PLACE AND PASTURE
PLACE AND PASTURE
“Go in and out, and find pasture” (John 10: 9). I illustrate or explain this by John 14, which is in and John 16, which is out. We are fed in each place, and the food is different according to the nature of the place. In chapter 14 you have a new place where He is. In chapter 16 you are in the place of His rejection. Keep to this thesis, and much will come out of it to you. Chapter 16 is testimony to a glorified Christ. Now mark what this leads to! There is really nothing about a Christ crucified in John 16 except that for a “little while” they would not see Him, but they would have “joy that a man is born into the world”. Chapter 14 is comfort inside, and all that He was on earth is reproduced, as well as union in life. “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you”. In the one case you have everything from Him who was on the earth, or as He was on the earth; and also as He is now in heaven — “In that day”; but in the other case you have Him altogether in glory, and of Him there — the testimony is. Chapter 14 is the barracks, you are made a soldier there. Chapter 16 you are in the battlefield doing duty as a soldier; you are a soldier. John is intensely divine; he never alludes to our human position either in the family or as subject to the powers that be. Stephen is the soldier and witness of John 16, he gets all from the Man in glory.
It is remarkable that in John’s gospel the Lord never alludes to ruin or separation. His own are ever His own, and from heaven; everything is divine — Life, words (intelligence), word (counsel), unity, sanctification, glory, love. Such we are, ever in His heart.
The parallel between John and Paul is very interesting. John 4 with Paul would be joying in God or the fatted calf. John presents what it is in God’s mind; Paul, what it is as apprehended by us.
I am trying to describe the new creation, or rather the creation of God; man’s new relationship to God — Luke 15 and John 4; the new position of the sheep, the saint on the earth — John 10 and Hebrews. The new ministry — John 13, John 14. The new power — the Holy Ghost. The new centre, or metropolis — Acts 7: 55. The new testimony — John 15: 26. The new prospect — All things new. You will find great interest in this subject.