CHRIST IS EVERYTHING - JOHN AND PAUL

CHRIST IS EVERYTHING - JOHN AND PAUL

Christ is everything in John 10:1-16. Mark the word “He”. 1, He entered into the fold. 2, He led His own sheep out of it. 3, He goeth before them. 4, He is the door. 5, He gives eternal life. 6, He is the Good Shepherd. In death He removes all against us, we are in the same intimacy with Him as He is with the Father. This is the climax. 7, is that we are preserved by Him. This is His side (John). In Hebrews it is our side (Paul), leading us into the blessedness of our position on the earth. 1, God ^[p. 160] speaks by His Son. 2, He is in the midst of His brethren. 3, He is Apostle and High Priest. 4, Son over His own house. 5, When, like Israel, we are discouraged with a sense of our weakness, He sympathises with us; His grace is sufficient for us. 6, He is the Minister of the sanctuary; we enter the Holiest as the consecrated company. We are His companions. 7, In His power we run the race on to Him where He is. My impression is that the Holiest on our side answers to the intimacy on His side. You can go no higher — a wonderful position on the earth!

I see John’s holy zeal to secure for God His place on the earth. The most grievous failure in Christendom is the church — God’s object; the seat of His mind and interests. We are confronted on every side with huge material imitation of the house of God. Where is the spiritual one, the real one to expose the counterfeit? We may see glaring defects in the imitation, but the divine way of correcting the false is by setting forth and maintaining the true. John would have the church on the earth up to John 17. He cannot have it so until by Paul’s ministry the church has gone to heaven, and thus he can from there bring her down to be fully for God on the earth as the heavenly city.