THE LORD'S MINISTRY
THE LORD’S MINISTRY
The subject I desire to bring before you this evening is the new ministry, the ministry of the Lord to His own. Chapters 13 and 14 should be read together, there is properly no break. At the end of chapter 14 the Lord says, “Arise, let us go hence”. He leaves the supper table, where He was with His own. In that sacred enclosure He opened out, not only the trials and difficulties which would arise amongst His own during His absence, but at the same time the nature of His ministry to them. Let us turn to chapter 13 first, because there we get the service which prepares us for chapter 14, which is His provision for us during His absence.
In chapter 13 it is of deep importance to understand His action. He rises from the supper table - the supper table properly represents His death - and pours water into a basin, and girds Himself with a towel and washes the disciples’ feet. Now this is of the utmost importance, because He says, “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me”. It is here all anticipation. Now while the Supper is going on He gets up and introduces this new service, the washing of their feet. You see the ignorance of Peter, yet it is the first service. You cannot have part with Christ now without it. It is entirely new to the disciples; there they were in the closest intimacy sitting beside Him, and He says, “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me”. Peter then wanted him to wash both his hands and his head, but the Lord answered, “He that is washed” - bathed properly - “needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit”. The Lord is about to take a new place, as it is stated in the Hebrews, “Such a high priest became us, holy, harmless, undefiled,
separated from sinners”. “Separated” is the right word, that is, He is entirely outside them, and has gone into the heavens. If there be a soil of any kind it must be removed. You might be restored to affection for the Lord as Peter was, and yet your feet not be washed.
This service is at the beginning, and without it you would lose the ministry of the Lord. You must know the service of chapter 13 before the ministry of chapter 14. If you are not in communion with Him you cannot understand His ministry; you may have what are called believers’ meetings, with a measure of enjoyment over the word, but nothing could satisfy the disciples but to have part with Him. They had enjoyed His presence, and nothing could make up for the loss of it. In one sense we are never out of His presence; the veil is rent, but to consciously take your place there is quite another thing. If there is any soil on you, communion is interrupted. It is not only that you have sinned, but that you are conscious that there is a shade of reserve between the Lord and you. Just like a child which has soiled its dress, and though the mother may tell it to change its dress, still there is a sense of reserve between it and the mother. The washing of the feet is to remove this sense of reserve. Now this is the beginning, the start. If you seek the Lord’s presence anywhere, even in your own room, the word remains true, “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me”. What hinders us is that we are at a distance. He always cares for us and helps us, but it is from a distance, you are not near, because the effect of being near Him is that you are transformed. It is not only that you are satisfied in His presence, but there is a wonderful effect produced on you by being in it.
If you study John 13 carefully, you will find it to be a little epitome of church history. You get here all the elements of disturbance, but at the same time [p. 404] you get the service of Christ for His own. I ask you to look at the order; here the Lord rises from the supper table, which prefigured His death, to present another lesson, in order that they might be kept without a soil to enjoy His presence. It is all-important to know that you cannot enjoy the presence of the Lord while there is a shade of distance between Him and you.
Next look at the state of things in this little company; there is treachery there, Judas ready to betray his Lord and Master. How terrible! But the Lord is washing His disciples’ feet. The true nature of love comes out in this service; it is not giving something desired, but it is removing some obstacle to communion. People often confine charity to giving. I get the chief service of love in John 13, where it is to remove an impediment in another; while in 1 Corinthians 13 I prove my love by discarding my selfish motives. As one has said to another, who was finding fault with everybody, You improve the world by one man.
Now in verse 31 you get another thing, “Therefore, when he (Judas) was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him”. This blessed One is to be glorified, and with Him, the glorified One, we have to do, now glorified in heaven, from where He will come in glory.
Now in the end of this chapter you come to another great trouble, the unfaithfulness of Peter. Not one of us with any conscience but must own with sorrow that we have at times lowered our flag in the presence of opposers; that is, we shrink from opposition. Thus Peter denied the Lord, and yet there was no one he loved so much. Peter was like Isaac with his wife, he did not give up his affection, but he denied his relationship. To deny your relationship to Christ is unfaithfulness. When you are socially at home with people, even your own relations, your danger is that you [p. 405] morally deny your relationship to Christ, because you accommodate yourselves to your company; the beginning of every failure is in social intimacy with company morally below you. “Evil communications corrupt good manners”. The more spiritual a man is, the more he seeks company spiritually above him, because he wants to be helped on. When he wants to be loose, he seeks company spiritually below him. And the general order of failure is that he seeks company spiritually below him and socially above him. Now this is the other element of trouble in this little company. Thus there are two great sources of trouble, as we may say, in the assembly; while the Lord, who could arrest and counteract these troubles, is going away, so that the trouble is intensified. Hence chapter 14 opens with “Let not your heart be troubled”.
The general idea is that John 14 is for one going out of this world; on the contrary, it is for those staying on the earth. It is the new ministry, the provision which the Lord makes for His own on the earth during His absence. It is a wonderful chapter. I cannot expound it, though I can see glimpses of it. Its object is, “Let not your heart be troubled”, and when He has detailed His ministry He ends with, “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid”. You are not only out of it, but do not be afraid of it. You cannot fail to see the elements of deep trouble which were there, but thank God, at the same time all the blessedness of Christ’s heart for His own is declared; and the first thing He will do is to remove every soil, that you may have “part with me” - that you should share with Me, as in Hebrews, be My companions. And what a gladness it is, when we are really in company with Him where He has the oil of gladness above His companions! There is our place.
In chapter 14 two great subjects are presented: one is faith, and the other is love. Faith runs on to the end of verse 14, then it is love.
[p. 406] Now the first thing is that you should have the same faith in Christ as you have in God; you have faith in God though you do not see Him. Many speak of faith in God, most important, but you are to have faith in the Lord Jesus, as you have in God; as we read in Colossians, “faith in Christ Jesus”, faith in the One who was a Man down here, and is now a Man at the right hand of God. It is not faith merely that He was here, but that He is in heaven. That is the first thing.
The next is His provision for you in His absence. The greatest relief to the troubled heart is, “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you”. You are thus assured of your place in the highest spot, and thus detached from this scene of trouble. In the gospel the prodigal tastes of the joys of his Father’s house. But that is not exactly the same as here. I think it is important to bear in mind that here it is not merely the festivity of the Father’s house, but something more definite, even that you have a place prepared for you in the Father’s house; this I believe will have a great practical effect on you. It is not merely that you have a home there or a place of enjoyment, but what I have in chapter 14 is a place, and I would press it much, because nothing could have a greater effect on you, in the absence of Christ from this world, than that you have not a place here, but that you have a place where He is. The effect this will have on you is that it connects you in heart with the place where He is, and it displaces you from the place where you are. I remember the effect it had on myself. You have a place where He is, and this must give a new character to you. It is not as in Ephesians, where you are raised to heaven. A place is prepared for you there; the Lord says, “I go to prepare a place for you”. It is not that He is preparing it now. When He entered heaven it was prepared.
[p. 407] You have a place there now. You may say you are not in your place; yet it is prepared for you. Not only are the joys of the Father’s house yours, as a son in the Father’s house, but also the Son has gone back a Man to the Father’s house, and He has a place for you there. Remember He is speaking to Jews. As Jews they looked for a place on earth, and now they are troubled, overwhelmed with the circumstances they are in. The Lord does not propose to give them a green spot, a happy retreat for the evening of their days here. No, on the contrary, He says, “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you”. The Son of God has gone up a Man into the Father’s house, and having done so He prepared a place there for you. In Ephesians you are raised up to the place where He is; and many commentators have tried to weaken that word “heavenly places”, and call it “heavenly things”.
The reason of this is obvious. If you have a place there, you must be dissociated from this place. Let a husband tell his wife, I have a beautiful place for you in Australia; what is the effect upon her? She is involuntarily interested in the things which suit Australia; her heart is in Australia; she is here, but her chief interests are there. The nature of the place is before you, and you want suitability to it. Each of the disciples could say, and surely you ought, My Lord and my Saviour has gone to the Father’s house, and, thank God, I have a place where He is. I press this because I know the effect it will produce. Nothing ever so dissociated me from this earth. Your heart will follow Him to heaven, where He has a place for you. Just as a wife might say of her husband, He has gone to Australia, and he has a place for me there, and he will soon come and fetch me. But the Lord is far beyond what any husband could be: he cannot convey to her, though still here, his life in Australia.
[p. 408] I do not enter into details down to the end of verse 14; I must ask you to study it, and the more you do the more affecting you will find it. The ignorance of Thomas and Philip indicates our own. Thomas does not know the way, and Philip says, “Show us the Father”. The Lord replies, “I am the way, the truth, and the life”, and “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father”. Now when you lay hold of this word, you will read the gospels in a new way, unfolding to you how the Lord Jesus Christ was sustained in every contrariety here, and this by the Father. Not only will He come again and receive us to Himself, that where He is, there we may be also, but He makes known to us the Father, who owns the house, before we reach the Father’s house. There are some at whose house you have never been, but if you went you would be quite at home because you know the owner of the house. So here, you know the Father. “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father”.
It is wonderful to see Him down here declaring the Father, and as you read the gospels by the light of the Spirit of God, you learn the heart of God. You can say, That is the Father.
In verse 14 He adds, “If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it”. The Father is to be glorified in the Son. He would that you should answer to Himself here, just as Stephen did. Stephen was a transcript of the Lord. He passed triumphantly through what the Lord endured. True, he found the Lord had overcome them, yet he had to encounter all.
Stephen realised that “whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do”. This with reference to the place where Christ is, and Stephen here.
Turn to verse 15, where we get the practical effect of love, even obedience, “If ye love me, keep my commandments”. You all know very well that you like to keep the injunction of a loved mother no longer here, because as you do so you are reminded of [p. 409] her. The Lord gives you injunctions, not, like the ten commandments, to discover your inability, but to help you; He enjoins on you what He would do Himself. Therefore, if you love Him, you like to keep them. You live near Him if you keep His commandments. Now the Lord announces, “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth”. It is not only that He prepares a place for you in His Father’s house, it is not only that you know the Father who owns the place, but the power of God, the Holy Spirit, who belongs to that place, is given to you in this place. If a husband could say to his wife, I have prepared a beautiful place for you in Australia, and though you are not there yet, I can send all the virtue and blessedness of that place to your heart down here, and the knowledge of myself as I am there - how inconceivably great! But it would be quite impossible; such a thing was never heard of. No; but divine things go beyond all the deepest conception of man’s mind. The Holy Spirit has come down from heaven, and He is invisible to the world. The Lord Jesus Christ was visible to the world, but they would not have Him. They saw His works, and even said that no man ever did the works which He did, but they had nothing in them that could see God; as the Lord said to them, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him” - there is not a particle of good in you to come to God. Some talk of having a will to go to God. Nothing of the sort; nothing but the power of God has removed all the distance, all the darkness between you and God, and nothing less than the power of God could have brought you into that light.
Now let us proceed. The Lord says, “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you”. That is Himself, not the Holy Spirit. “I will not leave you orphans, I am coming to you” - that is plural. “The [p. 410] world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also”. It is the union of life. And “At that day” - now mark the wonderful place you are in; though you know little about it, you can delight in it, “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you”. Now think, He is made known to you in the place where He is. You must keep in mind the order; a place is prepared for you in heaven where Christ is. Are you looking for Him to fetch you, and while here to bear you over every obstacle to that place? You will not truly appreciate the Holy Spirit come down from heaven, if you do not value the place where Christ is, from which the Holy Spirit came.
Then comes verse 21, “He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him”. A wonderful statement. Paul says, “The Lord stood with me”. This is individual, as the other passage was collective. Judas, not Iscariot, says, “How is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?” Then the Lord explains. “Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him”. Mark the word ‘abode,’ it is the same as the word for ‘mansion’ at the beginning of the chapter. The first is that He has prepared an abode for you in the Father’s house, and He Himself is the way to it; keep Him before you and you have the way. That is exactly what Stephen found, that Christ was the way. But not only are you by Him at home in that place; but as you are dependent on Him, you receive power from Him to rise above all obstructions, because He delights that the Father should be glorified in the Son, that is, that you should be here, in any measure, in moral correspondence to Himself. Then as the Holy Spirit has come down, you now know what it is to be in Him. “At that day”, that is, the Holy Spirit’s day, “ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you”. Then He says to each individual, My Father will love him, and we will come and have our abode there. It is not only that you have a place where He is, but also that the Father and the Son would have an abode down here with you. It does not say on the earth, but with the believer. What a wonderful thing! Do you really believe it? It is like a room in a house of which you say, It belongs to such a person, and that room is never occupied except by that person. It is not that you are always conscious of it, perhaps, but still the fact remains that He has an abode here. Could I dilate on it, beloved friends? I think the more I talked of it the less I should convey it to you. I find constantly, the more spiritual a theme is, the less will human language fully explain it; you must have faith, believe what He says. The Lord says, “We will come .. . and make our abode with him”. Do you mean to say that I shall be always engaged with this wonderful company? You may not be always engaged with it, but still your privilege is that there is an abode there for Them. You may lose communion, and the sense of it, but nevertheless this favour has been known to you.
In verse 26, the Comforter is sent by the Father in Christ’s name to recall to the disciples all that He was, to teach them all things, and to bring all things to their remembrance which the Lord had spoken to them; what He was here would be reproduced to them.
I trust the Lord will enable you all to understand better the great subject which I have tried to lay before you, even the Lord’s ministry to His own here on the earth. In Ephesians 3: 17 we read, “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith”; that is the same idea. The difference is that in John 14 the Spirit makes us know that we are in Christ while down here;
[p. 412] in the other we are made to know that He is in us up there.
I need only recall your attention to it, and I think the more you consider it before the Lord, the more you will be delighted at the wonderful provision that the Lord has made for us during His absence. It is not only that He has a place for you where He is Himself, but the Holy Spirit has come down from that place to make your heart sensible of what it is to enjoy Him. And it is not only that; but you live because He lives. All those statements, the more you dwell upon them, the more you will see they are beyond the human mind.
In conclusion, I ask you to believe that this is your portion, the Lord’s provision for you on this earth during His absence. I ask you, is there anything more derogatory to us than the little we feel His absence?
I need not add more now, only that I trust that your hearts may be drawn out in prayer to the Lord - how much we have overlooked it! that you may understand the provision which He has made for us during His absence. Hence He can say, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid”.