DIVINE DOWN-STOOPING
J. Taylor
One feature of John’s presentation of Christ is that He was not popular. He tells us at the outset that the Lord Jesus “came to his own, and his own received him not”. And another feature is that as thus unpopular He was seen in isolated circumstances. And another feature is that the Lord’s services are seen more in Jerusalem than in the other gospels, that He was labouring in religious surroundings that were hostile to Him. And so, taking these three features into account, one is particularly encouraged to present the Lord as seen in John’s gospel, because our times are correlated. We are called upon to serve Christ and to present Christ in hostile circumstances.
He is not sought after; He is not popular; and yet He holds Himself in readiness to serve.
Indeed, in the Revelation, written also by John, the Lord presents Himself as standing at the door and knocking, as though the door is closed. He says, “I stand at the door and am knocking; if any one hear my voice and open the door, I will come in unto him and sup with him, and he with me”, Revelation 3: 20. So that we have in John’s ministry a remarkable forecasting of modern times. Jesus is being rejected everywhere. Where He was once honoured He is now dishonoured. Nevertheless He is standing at the door and knocking, and if any one opens the door to Him He comes in.
It is a great honour to be a witness for the Lord Jesus in our times. It was always indeed a great honour, but particularly in times which are so like the times in which He Himself served. He is standing at the door and knocking. He does that now by a word such as I am seeking to give, or by some other circumstance.
His attitude is just that. Think of the Son of God, the Creator, as He is presented in this gospel, standing at your door and knocking! John says, “All things received being through him, and without him not one thing received being which has received being”, John 1: 3. And yet He is at your door now and knocking; He is waiting for you to open to Him.
Now in this chapter we have all this peculiarly illustrated. It is said in the end of chapter 7,
“And every one went to his home”. John 7 is a very remarkable chapter. The Lord’s brethren would have Him go up to the feast at Jerusalem, saying, Shew yourself to the world. Be a man of the world. You have got the qualifications to be a leader there. One has often heard such questions. Why do you hide yourself? Well, the Lord says, as it were, I go not up to this feast; you go up, your time is always ready. My time is not yet. His time for public manifestation and glory had not yet come. Nor has it come. That time was a time of rejection, of scorn, of suffering, and so it is now; He is still rejected. He refuses to go up. It is not the time of publicity. It is the time of obscurity, and the servant of Christ knows it and accepts it.
This is the divine way. It is the effectual way. The divine way is always the effectual way.
And so we find the Lord, although serving in obscurity, serving effectually. And so you find He speaks about the Spirit. He would go up to the feast, for He would not be out of the range of man. He would be there incognito, indeed. Not as the claimant to worldly honour and glory, but as the servant. And so He says, “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink”.
Think of a man being able to say that! “But this he said concerning the Spirit, which they that believed on him were about to receive”. He could impart the Spirit to man. And so it goes on to say, “For the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified”.
And now they send officers to take Him. You see the hostility of men came out. Think of sending officers to take Him! They come, but what they say is, “Never man spoke thus, as this man speaks”. The officers were employed to arrest Jesus, a Man who could give the Spirit to man. And one feeble voice is lifted up in defence of Jesus—Nicodemus.
He is one of John’s types. Mary of Magdala is another, and Mary of Bethany another. He himself is one of John’s types. Nicodemus is a type of a believer who is in the councils of this world, but nevertheless a believer. There are thousands of such. Mary of Bethany is a type whose whole heart is occupied with Jesus. There are not so many of these, but there are some, thank God! Mary of Magdala would not go to her own home. Peter and John did; but she remained at the sepulchre. She is one who loves Jesus and receives light from Him. These are also very rare, but there are some. John himself is a lovable person. He is the disciple whom Jesus loved, as if there were only one. But there was one, thank God, and there can be such now. But then we have Nicodemus. He is a type, alas, of a great many. One who is a Christian, who believes in Jesus, but nevertheless may be a politician—very incongruous, but nevertheless a fact, “Being one of themselves”. He is one who would be a leader in a community, in a good sense. But he is a genuine believer, and John would take account of every believer. And as a true believer in Christ, when the test comes he will lift up his voice in favour of Christ.
We have had an instance of this kind in this country recently. A leading politician lifting up his voice in defence of the Bible; he was doubtless a believer. God will take account of that.
So Nicodemus lifted up a feeble voice. But it indicated that he was a true disciple of Jesus.
“Does our law judge a man before it have first heard from himself, and know what he does?”
He was asserting the rights of the law of God. He was
invoking the protection of the law for the Son of God. Jesus did not need that. Nevertheless it is to the credit of Nicodemus that he called attention to the law of God as a protection to Jesus.
Now, that is the situation in chapter 7. And at the close of that chapter it says, “And every one went to his home”, Nicodemus among the rest. Jesus was solitary. Does it not touch your heart that He should be solitary? He was rejected on earth, but He was honoured in heaven.
All intelligences would be affected. The angels would not forsake Him. When He was born, there was a multitude of the heavenly host. We are not told how many, but there was a multitude. They were intensely interested in that event, in the birth of Jesus. But here we find every one went to his own home. Where did Jesus go? He went to the mount of Olives, which represents a link with heaven. If rejected on earth. He had a link with heaven. And so it is today. Those who serve Him have access to heaven.
And now He comes into the temple from that point. He was possibly not under cover that night. His locks, as it is said elsewhere, were wet with the dew of night. He would do all this in His love for men; the Son of God—the Creator, exposes Himself thus. Early in the morning, showing the unceasing desire of Christ to serve, He came into the temple, and God graciously, as one may say, directs the attention of the crowd to Him. And He sat down and taught them. They needed teaching; Nicodemus needed teaching. I do not know whether he came that morning. He had come before and he got wonderful teaching from the Lord. We are not told what He opened up here, but we are told He sat down. It was not casual; the Lord took account of things; He knew the crowd needed teaching. And He sat down to it; it was urgent. How one would have loved to have listened to Jesus on that morning! He had come in fresh from mount Olivet. How everything would bespeak the atmosphere of heaven.
Now I dwell on that just for a moment, because the people of God need teaching; John would emphasise the need of teaching. It is not so much the terms of the gospel, we all know that, but they needed teaching. And they needed teaching by One who was a teacher. Nicodemus was the teacher of Israel, but did not know the elements of the truth, or even of new birth.
“Thou art the teacher of Israel and knowest not these things!” Do we know that a man has to be born again? He was the leading man among the teachers of the Pharisees, but he had not any spiritual understanding. I have no doubt he could quote verbatim from the law, but he had no spiritual intelligence. “Thou art the teacher of Israel and knowest not these things!” A man had to be born again.
Nicodemus was ignorant, but he was interested, and that is what the Lord is looking for. If you are interested, you will get light. “Jesus answered and said to him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee. Except any one be born anew he cannot see the kingdom of God ... The wind blows where it will, and thou hearest its voice, but knowest not whence it comes and where it goes.: thus is every one that is born of the Spirit”, John 3: 3–8. God works sovereignly; men must learn that they are in the hands of God. They are ruined and they can do nothing for themselves; He says they have to be born again. It is “ye”, the plural.
And then He says, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, thus must the Son of man be lifted up, that every one who believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal”. These were the two great features of the Lord’s instruction to Nicodemus. Now I do not know what He taught on this occasion, but He taught. And He took account of the needs of those He would teach. He knows the needs. Moses says, “My doctrine shall drop as rain, my speech flow down as dew, as small rain upon the tender herb, and as showers on the grass”, Deuteronomy 32: 2.
The Lord came in that morning from the very confines of heaven to the spiritually cold, chilly temple at Jerusalem, and He sat down and taught. We have to be taught by the right teacher, and that teacher is Christ. He teaches about God. He teaches us about ourselves, and teaches about the question of sin, and the Spirit.
The Pharisees bring the woman; they would oppose. That is what is going on at the present time. Satan would endeavour to upset what God is doing, but that only brings out the greatness of the light and of the grace. And so that is what comes out here. What is He going to do? Can all the Pharisees baffle or defeat the Son of God? No, beloved friends! Their efforts only bring out all the more the blessed fulness of the gospel. It is the same in our own times. And so they enquire what is to be done. As I said, they knew the law in the letter—
“Moses has commanded us to stone such”. It is very like Satan’s quoting scripture. When the Lord was tempted in the wilderness, Satan came to Him and quoted scripture. “If thou be Son of God, cast thyself down hence; for it is written, He shall give charge to his angels concerning thee to keep thee; and on their hands shall they bear thee, lest in any wise thou strike thy foot against a stone”. It was a misquotation. The quotation should run, “For he shall give his angels charge concerning thee, to keep thee in all thy ways”, Psalm 91: 11. “In all thy ways”, that is the point. It would have defeated the enemy’s object had he quoted scripture as it stands.
Now these people tell us that the woman should be stoned. But what about the man? The law would stone the man too. They defeated themselves in the eyes of any one spiritually instructed. Now the Lord might have called attention to that, but it was unnecessary. The Old Testament is the word of God, but it is to be read in the light of the New. The New Testament is the full blaze of divine light. The Lord, instead of using the light shining in a dark place, as the Old Testament was,
preferred to cause the full light of God to shine. And so He stoops down and writes on the ground. It was no less a person than He who wrote the tables of the law who stooped down.
You remember the tables of the covenant were written by the finger of God on both sides; as though He would say, ‘I am using up all the available material’. This same blessed Person is writing on the ground.
It did not say God stooped to write the tables of the covenant. But now He stooped.
“Subsisting in the form of God, did not esteem it an object of rapine to be on an equality with God; but emptied himself, taking a bondman’s form”, Philippians 2: 5–9. What a stoop! In the courts on high He is everything. Yet He made Himself of no reputation and took a bondman’s form. “Taking his place in the likeness of men; and having been found in figure as a man, humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, and that the death of the, cross”. Think what a stoop that meant! He stooped and wrote with His finger on the ground.
And now He says, “Let him that is without sin among you first cast the stone at her”. What light is shining! Is there any without sin here? Is there any self-righteous person here? Let him be undeceived. Let the light of the down-stooping and writing of Jesus on the ground shine into your soul. He stoops again, and writes again. The first writing created exercise; they were convicted by their consciences, which led them to go out one by one. It was an individual matter. They went out one by one. And the Lord lifted Himself up again and there was one person standing and she was the guilty person. She was convicted too. But she did not go out. She is another type, you see. John deals with individuals. And he shows us a guilty person detained instead of repelled; the light detains her. That is the gospel. The One who wrote upon the ground was dealing with sins; He would cancel them in His death; He alone could. Her sins were dealt with in the second stooping. He “became obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross”.
And now He says, “Woman, where are those thine accusers? Has no one condemned thee?
And she said, No one, sir”. She is respectful to the Lord. How important this point is at the present time when so much disrespect is shown. How flippantly His name is used! How often profanely! “No one, sir”. Well, he says, “Neither do I”. She is not condemned, for He would die to save such. He comes to seek and to save the lost, and she was one. As Paul says later,
“Faithful is the word; and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”, 1 Timothy 1: 15.
Let no one deceive himself, those who went out were sinners. But they went away from the light and did not get forgiven. They were condemned, whereas she was not condemned.
“Neither do I condemn thee”. Now is not this wonderful light? “He that practises the truth comes to the light, that his works may be manifested that they have been wrought in God”.
The light repelled the accusers, but where God works the light attracts. And so she was detained. And then He says, “Go, and sin no more”.
That is John’s way of presenting the magnitude of the gospel. Is there not hope for the guiltiest, if this woman is not condemned? “Faithful is the word, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first”.
You see the first is saved, and she is one of the first, and she is not condemned. How blessed to have the sense of no condemnation! “There is then now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus “. Those who went out cannot say, “There is then now no condemnation”—not one of them. They were self-condemned. The Lord did not have to condemn them. Do you enjoy the blessedness of no condemnation?
And then Paul goes on to say, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh. God, having sent his own Son, in likeness of flesh of sin, and for sin, has condemned sin in the flesh”, Romans 8: 1–3. The whole thing was condemned, but the woman was saved. The sin is condemned, surely, but she is saved. Now that is the way of grace that I think John would teach us; so that the guiltiest may come. John’s principle is that you come. Luke’s principle is that the Lord comes to you. “Him that comes to me I will not at all cast out”. What a word to any sin-burdened or weary soul! “Him that comes to me I will not at all cast out”.
Gospel Address reprinted from ‘The Believer’s Friend’ Vol. XVIII OCCUPATION WITH THE GLORY
J. G. Chalmers
Exodus 33: 17–19; Isaiah 6: 1–7; Acts 7: 54–60
These scriptures relate to three men who had the experience of seeing the glory, Moses, Isaiah and Stephen. They are outstanding personalities but this experience is open to each one of us, as it says—“We all, looking on the glory of the Lord”, 2 Corinthians 3: 18. We all, that is every brother and sister can look on the glory of the Lord, with unveiled face. The glory shines in the unveiled face of Jesus, and, as looking on the glory, we are transformed by the Spirit. That is a substantial change and it is from glory to glory. Each time that we look on the glory of the Lord, the Spirit would bring about in us more correspondence to Christ. The great objective that God has in mind is that we should be conformed to the image of His Son.
The background circumstances at the time when these men saw the glory were by no means congenial. They were dark and testing. The background to Exodus 33 was the terrible breakdown in Israel. Idolatry, in the form of the golden calf, had come into the camp. Moses felt it deeply but he moved in moral power when he took the tent and pitched it outside the camp, far from the camp. Far from it! There was no moral link between the camp and the tent of meeting pitched by Moses. He established a moral position in separation from iniquity to which every exercised person could go. Every one who sought Jehovah went out to the tent of meeting which was outside the camp. God confirmed what Moses did in giving him a real sense of His presence, when the pillar of cloud descended and He talked with Moses. That is the question today, ‘Where is the Lord in the midst?’ He is where separation from iniquity is being maintained, and it is there that He makes communications. He indicated to Moses that He was not giving up His thoughts as to His people, and that He was going to bring them through and into rest. How touching it is that there is a sphere where we can experience the Lord’s presence and support, and where He unfolds the great thoughts of God for the saints.
So Moses, in the liberty that he had with God, said, “Make me now to know thy way”
(Exodus 33: 13), and God answered him—“My presence shall go”. That is wonderful, God’s presence going with those in the separate path. Then Moses made the request, “Let me, I pray thee, see thy glory”. Moses really felt the awfulness of the breakdown, it bore upon his spirit, and he would be with God about it, but he was not occupied with it nor overwhelmed by it.
He desired to be occupied with something better and greater, ‘Let me see Thy glory’. His request has been described as a noble request. O, dear brethren, do we know how to make noble requests? God answers such requests. In the next chapter Moses goes up. To apply it, Moses represents one who makes his request and then pursues
his exercise. He went up, “And Jehovah came down in the cloud, and stood beside him there, and proclaimed the name of Jehovah. And Jehovah passed by before his face”, Exodus 34: 5, 6. God was showing Moses His glory. He is answering his noble request. In this wonderful dispensation, the glory is the way in which God has been revealed in Christ, God has been made known in His nature which is love, and in His attributes. Christ has made known the Father’s name. While we feel the breakdown, we can be occupied with the glory of God as made known by Christ. The glory of God is in the face of Jesus. One substantial result of Moses seeing the glory is his meekness. “The man Moses was very meek, above all men that were upon the face of the earth”, Numbers 12: 3.
In Isaiah 6 the background is a very dark one, as we think of the state of Israel at that time and the reference to Uzziah, king of Judah who died a leper because he moved out of orbit when he presumed, in self-will, to be a priest because he was a king. Isaiah felt that but he is not occupied with it nor cast down by it. He tells us that he saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up. He was occupied, typically, with Christ in glory. Do we brood over the dark state of things around us, or are we, like Isaiah, occupied with Christ in glory, another Man in another place? God has highly exalted Him (see Philippians 2: 9). Jesus is crowned with glory and honour (see Hebrews 2: 9). He is on the Father’s throne (see Revelation 3: 21). His train that fills the temple is the saints who are linked with Christ in glory. ‘Thousand, thousand saints attending, Swell the triumph of His train’ (Hymn 291).
What a sight! A Man in the glory and the saints linked with Him.
Then Isaiah tells us about the seraphim and what they are saying to one another. Isaiah is about to be used in service and the seraphim are brought before him for his education as to how to serve. Each of the seraphim had six wings and with twain he covered his face. The seraph effaced himself. No brother who has seen Christ in glory would ever seek to project himself in his service. He would efface himself. Then with twain he covered his feet.
He would move in becoming humility in his service, like Paul who said, “Ourselves your bondmen for Jesus’ sake”, 2 Corinthians 4: 5. He had just been speaking about looking on the glory of the Lord and, in humility, he covers his feet. Then with twain the seraphim flew. No one who has seen the glory of the Lord would ever think of parading before the brethren all that he knew. He would bring in, under the Lord, what the saints need. Another important matter is that the seraphim say the same thing. Those who serve should say the same thing, say one thing, not different things to upset and confuse the saints, but rather to unify the saints. The result of seeing the glory is that Isaiah said—“Woe unto me! for I am undone”.
He learns his own unworthiness and nothingness which is something we all have to learn, especially those who serve. The experience of Romans 7 is essential for each one of us. He feels before God his own condition and the condition of the people. Then one of the seraphim flew to him with a glowing coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar, and made it touch his mouth. The seraph brought home to Isaiah a fresh, living touch of the death of Christ. We constantly need fresh touches of the death of Christ, especially applied to our lips in view of our speaking. What comes from lips that have been touched with a live coal would be pure, nothing erroneous, nothing questionable. John says; “These things said Esaias because he saw his glory and spoke of him”, John 1: 2: 41. As we go through the book, we find in chapter after chapter choice impressions of Christ coming from, his lips, especially in chapter 53. It does the soul good to read them. All those impressions come from the lips of a man who had seen the glory of the Lord.
The background to Acts 7 is extremely testing. It is the spirit of hatred and murder, not coming from the world as such, but from the religious leaders of the day, and it is directed towards a brother who had—spoken the truth and who stood by what he said. It seems that, as the dispensation draws to a close, those who are prepared to speak the truth and to stand by the truth, will be severely tested. They will suffer, as we see in Stephen. He did not modify nor withdraw his word because of the persecution involved. He spoke the truth in power and he stood by what he said, no matter what suffering it involved. Such men are needed today. Speak the truth and take the consequences. They gnashed their teeth against him, and then it says, But being full of the Holy Spirit, having fixed his eyes on heaven, he saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God”. The Spirit did not occupy Stephen with the opposition but with the Man in the glory, another Man in another place, the centre of another world. He saw the glory of God. Where did he see it? In the face of Jesus. He took on the glory for he finished his course as a man like Jesus. They cast Stephen out of the city. They treated him like refuse because he stated the truth and stood resolutely by it. As Paul says “We are become as the offscouring of the world, the refuse of all”, 1 Corinthians 4: 13. They stoned Stephen. They stoned Paul at Lystra (see Acts 14: 19); at Corinth he was insulted when they said that his presence in the body is weak and his speech naught (see 2 Corinthians 10: 10); at Galatia he became their enemy in speaking the truth to them (see Galatians 4: 16). The faithful men who have led in the present recovery have been, in principle, stoned, in that they have been attacked personally, but the Lord has made the truth ministered by them to stand.
“They stoned Stephen, praying, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit”. Then he shows the Spirit of Christ when he prays for his persecutors. He finishes his course, not only as a Levite, but as a priest. As having looked on the glory of the Lord, he had taken on the glory, and, in the presence of the terrible opposition, he manifests the spirit of the Man in the glory.
We are now in the closing days of the dispensation, dear brethren, and as we stand unflinchingly by the truth, we can be assured that the opposition will grow, but let us keep our eyes on the Man in the glory and we shall finish our course in priestly power. The time of suffering will very soon be over for ever. There will be the rapture, then the appearing, when the holy city will come down out of the heaven, having the glory of God. The substantial result will be seen in the city, having the glory of God, that glory—having been taken on by the saints, who have been occupied with it in the time of suffering and opposition. May these remarks encourage each one of us to be more occupied with Christ in glory and, as transformed by the Spirit, to become more like Christ now.
Address at Cullen
19 May 1990