hear Him we shall see Him, and sight is taken account of, we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is.
HH When you get into the hands of divine Persons there is no telling what They will do with you.
JF What we have here involves the transformation of our bodies of humiliation.
JT You hear His voice and come forth: you come forth a spiritual body and you come forth a body of power; but then this one thing is left, that we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is. That is the supreme thought! God will make men in the grave to hear the voice of Christ and they will come forth; but not only that, they will see Jesus as He is! We shall have some inkling as to how God operates. He is dealing with the best kind of material in the saints of this dispensation. In fact [p. 259] Paul goes so far as to say that the body which we are going to have is our “house which is from heaven”(2 Corinthians 5:2). We should have these thoughts in our minds so that we may be amenable to God.
JF “Star differs from star in glory”(1 Corinthians 15:41).
JT God is dealing with material now; He created out of nothing but He is not doing that now. He is taking up material and dealing with it inwardly so that there is intelligence in it. Think of being in the hands of your Creator and knowing what He is doing with you!
JF How great the measure of glory there will be with us when God raises us!
JT I am sure it is a wholesome thing to have before us as to how much glory there will be in us. “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the coming glory to be revealed to us”, Romans 8:18.