THE ABIDING CONDITIONS IN WHICH LIFE CONSISTS
THE ABIDING CONDITIONS IN WHICH LIFE CONSISTS
FER It appears to me that chapters 3 and 4 show us the abiding conditions in which life consists, and which cannot be set aside.
DLH Do you refer on the one hand to freedom from sin and death and on the other to the love of God?
FER Yes. Freedom from sin hangs upon the fact that we abide in Christ in whom is no sin, and you are out of death because you are in the christian circle where the love of Christ gives impulse. Then chapter 4 brings out all the conditions in which we live.
WJ The fatness of the house of God?
FER It is that as far as it goes, but I mean more conditions which are essential to our living; human life is subject to certain conditions into which one is born, and it is in principle the same with eternal life. The difference between the gospel of John and the epistle, is that the gospel is essentially subjective, and refers to the work of God in the believer but the epistle gives us the conditions in which eternal life consists, which are abiding. No one of us is abiding, we are all liable to be removed in death, but eternal life abides continually by the very fact of its being eternal. People may come and go in this world, but the conditions of life never change. The sun never changes, the atmosphere and the light never change.
Ques Your thought of eternal life is connected with environment then?
FER Yes. It is the conditions in which you live, and those conditions are unchanging. That is what you get in this epistle.
Ques Then in this chapter do you get what is objective?
FER Yes. And so too in the previous chapter. The great point in the previous chapter is the place of Christ,
[p. 2] what you may call the sun. I use it in the way of a figure and then you get another thing, that is, the christian circle, the brethren, where the love of Christ gives impulse. There is a circle down here which is affected by the love of Christ. It is a great thing to apprehend the divinely appointed conditions which are permanent and unchanging — which cannot be moved.
JMcK They go on for ever, I suppose.
FER I think so.
JMcK Why do you say you think so?
FER Because I do not want to attempt to limit God. God says in Revelation 21: 5, “Behold, I make all things new” and God may see fit to change things — for the better, of course. The new heavens and the new earth will be better than what is. I think the Revelation gives that idea.
Rem You cannot have anything better than the love of God.
FER No, but the application of the love of God will be a little different, because things will be changed in regard to us — we shall be past the judgment seat, and we shall be with God, in His own abode.
Ques We shall not be held responsible to love one another then?
FER No. Again you certainly will not want boldness in the day of judgment in heaven. It seems to me to be very important for believers to apprehend what God has ordained, and which no power can change. To me it is a very great comfort to get to what is permanent and durable.
Ques When it speaks in verse 17 of the “day of judgment”, does it refer to the judgment resting on the world?
FER No. It refers to its application to us. The apostle did not care to be judged of man’s day — “do not judge anything before the time” 1 Corinthians 4: 5, he said, the time is coming.
Ques You would say these things are unchanging because they flow from the very nature [p. 3] of God?
FER Yes, and because they are what God has ordained. For instance, God has set the sun in heaven, and nothing can change that, and so God has set the christian circle down here — people pass out of it, but nothing can set it aside. Then the divine light which comes out in this chapter, that cannot be changed. It is all unchangeable, immutable. People may pass off the scene and others come on, but things into which we have properly come cannot be changed.
Ques We are come into light and life?
FER We are come into things which God has ordained. We abide in Christ the Sun of righteousness, and He is always abiding and what hangs on that is that there is a circle down here, in which the love of Christ gives impulse. “We have passed from death into life, because we love the brethren” that is an abiding circle.
Ques Do you exclude any subjective thought in the expression of eternal life?
FER Yes, because it is wholly objective, though it is intimately connected with our state. Take a new-born child. It is nourished with food, by which its constitution is built up, but there are certain conditions into which it is born, which are essential to its life — I mean the sun, the atmosphere, and so on. These conditions are always existing.
Ques So you speak of life and conditions of life?
FER Exactly.
Ques Do you not draw a distinction between life and eternal life?
FER Yes. Eternal life refers to the conditions which are immutable and abiding. Life is connected with the believer in a general way. We have heard the voice of the Son of God, and having heard His voice, we live and then in a kind of way we are nourished with bread. That is what you get in chapters 5 and 6 of John.
Ques You would speak of that as subjective state?
FER Yes. That is what comes out in the gospel.
DLH I think there is a difficulty in some minds in regard of what you get in the gospel where eternal life is [p. 4] mentioned — such as John 3: 16 and John 5: 24. Will you say a word in regard to this?
FER In chapter 3 the Lord is speaking from the divine standpoint — I mean as to what was in the thought and love of God. “God so loved the world” verse 16. It is a revelation — it is light coming out, the divine thought in regard of the world.
DLH So what we get there is the believer — the person who has eternal life.
FER Yes. It is the “whosoever” — the believing person, whoever he might be, Jew or gentile, was to come into it. So too in chapter 5, it is “he that hears my word, and believes him that has sent me”, verse 24, that is the kind of person who has eternal life. The same thing runs throughout the gospel, it is the kind of person who is in view, and the gospel gives the subjective side.
Ques Does the person get it by believing?
FER No. The Lord brings this out in chapter 4 of John. “The water that I shall give him ... everlasting life”, verse 14. Until a man is a believer he would not get the living water, but then the well of water in the believer springs up into everlasting life. The great point in the epistle is that you might enter into it. You could not be conscious that you have it unless you have entered into it. I should not be conscious that I have entered into my house, unless I have entered into it. The apostle unfolds the conditions in which eternal life subsists, so that you may see what they are, and having entered in, you are conscious that you have eternal life.
Ques Why is eternal life put in contrast to not perishing?
FER Because it is either one thing or the other. Certain conditions have come in in connection with the revelation of God in Christ, and it is either on the one hand the entering into eternal life, or on the other hand, being under death.
Ques You said there was a difference between life and eternal life. Do you think it is life in [p. 5] the gospel?
FER Yes. It is not that the expression ‘eternal life’ does not occur, but the prevailing thought in the gospel is the state of the person and that is life. It is the fruit of a divine work. If I am a subject of God’s work, which has brought about in me a certain state, it is life. “I am come that they might have life, and might have it abundantly”, John 10: 10.
Ques Is life very abundantly eternal life?
FER No. I think it refers to the state of the believer. You get life in divine power — in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Ques Then eternal life is an expression which speaks of the conditions in which those who have life live?
FER Yes. I only judge that because you continually get the thought — “springing up into everlasting life”, “entering into it”, “laying hold on it”. It is the end unto which you endure. The man reaps it. It is continually presented in that way by all the writers — Paul and John and others.
Ques Do we not come into the good of it apart from the Spirit?
FER The Spirit springs up into eternal life — “the water that I shall give ... springing up into eternal life”. I think the work of the Spirit in the believer is to enable you to apprehend the divinely appointed conditions, because those conditions are not seen, they are not true to sight. The Spirit springs up in the believer, enabling him to enter into and appreciate the conditions which God has established and which are immutable.
Ques How do we get eternal life?
FER The scripture tells you that the Spirit is a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
Ques Is eternal life for down here?
FER I think so.
JMcK In dealing sometimes with anxious souls, one is very apt to turn to John 5: 24. Do you think it is right to do so?
FER I think you would be going on a little too [p. 6] fast with the anxious soul. You must remember that no young convert can really be anything but a babe. I would not say it is not right to turn to a scripture of that sort. It is a question to me if it is wise. You will not get a person free from the thought of judgment until you come to 1 John 4. The only thing which will dispel the thought of judgment is the knowledge of the love of God (see verses 17, 18).
Ques What is the great thing to be gained by the gospel?
FER I have no doubt that what a person is to get through the gospel is living water, and scripture closes with that — “He that will, let him take the water of life freely”. I think that is the great end and purpose of the gospel.
Ques That is one of the ends?
FER I do not think there is any other end. The great thing is living water. It involves everything. You must get the foundations right first — righteousness and salvation, but evidently the great object in preaching the gospel is that man may receive from Christ what Christ gives — living water. Having got the Spirit, you reap eternal life.
Ques Will you say a word in regard to boldness in the day of judgment?
FER It is boldness in regard to the day of judgment.
Rem It does not give the idea that believers are coming into judgment.
FER No. I think you have boldness in regard to the day of judgment.
Ques “As he is”, verse 17. What is the force of that?
FER I always connect it with the end of Romans 8: 38, where the apostle says, “For I am persuaded ..”. You have got into the part of Romans where the purpose of God is brought into a new circle where all is of God, a circle which is in the full light of divine love, where the love of God rests. I am there — “as he is, we also are in this world” and hence I am not terrified now by the [p. 7] thought of the day of judgment.
Ques But in the latter part of Romans 8 things have been traced to their source, have they not?
FER Yes, and so they have in this fourth chapter of 1 John. “Herein as to us has been manifested the love of God ... that we might live through him”, verse 9.
Ques So that if there is life there is nothing to judge?
FER No. Yet there is our responsibility of course down here. We must all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ, but then, in regard to that we have boldness “because as he is, we also are in this world”, verse 17. The thought of the day of judgment may come before the mind of the believer, but then the great point is that that should not produce fear, because love is made perfect in us, for we are in the same love in which Christ is. Nothing can separate “us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”, Romans 8: 39.
Ques What is the force of the expression, “Herein has love been perfected with us”?
FER I think it is that there should be no ground for fear. It is the place in which God has set us in Christ.
Rem We used to limit it to acceptance.
FER It goes beyond that. It is “the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them”, John 17: 26.
Ques But this is learned experimentally, is it not?
FER I think so. I think the latter part of the chapter comes out and opens out the full blaze of divine love. The earlier part reads “as to us has been manifested the love of God ... that we might live through him”, verse 9. Then it goes on to say, in verse 16 “we have known and have believed the love which God has to us”. Then “Herein has love been perfected with us that we may have boldness in the day of judgment;” verse 17.
Ques If it is judgment, it raises the question of [p. 8] righteousness, does it?
FER Yes, but the point is that the righteousness has so been established in regard to God, that He can put you in association with Christ, and the thought of being manifested before the judgment seat cannot alter that “We might live through him”, verse 9. Does the ‘him’ refer to Christ looked at as the second man?
FER Yes, the last Adam, a life-giving spirit, through whom we live.
Ques What is the force of verse 14?
FER The apostle was in the full secret of divine love toward the world, and he had communion in the love of God for the world — it is evangelical. If you come into the light of divine love, you must accept its application not only individually to you, but towards the whole world.
WJ That shows the company should be evangelical.
Rem This chapter, I suppose, contemplates the whole christian circle irrespective of growth.
FER I think it contemplates the light of God, into which all the christian circle should enter.
Rem And in that sense the whole christian circle would have eternal life.
FER It is there for them. The point is that they should be in it so far as their consciousness is concerned.
Ques What is the force of confessing Jesus as the Son of God?
FER There is the apprehension of Him as the Beginning and centre of a new order.
DLH It is very clear that this epistle was written that we might know that we have eternal life.
FER The great point is to make clear to christians the conditions which God has appointed, and which subsist, and which nothing can move nor alter and in that way deliver them from the world. That is what I should seek to do. The object of all ministry is only to make clear to people what is subsisting — what you may call, the unseen things. You want to make these things clear to people so that their souls may enter into them.