LIFE IN AN INDIVIDUAL AND IN A COMPANY
LIFE IN AN INDIVIDUAL AND IN A COMPANY
John 8: 12; John 8:31 - 36; John 9: 35 - 37; John 12: 1 - 3
I have in mind to speak about the subject of life — as a believer enters into it, and as it is seen in a company of believers. We have first to learn life individually, and then we gravitate towards others who have it; so that we see it in a company, and as in a company we see it in the present provisional state of things in a locality; there is the idea of life in a locality.
In this way John supports the local economy of the assembly as presented in 1 Corinthians, for outward order, as seen in the meetings, can afford but little for God unless there be life. God looks for that; He looks for correspondence in us here with the life of Christ — the green. God looks for life; the world will abound with it soon; not only spiritually, but as righteousness prevails life in every form will abound in the world. This earth is in for a wonderful time, for God has it in mind to exhibit life. The millennial day is really in the form of an exhibition — it is not a final state of things; it is an order of things in which God will exhibit what He can do. In removing death, and in the establishing of righteousness on the earth, God will show what He can do even on the present earth before it is changed. And God can effect more in us, by reason of our great calling, than He will effect in the future; by reason of the fact that we have a heavenly calling, and are left down here, life takes on a more dignified, and extensive, and varied form, than it will in the millennium; so that you can understand that the saints of God as left here are to know how to move about in the power of life. They are to add to it,
[p. 190] they enhance it by reason of their calling. It is God’s thought that the present time should be a time of witness, that God should witness beforehand of the life which is held in His people by faith. We hold it by faith, and we hold it in the name of Christ, as John says in chapter 20, “Many other signs therefore also Jesus did before his disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life in his name”. The life is held in His name, but it is held on the principle of faith; enjoyed by the Spirit truly, but nevertheless held in His name on the principle of faith — held by faith — so that there is in us the witness before the display comes. “This is the witness, that God has given to us eternal life; and this life is in his Son”.
The intention was that life should be in individuals, and also that it should be in companies, and as in companies, in localities, so that the truth of the assembly, or the structure as set up by the apostle Paul, is supported to the end by the presence of life in the saints. You see, if one go to sleep (and many of the Lord’s people have gone to sleep) like Eutychus, through not being able to enjoy the ministry, if they are recovered they are presented alive. It says of Eutychus that he was presented “alive”. The assembly at Troas would be wonderfully augmented by the presence of a youth like that. The boy had fallen down through negligence, but he is restored by Paul, and presented alive.
The writings of John are of such importance because they work out the great principles of life in individuals, and if I have got life individually, I stand; but if I am among those who live, I can stand much more effectively and firmly, and in a much more dignified way. Now chapter 8 is remarkable in this way, that it comes in after the Lord had [p. 191] opened out the great principles that underlie life. There are new birth, the uplifting of the Son of man, living water, the quickening power of the Son, the food that sustains the life, and the Holy Spirit come down from heaven, the power for public testimony. After these principles are enunciated by the Lord, we have this statement: “I am the light of the world; he that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life”; that is to say, He is moving, and those who follow have the light of life, hence any follower of Jesus as the light of the world cannot remain in associations which are devoid of life. He has got light as to them and he compares the light with the conditions where he is, and he discerns that the light is not in these. You may take the most antiquated society in this land, or in any other land, and examine it, and you will find it has not the conditions of life. None of the religious societies have the conditions of life, though there may be that which appears to have some virtue in them. There are the great religious bodies, but one of them at least is apostate, and in the Revelation it says, “and her children will I kill with death”, chapter 2: 23. Apostasy prevails in that system, and hence no one can live there. You will die there for want of breath, for want of good air, and light and food, and the same thing in measure applies in all the organisations of men, whatever their names. It is as well we should be plain, because, if we have got the light of life, we cannot stay where the conditions of life are not found. You will pardon the exhortation, but you cannot remain in associations where the conditions of life are not found, so the Lord says, “He that follows me shall not walk in darkness”. It is not only that the conditions of life are absent, but there is in these human organisations the authority of darkness. That word in Colossians 1 is to be noted; it says, “Giving thanks to the Father ... who has delivered us from the authority of darkness”. That word refers to that which has a hold upon men through age, tradition, or what not, through the place it has in the history of the world, and therefore has authority in men’s minds. It is not only that there is no life in these things, but they hold people through their conscience, so that it is spoken of as the “authority of darkness” — a terrible thing. Idolatry was the great means by which Satan held men, and induced men to believe that the idols had some virtue in them, and that God owned them, and therefore men were persuaded there was authority in them. But now, Satan is not able to do that, but he has succeeded by putting upon it the name of the One we love; but we are not deceived by that. The enemy is turned into an angel of light, and what is partially true, as designed to deceive, is the greatest darkness; it is of the devil; hence the light of life is so important to believers. It is not only that the things themselves are evil, but there is no life there.
The Lord says to His disciples, “If ye abide in my word, ye are truly my disciples; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free”. Now the knowledge of the truth is the next great feature, beloved brethren, in order that we may come into life and liberty. The knowledge of the truth involves adjustment. The whole physical system is constructed on the principle of truth; were it not for truth things would go to destruction. Every builder knows that he must build on the principle of truth, but there is also discrimination in the truth, and knowing it the believer is set free in detail. One may be free in a kind of general way, but I have got to be set free in detail. There are many things we carry with us which hamper freedom, and these things the enemy makes use of to hinder the peace of the saints. So the Lord says, “If ye abide in my word ... the truth shall set you free”.
[p. 193] Now the Lord has greatly helped us in the Scriptures. He has raised up men to open them up to us; the books that have been written have helped greatly, but it will not do if you merely have them in the bookcase. You may have all the books and yet not be free. The thing is to know the truth — to know it; and so the apostle John, in writing to the little children, says, “It is the last hour”. An hour is a crisis. Things are culminating to a crisis, and he says, “There have come many antichrists, whence we know that it is the last hour”. What a terrible thing to contemplate, and we know its varied aspects in a peculiar way at the present time in the antichristian things that have arisen in our own lifetime, things that are not openly throwing off the Lord’s name, but which, in the nature of them, are against Christ. The little children are in danger of them, because they are usually brought in through men who commend themselves in their natural parts, and so take in the unwary. John says in that fact you will know that it is the last hour. But then he says, too, there is the antichrist; he denies the Father and the Son, that is to say; he boldly throws over Christianity in every detail as a worn out thing. Everything is thrown over, he denies the Father and the Son. That state of things has not come out yet, but the antichrists have come, and these are the ones we have to be on our guard against. John adds, “The unction which ye have received from him abides in you, and ye have not need that any one should teach you”. “Any one” does not mean any Christian or gift, but the natural man; we are wholly independent of him for the understanding of the truth. You are not dependent on the universities; the universities turn out men, “doctors of divinity”, so-called — but you do not need them. We want to see the force of the word, “Ye have not need that any one should teach you”, because it is the recognition of man that [p. 194] makes room for the antichrists, and these are all around us. John says, “Ye have the unction from the holy one, and ye know all things”, so that if a few believers come to a meeting simply, humbly and quietly, in the recognition of the “unction”, and the Holy Spirit, they know more than those who rely on the education of this world; not that we can clothe ourselves, or any others, with anything distinctive, because what marks the people of God in this respect is most painful, not only as to weakness, but also as to intelligence in the things of God. We can, however, reckon on God being with us to help us to an increased understanding of His things. John says, “The same unction teaches you as to all things, and is true”. And then, “If ye abide in my word” the “word” is the expression of the mind of Christ, and we get that in dependence upon the Lord, and dependence upon the Spirit, and in recognising the authority of the Scriptures. I think there is great neglect (you will bear the word of exhortation) of the word in regard to private reading.
Meetings are of all-importance in their place, but if we live on meetings we shall never be men of God. The meetings augment our growth and aid us to come into the light of the temple in relation to the saints, but you can never make up for intercourse with God, private reading, private meditation, private prayers. The scripture says, “When thou prayest, enter into thy chamber, and having shut thy door, pray to thy Father who is in secret”. Then as regards the word, if you look into it assiduously, and continually, it increases in beauty and interest, and you get nourishment, as Peter says, “The pure mental milk of the word, that by it ye may grow up”. Referring again to the verse, “If ye abide in my word, ye are truly my disciples; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free”, note we are preserved in that way by the recognition of the word. “The servant”, the Lord says, “abideth not in the house for ever”, but the Pharisees claimed they were free, not being in bondage to any one — what pure folly! The Lord says to them, “Every one that practises sin is the bondman of sin. Now the bondman abides not in the house for ever: the son abides for ever. If therefore the Son shall set you free, ye shall be really free”. The Lord is speaking of the way to liberty. If we follow these things, we come into the knowledge of the Son, and that brings in another thing, and that is the “HOUSE” — not the provisional thought of the house as in Luke, but an abiding house. He says, “Come and see”. It is spiritual, not a question here of the saints (not that we can exclude them), but it is presented from the spiritual side. If we do not know the Son, we do not know the house; and we must know where the Son lives. He invites to the house. The disciples said, “Where abidest thou?” and He says, “Come and see”, and they came and saw where He dwelt, and abode with Him that day. I apprehend they remained with Him two hours. I suppose the ten previous hours refer to responsibility, but the Lord said, as it were, I will give you these two hours — what a marvellous privilege! What a delightful two hours they were! They came and abode with Him that day. They were not content with looking in, but they abode with Him that day. That underlies the knowledge of the house as John presents it. If we do not understand where the Son abides, we shall never understand the house. As Moses said, “Thou hast been our dwelling in all generations”; he did not refer there to the tabernacle, but to God Himself, “Thou hast been our dwelling in all generations”, and that was the truth that came out in Christ coming here as Man. “He that abides in love abides in God, and God in him”, and the Lord said, “The servant abideth not in the house for ever: the son abides for ever”.
[p. 196] The house in John is a family thought; it is an eternal thought, as the Lord says, “In my Father’s house there are many abodes ... I go to prepare you a place; and if I go and shall prepare you a place, I am coming again and shall receive you to myself, that where I am ye also may be”. The Son abides there for ever.
When we come to the man in chapter 9, the teaching goes on and accumulates, adding to what preceded it, so that the man presents to us the great end in regard to the teaching of the individual. After chapter 9 it is collective; the beginning of chapter 12 is in connection with life in the company. The point is to show how life is worked out first in an individual, and then in a company, so that the man in chapter 9 represents the individual side — he is cast out. I do not believe any of us can be rightly in the company until we are cast out. In this chapter we get the experience of one being cast out because of faithfulness to Christ and the truth. It is the working out of the truth in chapter 9 — the man is cast out. It is a terrible thing for the flesh to be cast out, but it is a great privilege to be cast out as a faithful witness to Christ and the truth. John presents things in their sequence, so we read that when the Lord heard that the man had been cast out He found him. How great an interest the Lord takes in one who is under reproach! It says, “Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him, he said to him, Thou, dost thou believe on the Son of God?” Do you believe on the Son of God? I do not think He will be appreciated as Son of God unless we have in some sense been cast out. The Lord says, “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” Many have subscribed to all the thirty-nine articles, and yet do not believe this. But the man says, “And who is he, Lord, that I may believe on him?” He was prepared for the question, and he answers it;
and the Lord says, “Thou hast both seen him, and he that speaks with thee is he”. That word ‘with’ is of great meaning. He talks with an outcast man He had already talked with an outcast woman, and on that occasion it is said the disciples “wondered that he spoke with a woman”. Here He talks with a man; He says, “He that speaks with thee is he”, and the man says, “I believe, Lord”, but he did more than that, he not only believed, he worshipped the Son of God. This man represents all the effect of the previous teaching, and his whole soul was moved in the presence of the Son of God; so that we have in him one who is living, for what can be a greater expression of life than the movement to worship — “He worshipped him”. Nothing else can suit a living God than that which is living in us; it is not something that was written hundreds of years ago; it is what is in the soul now.
The Psalmist says, “My heart is inditing a good matter”. Let us suppose that this man composed something about the Son of God: how he would put into the lines what the Lord had done for him, and the fulness as the result of the Son of God speaking with him. He would compose something of a living kind “touching the King”, so that it is such as he, dear brethren, who compose the “one flock”. From chapter 10 to chapter 12 we have a company in view that is in life, and as leading on to it the Lord says in chapter 11, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God”, and then He says again, “Did I not say to thee, that if thou shouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?” that is to say, God’s glory shines forth in the bringing out of death a loved one, and the setting up of a family in life. The Lord was moved to weeping as a loved one was held in death, but He moved in order to overthrow death, and to bring Lazarus out of it. The Lord “cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth”, and [p. 198] the dead came forth, bound feet and hands with graveclothes, that is, he was brought back into his ordinary circumstances, because it is not yet the new order of things. The Lord Himself came out of death without the graveclothes. Lazarus is brought back to be a witness to the power of life; he is bound, but the Lord says, “Loose him and let him go”. What a dignity Lazarus would have as he moved out of that wonderful scene! There are many things that bind us, but the Lord would have us free to be witnesses of the power of life. Well, we read He came to Bethany where Lazarus was, and there they made Him a supper. Mark you, it is not said to be in any particular house here, as elsewhere; the point is that Bethany stood in relation to the centre for its distance from Jerusalem is given. The Lord came there, He comes to companies. He comes to His “gardens”. In Song of Songs 6 it says, “My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices”, and then, “to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies”. His “garden” is a general thought — the assembly, but the “gardens” are the companies of the saints today who love the Lord Jesus. He comes to each of His gardens to feed, and to gather lilies — that is the expression of life in the saints now. The Lord speaks of the lilies, “Consider the lilies, how they grow”. He says, “not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed as one of these”. It is a question of life, that I exhibit life, so that Lazarus was there an expression of it. There were others there sitting at the table with the Lord, for it says, “Lazarus was one of those at table”; Martha served, and Mary opened the box which had been kept for the day “against the day of my burying”, the Lord says. Around the precious box was the group in Bethany, who were alive as to what was suitable to Christ. He did not tell them to do anything; “they made him a supper”, they acted of themselves. It is the [p. 199] working out of life in a locality. It is not a question of merely coming together; the point is, what is God getting out of our coming together? The outward form in itself is of little account, what we want is the power of life; this is what God takes account of, so that the group in Bethany represents life in a locality, and any company of saints can determine by this as to whether there is a green spot for the eye of God in them. It says, “Let my beloved come into his garden”, “Awake, north wind, and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow forth. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits”. He says, “I am come into my garden and I have eaten”; and He invites others to eat. “Eat, O friends”. In the book of Revelation we have the invitation, “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely”.