GRACE AND TRUTH
T. E. Druckenmiller
John 1: 14–18; 3: 21; 16: 13 (first phrase); Psalm 85: 8–13
I desire, beloved brethren, to draw attention to grace and truth, as the section in John 1 brings out, “grace and truth subsists through Jesus Christ”. Others have drawn attention to the singular verb “subsists”, emphasizing that grace and truth are one. While grace has come much before us in the reading the impress upon one’s heart is the need to be established in the truth in our souls, the truth as set out in Jesus. We get that word in Ephesians “as the truth is in Jesus” (Ephesians 4: 21). Think of God coming near to men in a Man, in the Man Christ Jesus, and this gospel brings out in what we have read the impress of the greatness of the Lord Jesus who is the Son of God and that He is the only-begotten with a Father, full of grace and truth. John bears witness of Him, and it says, he cried saying, This was He of whom I said, He that comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me; for of His fulness we all have received, and grace upon grace. I just feel, beloved brethren, the tremendous value of getting into our souls that God has come near to us in Jesus and that He has manifested His love and His grace; the feelings of His heart are toward us. It brings a challenge to us as to how we are to move in the presence of such grace.
So, firstly, I believe the Lord would impress upon our hearts what was here in Himself, in Jesus the Son of God, that “grace and truth subsists through Jesus Christ”; it came into being, it began to be, and what is of God is set out in that Man. We are challenged, beloved brethren, in our walk and in our ways as to whether we maintain the divine standard in everything we say and in everything we do. It was so with Jesus; Luke’s gospel gives us that touch, they “wondered at the words of grace which were coming out of his mouth”, Luke 4: 22. He found the place in the roll of the book and read from it and then rolled it up and gave it to the attendant, and He could say, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your ears”. Think of the fulfilment of Scripture in the Person of Jesus. The prophetic word had come down through the centuries foretelling of Jesus, and the prophetic word was now fulfilled. I believe a touch came in in the reading as to “the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus”, Revelation 19: 10. God has continued to speak right down through to our day and there is the continuance of prophetic speaking. What is on one’s heart is to encourage all our hearts to be committed to the Lord, to be submissive to Him, to have in our affections a stirring of desire to be more fully committed to the pathway of the will of God, which involves on the one hand the continuance of the display of God’s grace and on the other the continuance of the manifestation of the truth as set out in Jesus.
So I go on to the second scripture—“He that practises the truth comes to the light”. John brings out that it is the light that is shining out in Jesus that lightens every man (John 1: 9), that is, your heart and mine can be enlightened by the knowledge of God as presented in the Person of Jesus. And there is no need that any part be dark with you or me. Yet how often it has been otherwise; how often we have been dark; how often we have gone on thinking we are doing what is right only to find out as we went on in our pathway that it really was not the embodiment of grace and truth. So we sorrow over much at the present time, but the Lord does not mean us to remain in that feeling of despair; He means us to get through to the fact that grace and truth subsists in Him. And grace and truth are to be set forward in what you and I do in our part as committed now to the pathway of God’s will. Peter speaks of the time past as sufficient to have wrought the will of the Gentiles (1 Peter 4: 3), that whole line of things, but now let us go forward in faith. What a need there is to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. The responsibility is on us, beloved brethren, to stand for the truth and in our insistence on the truth to maintain the grace of the dispensation. That is what is on one’s heart, the manifestation in Jesus the Son of God of divine feelings. The meal that Elisha cast into that pot was expressive of just that kind of thing, the perfect humanity of Jesus, the evenness of it, the pleasurableness of it in the sight of God; and God is looking for the same in you and in me. Oh may the Lord help us to just have the desire to be
committed persons at the present time.
So this is a very precious word in chapter 3, “He that practises the truth comes to the light, that his works may be manifested that they have been wrought in God”. You see, God is wanting each of us to be committed to the carrying forward of the expression of Jesus in our lives. Have you looked at your pathway that way or have you still some desire just to be moving in the spirit of the world, the line of independence that marks men, wanting to do what you want to do when you want to do it? That is the spirit of the age that we are in; the educational system is trying to bring about independent reasoning and thought. But we want to see, beloved brethren, the need to be submissive to the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord; own Him as your own Lord and Saviour and understand that what was manifest in Him in His pathway here is to be manifest too in your and my pathway.
So it says, “that his works may be manifested that they have been wrought in God”. Well, let the Lord work in our souls and bring about such a manifestation. It was so with the apostles.
The book of the Acts has been before us during the reading and the Lord would bring home to us the value of those men as committed to the Lord in the carrying forward of the testimony. Peter could draw attention to what he had, “Silver and gold I have not; but what I have, this give I to thee”, Acts 3: 6. Oh what a word that is! The Lord would say, You can have that too; you could say, Silver and gold I have not, but what I have ... Do you have the Lord Jesus in your heart? Do you value the truth as set out in Him? And are you just in your simple pathway a witness here for Him? Oh the Lord would encourage you to be such. He would encourage us all to be such, in the midst of what is dark, crooked, and perverted; to be each
identified with the pathway of God’s will in the scene where Jesus has been rejected.
There is much that could be brought out as to the truth in the gospel of John; it is impressive the way that what is true, and the truth, run through this, gospel. One just read these references and would encourage especially our younger brethren to seek out these precious subjects in God’s word and rely on the Spirit of God to unfold the precious light and glory of the greatness of Christ in your soul and thus in your life. In John 16 and through this section from chapter 13 through to 16 there are several references to the Spirit of truth. One is in John 15: 26—“the Spirit of truth who goes forth from with the Father, he shall bear witness concerning me; and ye too bear witness, because ye are with me from the beginning”. Think of how the disciples gathered with Jesus and moved with Him. You can see how these thoughts that are in the Psalm that we shall come to just flow together, that is, “Loving-kindness and truth are met together”. You see how it is working out in your life, that God on the one hand may bring in a testing line of things but with it comes the grace needed to bear it, as Paul speaks of it, so that you can say, “Loving-kindness and truth are met together”.
Well, God means it to work out in our lives that there should be formation in our souls so that we stand as a testimony in this scene for the Man who was here, rejected among men, and yet in all His pathway setting out the feelings of God for men.
John 16: 13 brings out that when the Spirit of truth had come “He shall guide you into all the truth”. Think of the Holy Spirit of God, a divine Person, sent down from Christ exalted on high, and come to indwell the believer. Do you have the Spirit? Is He in liberty in you? We have spoken about our vessels and we spoke of that section in
Elisha’s day where the widow had to have drawn to her attention the value of what there was there in her own house from God (2 Kings 4). Well, may the Lord help us to appreciate the more what we have from God—the Spirit of our God. “But when he is come, the Spirit of truth, he shall guide you into all the truth—for he shall not speak from himself; but whatsoever he shall hear he shall speak; and he will announce to you what is coming. He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine and shall announce it to you”. Think of having a divine Person in you and with you who will announce to you what is coming, who will give you an appreciation of the truth and help you amid conflict and trial in the pathway of God’s will to express Christ in your life. I think we need to get an increased appreciation of the grace and truth that subsists in that Person and is to be effective in us. How often it has been otherwise. Paul would have said that too as to his pathway; think of the manifestation of grace in that beloved man of God and the way God in His grace met him at a time when he was breathing out threatenings and slaughter. Paul could say, That is the way God dealt with me; mercy was shown to me. Then he would say, The way that God has been gracious to me he means to be a delineation of your life too (see 1 Timothy 1: 16). What vessels of God’s mercy we are! What sovereign love and grace from our God have been manifested to us! And now we need to see what we ought to be in the presence of these things, as Peter says;
“Waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God”, 2 Peter 3: 12.
Psalm 85 bears on the working out of this in our lives. That is what has drawn this psalm to one’s attention. It is a psalm of the sons of Korah, persons who knew sorrow in their history, sorrow in their parents, but who were committed to follow through in faithfulness to the Lord in their
own lives. So it says, “I will hear what God, Jehovah, will speak”. May that be so today, God saying something to you and to me, something coming by the Spirit of God into our souls and bringing about committal of heart with us—yes, I should be more committed to the pathway of God’s will; I should be more ready to assemble when the brethren are convened; I should not have to be told to come to the meetings. You know, these are the kind of things—it is amazing how as we look back over our histories somehow we needed to be told what to do, whereas down inside us the Spirit of God is telling us anyway what to do, and if our hearts were more sensitive we would just want to be in the gatherings of the saints, and we would want to be an expression of Jesus when we are alone, among the school people, or at our places of business; we would just be what we should be. The Spirit of God will help us as we yield ourselves to Him. That is the impress that is on one’s heart. So may we be prepared to hear what God will say—“For he will speak peace unto his people, and to his godly ones”, and then it says, “but let them not turn again to folly”. That is a word of admonition; may we be preserved from that line of things. There is much that the world goes on with, and that we are prone to be taken up with, and give way to, things that really do not further the work of God among us collectively. You would know what it is with yourself; I would know what it is with me. May we be more sensitive to the Spirit’s presence. We get that word in the Old Testament, “Be careful in his presence”, Exodus 23: 21. So we are graciously furnished of God, but then we need to keep our vessels, and we need to be maintained in the glory and greatness and dignity of sonship that God has given us a part in.
Then it goes on, “Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him, that glory may dwell in our
land”. I think we have a sense today of glory dwelling in our land; the gatherings of the saints together, I believe, are that, the outshining of God’s glory and the outshining of His grace amongst His people. Then we have these precious touches—“Loving-kindness and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other”. Oh let us be in the working out of this collectively; loving-kindness—it is really a touch of mercy and grace—and truth are met, together. Let it be so in your life and in mine. And righteousness and peace have kissed each other; the working out of exercises in local assemblies is, I believe, with a view to these features being seen actively amongst us. Well, may the saints the world over be in the appreciation of the divine standard of the truth and maintain it in the power of the Spirit of God so that grace on the one hand prevails and that truth on the other goes on with it. I just feel we need that, beloved brethren. “Truth shall spring out of the earth”; think of that which springs out of the earth. It shows, I believe, the living line of things and the touch of life in the gatherings of the saints. And then, “righteousness shall look down from the heavens”.
There is much in these expressions. We feel stunted sometimes in our growth when we see the fulness that is there in God’s word and how men of God in their service amongst God’s people have unfolded with fulness these precious scriptures; may we be exercised to come into the gain of the labours of others in view of filling our part.at the close of this dispensation in faithfulness to the Lord Jesus Christ until He comes.
Then it says, “Jehovah also will give what is good, and our land shall yield its increase”. That I suppose is the man from Baal-shalishah; he was in the enjoyment of that sphere; he had what was from that sphere (see 2 Kings 4: 42). That is what is to be our enjoyment in the assembly. You get a taste of what he brings and then you would want to be with that brother, you would want to be with that sister, and to share in what they enjoy, and it is yours too. You see, in divine things there is not such a thing as selfishness, there is the constant experience of fulness. The word ‘abundantly’ that came into the reading is one to treasure and you and I are to be contributors to that abundance. Well, I think these thoughts should stimulate our hearts. “Our land shall yield its increase”; that would be fulness in the service of God. What the Lord Jesus is looking for is a portion for each divine Person in fulness in the collective response of God’s people. Then, “righteousness shall go before him, and shall set his footsteps on the way”; it is like “a highway for our God”, Isaiah 40: 3. It is like Deborah’s day. Things were so circumscribed, persons doing what they wanted in their own eyes, but there was someone who was able to arise. This, I believe, is needed amongst us.
May the Lord help us; you and I can be such in our localities; we can be for the blessing and for the flowing together of living conditions amongst God’s people. The Lord means us to value and appreciate what is abundant; you get that word in John’s gospel, “That they might have life, and might have it abundantly”, John 10: 10. It is available in Christ and I am sure He would have it enjoyed in its fulness amongst His people at the present time.
Address in Brooklyn, N.Y.
23 February 1980