CHILDREN OF GOD (3)
[p. 260] CHILDREN OF GOD (3)
1 John 3:7 - 12; 1 John 5:1 - 5
JT It was thought that we should continue with this epistle because it affords more instruction on our subject than any other epistle, that is, as to being born or begotten of God. This is a root idea and is an initial thought with the apostle John. The apostle makes an analysis really and the idea of being begotten of God enters much into this. It works out in our contact with sin, sin in ourselves, so that the subject becomes intensely practical and enables us to understand and to analyse our inner movements, how it can be said that one born of God “does not sin”. It is connected in these passages with righteousness, dealing with sin in its root character, “He that practises sin is of the devil; for from the beginning the devil sins” (verse 8). This is over against one that is begotten of God who does not practise sin, as it says in verse 9, “Whoever has been begotten of God does not practise sin, because his seed abides in him, and he cannot sin, because he has been begotten of God. In this are manifest the children of God”; so that we have here root comparisons. In chapter 5 the fact of believing that Jesus is the Christ is a proof that one is begotten of God, and this gives victory over the world too: “For all that has been begotten of God gets the victory over the world; and this is the victory which has gotten the victory over the world, our faith. Who is he that gets the victory over the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”
Another thing to be noticed is that persons are brought into this epistle and the other two epistles of John, as illustrative of both good and evil, so that we may compare and think of persons in assembly [p. 261] relations; we have names given in these epistles which guide us both as to good and evil. We see the idea illustrated in persons. Another important thing to keep in our minds in this inquiry is Peter’s view of the matter: he says we are born of incorruptible seed by the word of God (1 Peter 1:23). It is important because it involves intelligence as to our constitution, as to ourselves, how we are brought into being by the word of God.
HH So that in connection with what you are saying as to righteousness one thinks of the movements of “Jesus Christ, the righteous”; what you are drawing attention to is practising righteousness, which is very important on our side, is it not?
JT It helps us as to this matter of being born of God. First the apostle addresses us as ‘children’, meaning he has a father’s place which brings the Fatherhood of God very near to us. The apostle represented the thing in measure so he says, “Children, let no man lead you astray; he that practises righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He that practises sin is of the devil; for from the beginning the devil sins” (verses 7, 8). The comparison is based on root principles and hence is intensely abstract; it is only as we understand the abstract idea that we can understand these verses.
EMc Do you say that “born of God” is the root of righteousness?
JT That is the way it is presented here, as a constitutional matter and Peter’s reference would help us as to intelligence. The “living and abiding word of God” (1 Peter 1:23), gives the idea of what is of His mind, and it is communicated to us as we are begotten so that we are intelligent as to ourselves.
CJ Is not Mr. Darby’s translation a great blessing in this particular scripture? The King James’s translation would seem to suggest a single act, while Mr. Darby’s translation indicates that it is ‘practice’.
JT It does help. The abstract idea helps because you are enabled constitutionally by the word of God to discern what you are. You are enabled in analysis to dismiss what is extraneous to the subject, otherwise no one in the flesh as we are would be so spoken of, that he cannot sin. He is identified for the moment with birth from God, not simply new birth but more than that; it is “of God” and you cannot connect what is of God in this root way with sin; nor can you connect anything else but sin with the devil; he does not know anything else.
EMc Does Paul refer to this when he says in Romans 7:25, “So then I myself with the mind serve God’s law; but with the flesh sin’s law”?
JT He does. Paul works it out in himself, he works it out by strong abstract pronunciation indicating plain dealing with one thing, and leaving other things that have no place here. Why not? If you are making an analysis of any kind of material, for example, if you are looking for gold in rock, you are entitled to look for the gold only; the gold is the gold.
CT So according to this there should not be the spirit of going astray.
JT You are intelligent in what is being done, going back to the root. You go back to the fact that you are born of God, and you have no reason to connect anything to do with sin, any seed of sin, with what is born of God.
HH How would you speak of the ‘word of God’? What does that mean?
JT It conveys intelligence as to His mind; it is said for instance that the very worlds were framed by the word of God. That would mean that they were formed intelligently, not drawn together as by sections, but intelligently. There is a plainly marked reason for everything, but much more plainly marked in a living being; so that the Lord Jesus said that [p. 263] He was altogether that which He said: I am “altogether that which I also say to you”, John 8:25.
HH It says in Psalm 139:14,15, that we are fearfully and wonderfully made and the work is wrought in secret. Would that apply?
JT Yes, quite so, that may be alluding to the assembly. In Genesis 2 the histories of the heavens and the earth are referred to; the shrubs are spoken of before they grew.
HH God does things and He does them perfectly from the outset; seeds grow up to plants and He made plants that yielded seed.
JT When He treats of life on the third day He connects it with the earth, fruit trees bearing fruit, and so on; everything comes up out of the earth. But what comes up is regulated on the fourth day by the lights in the heavens so that the earth is dependent upon the heavens. And so it is with the believer, he is constitutionally intelligent and all ministry is to enhance that; he knows his origin and then the lights in the heavens regulate him. The Holy Spirit comes down and regulates us.
HH I am impressed with the word ‘dry’, Genesis 1:9. I suppose the saints are on dry ground, the waters being gathered together in one place in the death of Christ and the saints on the dry ground.
JT The element of water is not only judgment, but the dry is over against the wet; the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters but what He had in mind was to bring out the earth; the water engulfed the earth, but He let the dry ground appear, meaning it is brought out of the wet which indicated chaos. The water is not only that but it is needed for refreshment, and so in Genesis 2 we get a mist going up from the earth so that the earth itself has moisture, which is essential. So in regard of the Christian, he has the Spirit, and even if he has not the Spirit there is some moisture there: “That which [p. 264] is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6), and that alludes to material which the Lord can use. The one who is born of the Spirit has something, and that involves material which the Lord can use. A person born of God is born by the word of God, meaning that he is intelligent in the hand of God and knows what God is doing with him.
HH He is able to receive testimony.
JT He can move and enter into the kingdom; he does not move in the world, he is intelligent because of what God has done in him. It is intelligent material that God is using and if I am normal I will adhere to that; sin will be foreign to me and the Holy Spirit will enable me to maintain that. If we say that we have no sin, that is a lie; we must look at the thing contextually, we are entitled to identify ourselves with being born of God.
JF By reason of being born of God we are able to reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
JT You can do that because Christ died for us, it is only because He died for us vicariously; that is reconciliation. But in Colossians 3:1,3 it says, “If therefore ye have been raised with the Christ”, and “have died, and your life is hid with the Christ in God”; this all alludes to the material God is working with.
ABMcC Is practising righteousness a feature of the kingdom?
JT Surely it is, it is in connection with being born of God; it shows how the truth is interwoven. A man cannot enter into the kingdom unless he is born of water and of Spirit; hence the Lord says to Nicodemus, “Thou art the teacher of Israel and knowest not these things”!(John 3:10) The scripture makes things plain to us and we should understand.
HH What does the thought of ‘water’ mean in that [p. 265] connection?
JT There water is to cleanse, not for refreshment.
HH Is it connected with state?
JT It is the element of helping oneself. It is moral cleansing that is in mind, and that is in the constitution of a man; it is a root principle that I judge sin in cleansing myself from it. There is plenty of water and why not do it?
CJ I would like some help in connection with verse 9, “Whoever has been begotten of God does not practise sin, because his seed abides in him, and he cannot sin, because he has been begotten of God”. I was wondering whether ‘his’ refers to God, and ‘him’ to one who is begotten of God.
JT ‘Whoever’ is you or me, “Whoever has been begotten of God does not practise sin, because his seed abides in him”; that is your seed. The root principle of your origin is the idea, the seed by which you are a being according to God; that abides in you and you cannot sin because you have been begotten of God. It is wonderful all the way through, as I understand it! This is a matter that requires that our minds be under control and attentive, and the Holy Spirit will help us. You will know the difference between your own spirit and the Holy Spirit because He witnesses. It is an analysis I have to arrive at in the understanding of it, in spite of the fact that I am also viewed from another point of view. But from this abstract point of view I identify myself only with what I am before God. When sin presents itself I avoid it; that is a great matter.
HH If we sin; we confess our sins, the abstract idea of what I really am helps me to judge the sin.
JT “If any one sin, we have a patron with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous”(1 John 2:1); that is what God does. But from this abstract side I deal with the matter myself instinctively, and that greatly helps us in the application of the first part, chapters 1 and [p. 266] 2. You do not get the idea of an advocate here; it is what you are doing yourself in virtue of what you are as born of God.
HH I was thinking of dual conditions; you mean that on the one hand we are in Christ, but we must practise righteousness and hence there is responsibility.
JT That was the issue fifty years ago. It is Galatians that treats fully of the mixed condition; there is a warring all the time inside of us; but what an immense victory when we arrive at this and identify ourselves wholly with what we are as of God!
EMc One born of God has immediately the intelligence to understand what is of God and what is of the devil and to act accordingly.
JT He has that in principle; the fulness of it is contained in the gospel and he has intelligence to repudiate what is not becoming at all, so to say; and since sin is condemned by God in the death of Christ, I am entitled to condemn it in myself. Now you are able to look at the abstract side, eliminating all that has been set aside by the death of Christ.
Ques Is that why he goes so far back to the root principle seen in Cain slaying his brother Abel?
JT Here the first one to sin is the devil himself, as John says, “He that practises sin is of the devil”, that is, if he is not born of God he is of the devil, whatever he professes. The next person in this paragraph is the Son of God, He has been manifested that He might undo the works of the devil; so that we have the devil first, and then the Son of God undoing his works. Then we have Cain in verse 12, “Cain was of the wicked one, and slew his brother; and on account of what slew he him? because his works were wicked, and those of his brother righteous”. These are examples of doctrine.
[p. 267] W Is it possible today in a practical way for me to slay my brother?
JT Yes, if you hate him you will do it as you have opportunity. “Every one that hates his brother is a murderer”. It is an analysis and we are looking at root principles; your hatred means that you would do it. In the way we take account of one another, we see how hatred arises in the mind first by dislike; the fact that I am born of God ought to check that at the start. So we ought to see to the root in dealing with a case of that kind, get at the root of it. Why did you not check it at the beginning? If you had done so you would have saved yourself.
CT Is the thought here that if I do not love my brother I am not of God?
JT It is really an analysis: if anything comes up I must deal with it at the root; the longer it goes on the stronger it is.
Rem James says, “According to his own will begat he us by the word of truth, that we should be a certain first-fruits of his creatures”, James 1:18.
JT That is James’s view; Peter says, “By the ... word of God”. “The word of truth” would regulate us at the very beginning of any working of sin in us.
JB Practising the truth in John’s gospel results in coming to the light, that a man’s works may be manifested that they are wrought in God (John 3:21).
JT So that John in his second epistle mentions the elect lady — another personality that helps. He says of her and her children, “Whom I love in truth, and not I only but also all who have known the truth, for the truth’s sake which abides in us and shall be with us to eternity”, 2 John 1,2. That is a sister. Then in the third epistle he speaks of a brother called Gaius “whom I love in truth”, and he speaks about a brother called Demetrius who “has witness borne to him by all, and by the truth itself;
and we also bear witness” (verse 12). Well, these are examples for us in dealing with this important matter as to how the truth works out in persons. Then there is a brother called Diotrephes who “loves to have the first place” in the assembly, “neither does he himself receive the brethren; and those who would he prevents, and casts them out of the assembly”, 3 John 9,10.
Ques “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren”, 1 John 3:14. Would you say a word as to the bearing of the word ‘know’ here?
JT It is a conscious state of things in the believer. This is the word for ‘consciousness’ in an analysis, implying what is expert, only experts can make an analysis; they know what they are dealing with. The idea of a man from one point of view is that he has five senses, and as he develops those five senses he develops his manhood, so that in dealing with matters, for example, material things, he is conscious of them. He is conscious all the time of what he is dealing with; he says, ‘That is that’ and ‘That is that’; it is not simply that he is viewing things objectively but his senses are making him conscious of things. I think that is what ought to enter into our care meetings when we have to do with sin, that in dealing with these things we know what they are. The real point is to get to the root and see what it is in itself.
JF An analysis is helpful, being able to reduce things to their root elements; it helps us to be able to name things.
JT That is what I would say. First the devil is brought in and then the Son of God. Think of the great distance between these two persons! The devil does not do anything but sin, but the Son of God is undoing his work. The conflict is in ourselves and we want to be on the side of the Son of [p. 269] God.
JF Would you say that it is in ourselves that the works of the devil are being undone?
JT Just so. The battle is in ourselves between the devil and the Son of God, the Son of God undoing that which the devil is doing, which is nothing but sin.
HH You get the analysis and the battle in the last chapter of the gospel of John, the Lord having to do with Peter before the brethren, involving searching and going to the bottom of the thing.
JT There Peter changed his word from one suggesting ‘conscious’ knowledge to ‘objective’ knowledge. He attributes everything to the Lord, the Lord is conscious of everything, He knows inwardly what everything is; Peter observed that until the last question of the Lord, “Art thou attached to me?”. Then he changes from conscious to objective knowledge. He says to the Lord, You know that objectively I love you. The Lord knew that, the very look of his eyes indicated to the Lord that he loved Him.
HH Peter prevailed in that way.
JT The evidences in Peter that he loved the Lord were coming out.
HH It is encouraging to anyone going through some peculiar exercise.
JT You can look the brethren in the face if you have done something wrong and repented. They will see your repentance in your face and in your gestures.
EMc I wonder if that is the force of the expression Mr. Darby uses in saying ‘undoing’ rather than ‘destroying’? The whole thing is ‘undone’.
JT It is not a time for destruction; “If any one corrupt the temple of God, him shall God destroy”, 1 Corinthians 3:17. We are to leave the tares and wheat to grow up together, we could not destroy the tares [p. 270] without endangering the wheat. We are to undo the thing, and for that skill is required.
EMc The conscious knowledge of this gives one the sense of victory.
JT In Matthew 13 we have the tares and the wheat growing together and the Lord says, Do not interfere with this because you will damage the wheat if you do. But then He goes on to the end and He speaks about fishermen, another parable; the net is cast into the sea, it is drawn in and the fishermen refuse the bad fish, they can do that without hurting the good ones that are in the net. The fishermen have control; that is the meeting. They have control and if a brother is bad they deal with him; that is the idea of conserving the good. We do not have control of Christendom but we do have control of the company of saints, and you can throw out the bad in it. So that I think you can see that brethren must analyse things because we deal with most precious things. In our care meetings there is dealing with the brethren and not allowing them to be associated with evil.
PW In a care meeting how would you regard the five senses?
JT By the sense of smell you can detect a person — we smell certain garments; and then hearing, a man speaks and his speech betrays him; he writes a tract or a book and you read it, that brings in taste. The senses are active in that way. All this brings out the necessity for being careful in handling the things of God, for they are root matters and work out unto eternal life. We have the true God and eternal life, that is Jesus, the One who is with us.
HH I suppose these chapters bring in the light of eternal life.
JT It comes in in chapter 5, but in this chapter in verse 15 it says, “Every one that hates his brother is a murderer, and ye know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him”. Then in verse 16, “Hereby we have known love, because he has laid down his life for us; and we ought for the brethren to lay down our lives”. So that it is an evidence of eternal life, an initial idea, when a brother lays down his life for the brethren. Eternal life is in Christ but John here tells us where it is not; it is not in a murderer.
HH “I am the resurrection and the life”; that was personified in the Lord.
JT Quite so, as the life. That is what we come to in the next to the last verse of the epistle, “We know that the Son of God has come, and has given us an understanding that we should know him that is true; and we are in him that is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life”. The matter is worked out in that wonderful, glorious position, one Person who has the true position, “the true God and eternal life”. So that we begin to look for it in persons who love. We know love because He has laid down His life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren; “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren” (verse 14). Then in chapter 4 it is the Spirit that we have to do with currently, and in chapter 5 it says: “Every one that believes that Jesus is the Christ is begotten of God”. This subject enters into all these great matters.
HH Would that work out practically in relation to the Supper?
JT There you will touch an atmosphere, the atmosphere of love, which is related to eternal life. I think the assembly is in mind in these three epistles as a sphere for eternal life in a practical way; so that we are taught where we shall not see it in one who hates, and where we shall see it in one who loves. You can look there for life; you will not get it in anyone who hates but in one who loves. There [p. 272] is a difference between life and eternal life in the scripture. The assembly is a sphere where life is to be seen. It is where love is.
HH Will you give us another word as to the distinction between ‘life’ and ‘eternal life’?
JT Eternal life is a fixed matter; life is what is operative. Eternal life is clearly over against death and time. Life by itself is more what is operating in us, so in Romans 8:10, “the Spirit [is] life” operating in us.
CT The gift of God is eternal life: that is a fixed thought.
JT The nations will go into that in the millennium; it operates by the way of love and good works and the like.
I want to call attention to chapter 5 as regards being born of God, how it is said that, “every one that loves him that has begotten loves also him that is begotten of him” (verse 1). We are essentially one; if we love God we love one who is begotten of Him, and if there is love in that one there is reciprocation. It is easy to love a person who is lovable.
EMc Is that the response of God’s nature in you and me, that we love one another?
JT The nature is the same in you as in me. If I am cultivating fleshly feelings I am hard to love; if you are like God you will love in spite of incongruity, but it is more difficult to love an unlovable person than a lovable one. I think John was a lovable one and he knew how to love because he was lovable. I should like to have been in the house of John! The Lord committed His mother to John and he took her into his own home; the Lord authorised the relationship that she should dwell in John’s house by making her John’s mother and him her son; the Lord did that on the cross.
CT In regard to the thought of love, would the last verse of John 17 fit in here, “That the love with [p. 273] which thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them”?
JT Here we are dealing with love by itself; He is laying His life down for us, and “Hereby we have known love”. The objective evidence of love is that He has laid down His life for us, so that we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren; He has taught us how. As begotten of God, the same nature operates in all.
Ques Is that why he brings in the commandments, that we know we love them, “When we love God and keep his commandments” (verse 2)?
JT That is the legal thought; there is no use speaking about loving God or the brethren without keeping the commandments. “If ye love me, keep my commandments”, John 14:15.
EMc So John says, “His commandments are not grievous” (verse 3).
JT Anything that God says is liberty; it is just what you like to do. The Lord Jesus loved to do all that the Father told Him; there was nothing grievous about that. It is a question of the divine nature in me: I accept the commandments as the perfect law of liberty.
EMc May I ask this question in connection with the care meeting? If these things are in me and the love operating in me, I would make the first advance, would I not, in a case of difficulty?
JT I think that is very practical. Some brothers are very unapproachable; you have to do all the advancing; but if both are born of God characteristically it is very easy.
CT What has this got to do with victory over the world?
JT First, believing that Jesus is the Christ would save us from antichrist; and second, loving one because he is born of God; and third, keeping His commandments, and His commandments are not [p. 274] grievous, we are told in verse 3. Then all that is begotten of God gets the victory over the world, and the saints viewed in the aggregate are morally victorious over the world. We may go down and die but we are victorious in our life as begotten of God; so that we can see how what God has effected in our times in forming gatherings like these — this matter of love working out — how it accords us the victory. The point is that “all that has been begotten of God gets the victory over the world” (verse 4). It is the aggregate of the saints in the victory.
EMc Is verse 5 an advance thought over verse 1 on the line of faith? In that verse he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God gets the victory over the world.
JT Believing that Jesus is the Christ is a testimony that you are born of God, and this would be protection against antichrist. Here those born of God have received Christ. Well, if I receive Christ I will not listen to antichrist. There are many antichrists; they are working in the schools and colleges everywhere now so that it is good to be a clear believer, a definite believer, in the fact that Jesus is the Christ, the Anointed of God. Then it adds in verse 4, “For all that has been begotten of God gets the victory over the world”. God is showing the value of being born of Him. Then verse 5 is faith, “Who is he that gets the victory over the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” Not now “the Christ”, but “the Son of God”, who enters into another order of things, in whom eternal life is hidden.
JB The Lord asked the man in John 9:35, “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?”. Was he victorious as cast out?
JT That is a good illustration of it. The Lord says, “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?”. And the man worshipped Him. He was cast out, excommunicated,
[p. 275] but having come to the Son of God he has victory, he will never go back again under any circumstances. The Son of God introduces him into something positive.
CT Does the believer in verse 5 follow the faith of verse 4?
JT You get another side of the position in the word, “believes that Jesus is the Son of God”, because of what the Son of God introduces us into; “He is the true God and eternal life”. Now as you met the man in John 9 he would have been very downcast as cast out of the synagogue, but when the Lord heard that, He found him; that is the positive side. So that John 10 is what He gives, which is eternal life and a place in the one flock. The Son of God and the man were both outcasts and the Son of God sets up another system; he could not be cast out of that!
JF So that in his being rejected and cast out the world was overcome.
JT The Lord says that He had overcome the world, and the blind man had overcome the religious world.
CT John says, near the end of his gospel, “That ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life in his name”, John 20:31.
JT It is “That ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God”; it is the Messiah and the Son of God; the Son of God is brought in. It is an entirely new matter that we have part in; we have life in His Name. All that bears on our present position.