READINGS ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN (4)
READINGS ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN (4)
RSS We left off yesterday with Christ glorified and the Spirit coming consequent on that. Why was it that the Spirit could not come until Christ was glorified?
FER Because, I think that Jesus glorified is a starting point, the point of departure in the accomplishment of God’s purposes.
GR Is it that He must Himself, as in the character of Head, be in the place purposed for man?
FER I think so. “Thou hast made him to rule over the works of thy hands”. “We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, ... crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man”. Everything had to come in under the Son of man, and therefore Jesus must be glorified to be in the place of supremacy above all. Not only above things on earth, but above things in heaven. He must be glorified before the Spirit could be given, and the Spirit is come to subdue everything. You have not the position until Jesus is glorified. Then the Spirit of God subdues everything according to the position.
RSS I see the point more clearly than before, that He is now the beginning of everything. I suppose what had gone before was really laying the foundation for it.
FER Quite so, but the starting point is Jesus glorified. That is according to Psalm 8, “thou hast put all things under his feet”. So, too, in Ephesians, He “gave him to be the head over all things to the church”. He is set in the place of ‘Head over all things’, and is given as such to the church.
RSS It is then all in marked contrast with what we get in the transfiguration, that is, from there the Lord really went down to [p. 70] the cross.
FER Christ has gone up now in the value of redemption, so that everything can be taken up according to God’s glory, and subdued to Christ.
FC So that the Spirit given is the Spirit of another Man.
FER Exactly.
GR Is it not also necessary that He should be completely apart from the present order of things so that the Spirit coming from there would lead us apart from it too?
FER Jesus glorified is really what brings in the feast of tabernacles. The feast of tabernacles typically presented the union of heaven and earth; you could not get the bond of union except in Christ. In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth, but there was not union in that sense, or at all events, communion. This must be brought about in a Man.
GR How do you connect the heavens with the feast of tabernacles?
FER The eighth day of the feast brings in the communion of heaven and earth — the eternal and the temporal.
WM Do you look upon the Spirit as the link?
FER I look upon Christ as really being the point or centre; the Spirit brings witness of the glory of Christ and subdues everything, but really the bond between heaven and earth is Christ.
GR The angels ascending and descending on the Son of man.
FER So the Lord speaks of Himself in the third chapter, “no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven”.
GWH Would you say the effect of the report of the Spirit of Christ glorified is to bring the earth under the influence of heaven?
FER As a matter of fact the earth always has been under the influence of heaven.
GWH I mean in a new way.
FER [p. 71] Yes.
FC The last verse of the first chapter of John gives that.
FER Quite so. Now in these chapters, 8, 9 and 10, we have got a different subject. Up to the seventh chapter the subject in the main is life. We saw that in the third chapter, in which we have the testimony. In the fourth chapter the Spirit is in the believer as a well of water. Then in the fifth and sixth chapters we have Christ, in relation to life. He is the Son of God in quickening power and the living bread come down from heaven that man may eat, and live by Him. The subject of all these chapters is life, but chapters eight to ten give us light, and the effect of light is to change the appearance of everything down here. There are two effects which light has: one is, it exposes, and the other, it enlightens. And when you get things exposed, and on the other hand enlightenment, everything is changed, and the change is seen in the chapter we read. The change which was coming in is expressed by the Lord in a few words, “I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind”. Evidently if those who do not see are made to see, and those who see are made blind, a revolution is produced down here.
GR What is the force of the term, “the light of life”?
FER I think that is what was seen in Christ morally, “he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life”. In following Christ they had the light of life in Him.
GR The great contrast to commandments and ordinances.
FER You can see the application of the change we spoke of in the world. The gentile was born blind but has been enlightened. On the other hand the Jew professed to see, and in a sense did see, but has been made blind. That has brought about a revolution, simply by the coming in of light. The light tested everything. The Jew was tested in the eighth chapter and his true character brought out, but in the ninth chapter a man born blind is [p. 72] made to see. He apprehends the true character of things — so that everything is revolutionised.
RSS So that is the significance of the incident at the beginning of the eighth chapter, the woman taken in sin.
FER Yes, the Lord proved Himself to be the light of the world. There was no doubt about the sin of the woman, but the Pharisees were also exposed.
GWH So light exposes that which is evil and enlightens those whose eyes have been opened.
FER That was the effect of the light that had come into the world; it was the test of everything.
GWH The end of it was to direct the attention to the source of the light, would you say?
FER To my mind it is a necessary consequence of the light coming in. The Jew expected Messiah, but the Messiah came as light, and the consequence was that the condition of the Jew was exposed.
GR So that where there was enlightenment they were drawn to Christ, but where there was exposure they went away from Him.
FER There is a fearful exposure in the eighth chapter. The Jews were murderers and liars in principle and spirit. They were the children of the devil. They were perfectly tested by the presence of God, “Before Abraham was, I am”. Not only was Messiah there, but God was there.
RSS That is what you get in the fourth verse of the first chapter, “In him was life; and the life was the light of men”.
FER The practical effect is to put the Lord outside of what was there. That comes out at the end of the chapter, where they tried to kill Him.
FC In the tenth chapter He leads His own outside.
FER Yes. The fact is that when Christ came, He came not to establish or confirm things that existed, but to bring in entirely new things. I do not think the Jew ever thought much more than that Christ would confirm all that was there, would confer honour on the nation;
[p. 73] but He did not come in to that end. His coming in was the beginning of everything. It seems to me it could not be otherwise.
WM They used the Old Testament against Him, not seeing that He was establishing a new order of things.
FC Is it not important in speaking of the Jew to have in our minds that he represented man in the flesh?
FER Quite so, the fig-tree.
GWH I suppose in His coming the whole Jewish system was to be judged. If He had come to patch it up or improve it, it would have been all right with them.
FER There was nothing to improve or patch up.
GWH That is what John the baptist meant when he said, “the axe is laid unto the root of the trees”.
FER The tree had been tested long enough, digged about and dunged, and there was no fruit; and it was now to be cut down and cast into the fire. I think it is very important to see that, when Christ comes in, of necessity He is the beginning of the creation of God. Everything must take its start in Christ. You may say that it is difficult to fit this in with God’s previous dealings but of necessity He must be the starting point.
Ques Is that the meaning of the scripture that in all things He might have the pre-eminence?
FER Whatever there might have been before, when the Son of God comes in, of necessity He must be the starting-point. Up to that point God had been gathering a company to be associated with Christ in heaven. Then the Jew had been brought provisionally into certain blessings on earth according to the promises of God, but the provisional dealings of God in regard of the Jew came to an end because the state of the Jew was exposed. God had served His purpose, and now the Son of God becomes the starting-point. He must be the first to rise from the dead, and in resurrection He is the beginning.
Ques Is it not in that way the starting-point for Israel?
FER Yes, but then Israel does not come in first. Israel had a place, and it is in connection with Israel you [p. 74] get the thought of sonship first applied. Israel was brought into the place of God’s son, but did not answer to it. The church then comes in, and the entire heavenly company, the twenty-four elders, take priority of Israel. Israel comes in eventually. Provisionally it had the first place in the dealings of God, but it has lost its place. It will come in in its own proper place.
AHE Is Hebrews 11 a company prepared for heaven?
FER Yes.
AHE Christ says, “I am the true vine”, then the people of Israel is the spurious vine.
FER He becomes the starting-point of everything. God began with Israel in dispensational dealings, but He took them up provisionally for there were other things in the mind of God, and they were to have pre-eminence over Israel. So in the Hebrews you get the general assembly and church of the first-born which are written in heaven, and God the Judge of all, and the spirits of just men made perfect.
Ques What would you say that the Lord meant by that expression, “Before Abraham was, I am”?
FER It means He was Jehovah. You cannot understand the truth of the eighth chapter unless you see that the Jews were tested by God Himself. Hence in the chapter their condition comes out in the most terrible and naked way.
GR Really the fulfilment of Isaiah 50 “Wherefore, when I came, was there no man?”
FER Exactly. So, “Ye are from beneath; I am from above”. He says, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him”. The truth was that they came in the character of their father.
Ques Would you say man’s heart was not fully exposed until the true light came?
FER Until God came. The fact is, people do not know what a terrible thing lawlessness is. It is bound to [p. 75] come out in the way of hatred, and hatred comes out in the way of murder.
FC You mean the exercise of the human will.
FER Yes, Adam did not commit murder, but Cain did. In him you get hatred, the effect of lawlessness.
WM So in the eighth chapter you have lawlessness and in the ninth chapter attachment.
FER You have, but then the eyes of the blind man had been opened by Christ to apprehend the whole state of things down here. The state of things had been exposed in the eighth chapter, but in the ninth chapter the blind man apprehends it. The practical result is that he finds himself outside of it all, as Christ is outside of it. Those provisional dealings of God in connection with Israel were all over. Israel is rejected. They were liars and murderers. Then the Lord shows in the tenth chapter what He was doing. He was leading out the sheep, and He has other sheep and them also He must bring, and there would be one flock and one Shepherd, outside of that order of things with which God had been dealing. The point of it all is that Christ is the starting-point.
WM I suppose in that way the blind man overcomes the world by having his eyes opened to the Sun of another world.
FER Really he is excommunicated; they cast him out.
WM Do you think that in these chapters it is not so much the blessing of saints that is in view as the present effect of Christ having come into the world?
FER Yes, it is the moral effect. Christ is now outside of it. He left it in death. The blind man is outside; but in the tenth chapter the Shepherd is the beginning and everything takes character from the Shepherd. We have not to do with judaism but with Christ. He says: “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly”. The Jew will come in, in due time, but God has other purposes to fulfil. What we see in christendom is that it has gone back to the idea of a fold. There had been a fold, and what few sheep there were had been [p. 76] kept in it, but the time for an enclosure is over now. You get the Roman Catholic and Presbyterian and Wesleyan and many other folds now; they have all set to work to make enclosures where, according to their idea, the sheep are safe. They are not a bit safe. There are plenty of wolves in these folds, They can get in readily enough.
WM There is a kind of rivalry among the folds as to which is best.
FER Yes, but they are all useless, They do not keep the wolf out. The wolf of bad doctrine gets into these folds. They are no security for the sheep. They are better outside. I would not care to be in any one of the folds.
WM But there is not any fold now in reality, but simply a flock.
FER Exactly, because Christ has come in. He says, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture”. Well, if the sheep are saved and go in and out and find pasture they do not want a fold; they are saved. They do not fear the wolf.
GR In christianity everything is unfolded in a Person; it is not a question of doctrines and ordinances, though you have both.
FER And you do not want a fold.
WM The entering in is entering in to God, I suppose.
FER That is the way I understand it; you enter in by Christ into the enjoyment of God. Christ is the way into the knowledge of God, because He came out to reveal God. He has declared God. In the knowledge of God we are saved and go in and out and find pasture. Salvation, liberty and pasture are all in the knowledge of God.
WM No one could reveal the Father but the Son.
GWH That is why He said, “by me”.
FER Exactly, “by me if any man”, It does not matter who. It is on the very largest possible ground, “if any man”.
WM That is, by Him instrumentally.
FER Through Him we both have access by [p. 77] one Spirit to the Father. Any one who ignores Christ, who has come out to declare God, could not possibly enter in.
JA Would you explain the second verse.
FER Christ entered into the fold, that is, into the Jewish order of things in order to lead the sheep out.
WM And “to him the porter openeth”.
GWH It has been said that under the Jewish order you have a circumference without a centre, but in christianity you have a centre without a circumference. Is that true?
FER The Jewish order was an enclosure, but there was no centre in it. In christianity you have no enclosure. If by the circumference you mean an enclosure, I think it is all right.
Ques What is the significance of “To him the porter openeth”? Does it mean that He had a perfect right to enter in?
FER I think it is that Christ entered in legitimately and the porter gave Him access to the sheep.
WM He recognised His right to enter.
FC Would you connect it with being baptised in Jordan and identifying Himself with the remnant?
FER I would rather attach a moral idea to it, that is, that the Lord found a way of approach to the sheep.
GWH Speaking of no one having access to the Father but by Christ, does that give light on the verse in John 14, “no man cometh unto the Father, but by me”?
FER No one knows anything about the Father but by the Son. It is only by the appreciation of Christ that any one could approach the Father. We would be in the dark in regard of God except by Christ. Men may speculate and have notions, but there is nothing that can assume to be a revelation except Christ.
RSS It is very striking that in the gospel of John you have so much about divine Persons, not only Christ but the Father and also the Spirit.
FER Because John is the backbone of all the gospels, for the reason that it is the revelation of God. In John we [p. 78] do not see Christ looked at officially as in Matthew and Luke; it is not Christ presented in that light, but the Son revealing the Father and the Father coming out in the Son. So the gospel is the revelation of God in the fullest sense.
WM I suppose that is the reason you do not get forgiveness spoken of in John.
FER Yes.
GWH Would you say the knowledge of divine Persons is the greatest thing that can be presented to man? Is it greater than the knowledge of divine things?
FER But then divine things take their character from divine Persons. That is what you get here. The sheep take their character from the Shepherd. You do not get that in this world. Sheep are not like the shepherd. “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father”. They have taken their character from the Shepherd. No one ever heard of such a flock as that.
RSS In the gospel of John we get, “these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God”. I think from what has been said we can see how Christ comes out as the Son of God, but how does He come out as the Messiah in John?
FER That comes out remarkably. You remember what the woman of Samaria said in the fourth chapter, “I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things”. Then the Lord said, “I that speak unto thee am he”.
RSS But how does He come out as the Messiah?
FER Because He is the anointed Man who communicates the Spirit.
GR Then does not the expression the good Shepherd involve that?
FER He is the Shepherd of the sheep. He was the Messiah; the literal meaning of Messiah is “the anointed”. In chapter 1, verse 41 Andrew says to Peter, “we have found the Messias”; that is what Andrew felt, and he [p. 79] brought him to Jesus, and when Jesus beheld him He said, “Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone”. Then afterwards Nathanael says, “thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel”, recognizing Him according to the second Psalm. Then the woman of Samaria hailed Him as the Christ. He was the anointed Man and could communicate the Spirit. That is what I understand by Messiah, but then He was the Son of God — the Son who revealed the Father. We get all the light of God brought out, in which man can live.
RSS In connection with what you said a moment ago that the Messiah is the anointed Man who communicates the Spirit; that would be in keeping with what John said, speaking of Christ, “He shall baptise you with the Holy Spirit”. The meaning of the word Messiah is the anointed one, and in a certain sense we become anointed ones.
FER So the apostle says in 1 Corinthians 12, “so also is the Christ”. You have the Christ down here, in the saints. The saints are the Christ, not personally of course, but by being anointed.
WM I suppose that everything indicated by God in connection with Israel is maintained spiritually in the church.
FER But now you have the true flock. Israel was a flock and Moses was the shepherd, then Moses died and Joshua was the shepherd. Then Joshua died and for a long time they had no shepherd. Then David came, and he died, and Solomon did not prove much of a shepherd. And when the Lord came the people were left like sheep without a shepherd. Now what has come to pass is this, the Shepherd has come in, and there is a flock which takes its character from the Shepherd, and that flock is not provisional at all. It is a flock which, though on earth, in its proper character belongs to heaven.
GR Do you connect with that Jacob’s blessing on Joseph, “from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel”?
FER Christ will be that in regard of Israel, but in the [p. 80] meantime He has come out as the good Shepherd, having a flock which is according to Himself.
Ques Is that the meaning of Hebrews 13, that great Shepherd of the sheep?
FER Quite so.
GR The Lord came really of the tribe of Judah and it was in blessing Joseph that Jacob said, “from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel”. Is that looking at Joseph as a typical person in his being rejected?
FER It may be. The genealogy belongs to Judah.
WM Have you any idea why all these things are indicated in Israel first and then taken up vitally in Christ afterwards?
FER I think it is on the principle, first the natural then the spiritual.
GR Does it not show what has been said so often of late, that nothing fails in God’s hands?
FER Now the point is you do not get a provisional flock, but you have the real thing. What you get in chapter ten is not a kind of fold consequent on the failure of Israel, but a flock that is according to the Shepherd. That is what characterises the present order.
WM Evil is so thoroughly exposed by the knowledge of God.
FER Exactly. Since one has had grace to leave the fold one has been a great deal safer than in the fold.
GR The thought is very precious that the flock takes character from the Shepherd. You get the thought of intimacy.
FER I think so, but it all lies in nature. They are cognate. It is kindred, morally.
WM I suppose it is morally kindred to the passage, “be that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one”.
RSS Also the passage in Matthew 16, “upon this rock I will build my church”.
FER They are stones and upon this rock I will build My assembly. So Peter takes it up in 1 Peter 2, “To [p. 81] whom coming, as unto a living stone ... Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house”. You are kindred to the Living Stone. People have made a mistake about priesthood. A great proportion of christians in the world think that they are called to be priests, but none was ever called to be a priest except Aaron and Christ. Aaron’s sons were not called to be priests. Christians are not called to be priests. They are priests like the sons of Aaron on account of their kindred to Aaron. We are priests as being kindred to Christ. He is the Living Stone and coming to Him as unto a Living Stone we are built up living stones.
GR One can see why the subject of life comes out first and then light. If there is to be kindred there must be life.
FER Exactly. So you could not get the thought of the flock without life.
WM So the sheep live in the light of God.
FER But also in the life of Christ.
GWH We are the same stock and kind; that is what is meant by 1 Corinthians 1: 30, “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus”.
FER Quite so.
WM In connection with this passage, the Lord was not speaking to the sheep; He was not comforting them.
FER No, only about them; but it is a most important point to apprehend that whatever provisional dealings there may have been up to the coming of Christ, Christ is real starting-point of everything, of God’s universe.
GWH Speaking of the Shepherd, in Psalm 22 I suppose you get the good Shepherd giving His life for the sheep, and then in Psalm 23 the great Shepherd who takes care of the sheep.
FER Yes. Chapters 11 and 12 of John are comparatively simple, for they are the testimony which God saw fit should be rendered to Christ previous to His suffering; that is, as Son of God, King of Israel and Son of man.
[p. 82] You get a witness to Him in all three aspects. The resurrection of Lazarus was witness to His glory as Son of God. Then in riding into Jerusalem He is saluted as King, and then the Greeks come up, which becomes the occasion of the Lord referring it to Himself as Son of man. These were witnesses which God gave to Christ when He was on the point of being offered.
GR It is important that we should be instructed as to who the Shepherd is. These two chapters bring it out. We hear His voice in chapter 10 and are separated by it; then these two chapters unfold to us who He is.
FER There is a witness borne to Him in chapters 5 and 6. In chapters 5 and 6 we see the Son of God and Son of man but not the King of Israel. He would not be made King. What we have in the present time is not exactly the King, but we have the Son of God and Son of man; but when witness is borne to Him in chapters 11 and 12, we get the Son of God, the Son of man and the King.
GR And as the King of Israel when He comes out, that is only temporary, but He is Son of man for ever.
FER But then John has in view the world to come. John does not look at eternal things in the gospel. So, too, in the epistle you get no teaching about eternal things. At the end of the Revelation we are carried by the Spirit of God to the final issue, but the Spirit in Scripture does not deal in general with eternal things. There are only about six verses that refer to anything beyond the world to come. The testimony of christianity is to the glory of God in the present creation. God will take care of eternal things, but I am sure our minds are not suited now to take in eternal things, I mean things beyond the world to come.