1 JOHN 4 (NOTES OF A READING)
[p. 403] 1 JOHN 4 (NOTES OF A READING)
CAC Satan little thought when he brought in sin and death that he was providing God with an occasion to show what He really was, which otherwise could not really have been known.
Rem So the fall of man is the opportunity for God to show His love.
CAC It was Augustine who said of the fall, ‘O happy fault’. And nothing can possibly happen to defeat God. I suppose there is thus a reason why it should be dwelt upon, because it is man’s estate in death and as having committed sins that brings out the love of God. It is the knowledge of that love that is to be manifested in the children of God, not complacent love, not simply love that moves happily when all is complacent, but that moves happily and victoriously in the presence of the most contrary elements. It is very wonderful.
Rem That would help us in regard to one another.
CAC Love is largely obstructed, because we get before us certain things in the brethren that we do not like. There is nothing God hates more than sin and death, but those very things brought out His love, they were opportunity for His love.
Rem “Love ... endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13: 7). Unless love is the motive, there is nothing in it!
CAC Yes, the apostle goes to a great length in saying he might have wonderful things, but if he had not love he was nothing.
Rem “We being still sinners, Christ has died for us” (Romans 5: 8) would apply.
CAC And do you not think we need to keep our souls saturated with the thought? That is the kind of love that God would shed abroad in our hearts, active love when everything is contrary.
Rem “Where sin abounded grace has overabounded” (Romans 5: 20).
CAC God loves to be known, and it says, “He that loves not has not known God; for God is love”.
Ques Would you say that what you get in Romans is more what you get in the Old Testament, and here it is more as His children?
CAC Yes, but more as those in debt and under sin. He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. It looks at us in that setting, does it not?
Rem Verse 17 says, “Herein has love been perfected with us that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, that even as he is, we also are in the world”.
CAC If we in this world are as He is, that settles every question.
Rem The beginning of the verse is, “Herein has love been perfected with us”.
CAC It supposes that certain ones are known to us as begotten of God. That is how we look at believers.
Rem The stress seems to be on the person who loves as having been begotten — on the person who is to show the love.
CAC That is, it is not what we are to expect, but what we are to show. J.N.D. said that christianity works by what it brings, not by what it finds, and there is a good deal in that.
Rem So we are to do it, not expect it; we are to love one another.
CAC It supposes a company, “one another”, that there are those available to be loved, and happiness consists in loving them.
Ques Is the expression, “Every one that loves” characteristic?
CAC Yes.
Rem That is how we prove we are begotten, by [p. 405] love inactivity;
it is expressed.
CAC It supposes that what God is comes into evidence. No one has seen Him at any time, so unless there is a company on the earth loving one another, there is no testimony as to what God is, for He is invisible. He loves to bring Himself into evidence in His children, and we do not do it by trying to do it, but by dwelling on how God has acted when we were in sin and sins. We should never forget this.
Ques Would the deep sleep of Adam show that there is vindication of the love apart from sin altogether?
CAC I should think that the wonderful scene in Genesis 2 is rather the setting out of divine purpose and counsel. God hastened to show what He had in His mind — Christ and the assembly. He brings in the man and then the woman into evidence. It is more counsel and purpose. It was His sovereignty. It was not good for man to dwell alone. It was not quite the time to bring out what was in His heart; He was providing for the man and for the human race in furnishing a wife for Adam.
Rem The deep sleep represents death through which Eve was formed.
CAC That is what makes it practical to us. If I am a naughty brother, it is not to prevent you loving me. It comes more to light in Genesis 3. The love of God comes out in the skins; He does not abandon His fallen creatures. It must have been the greatest surprise to Adam and Eve that He should come after them and enquire into the matter that had taken place, and that He should have His own way of clothing them. In those animals you have propitiation; so the very fact that they had sinned showed what He could do for a sinful creature, and the providing of the clothing was far greater than the garden and putting them in it. So God was better known. It has been said that Adam and Eve were far better off outside the garden than in it. Of course they were better off: they knew God in His care for them as fallen creatures under death, and what He would do for them. They [p. 406] were far better off outside and clothed, having the knowledge of God, than before — that is the gospel!
Ques Would you open up propitiation a little? Love here is not connected with sonship, but with propitiation.
CAC It is the wonderful sacrificial work which has come under the eye of God for His complete satisfaction in relation to sins. Every sin calls loudly for judgment. We would not like to think of God as One careless of sin; but He has provided propitiation which meets every question and satisfies, and even glorifies, Him. And so we have a great knowledge of God; we know God better than the angels do. There is no propitiation for fallen angels.
God has brought propitiation into view, and it is through His beloved Son. So I can go to God and speak to Him with perfect rest about all my sins; if I could recount them, those before and those after my conversion, I could finish up by saying that His beloved Son has been sent a propitiation for my sins. That is how God has made Himself known.
Then if a brother has ruffled me, does it not sink into microscopic dimensions? O, let me speak to God about my propitiation. It is not in a doctrinal but in a practical way that it works. “Herein has love been perfected with us” — we should like it to be true, so that the thing is seen in its perfection in the saints. It is seen in perfection in Him in the bosom of the Father; it is His home, the rest of His heart, so that it could not be otherwise than that He should declare God. It is where He lived, is it not? If we loved, it would be very easy for us to overlook tiny things in our brother, for they are very tiny things that ruffle us and put us out of tune, and make us evil-disposed towards our brother. I am not supposing we are to overlook things that ought to be judged, for John is the very one who tells us there is a sin unto death — that is the other side of the matter altogether.
Ques Why is it, “We also ought to love one another”? It is a kind of obligation.
CAC And I think it is very necessary it should be put [p. 407] in that way; there is a tendency to evasion with us, but it is due, due to God that we should love one another. I suppose He has given us of His Spirit that there might be power to do it.
Ques There is a little difference between giving us His Spirit, and of His Spirit. Would one be a more general fact and the other imply that we have that which is characteristic of His Spirit? “The supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1: 19).
CAC It is strikingly said that way, “Of his Spirit”, almost like God admitting us to a share of His own Spirit; is that the thought?
Rem I suppose this involves the divine economy of the Father and the Son and the witness of the Spirit.
Rem I think that earlier in the chapter it is God, and that here in verse 14 it is the Father, which makes it more striking. “And we have seen, and testify, that the Father has sent the Son as Saviour of the world”.
CAC This verse clearly proves it refers to the Son in manhood, because of what the apostles had seen. “We have seen, and testify”.
Rem He was here as Son before He could be sent.
Ques Do you think that verse 14 bears out what you were saying of God’s love.
CAC Yes, it is the whole testimony of the gospel, that the world is in God’s view for salvation. The propitiation cannot be limited to the children of God; it has in view the whole world. So that now the christian confession is that Jesus is the Son of God — everything hangs upon that.
Ques Is that a further thought to Jesus Christ come in flesh?
CAC Well, I suppose so; it is the confession of the relation in which Jesus stands to God — He is the Son of God. One who confesses that, God abides in him and he in God. There is no greater light than that — that Jesus is the Son of God.
[p. 408] Rem It is the finishing touch in the education of the man in John 9.
CAC Yes. To walk about in this world prepared at all times to confess that Jesus is the Son of God, well, God abides in such persons and they in Him.
Ques Does it involve the manhood of Christ?
CAC You would not think of taking any impression of God from another; the whole divine light as to God is in Him. The great things that God has said, “This is my beloved Son”, “Thou are my beloved Son” — these great statements sum up what God has to say about Him, and God dwells in the one who confesses that truth. All the religious speculations that fill the minds of men melt away in the presence of this great fact, that Jesus is the Son of God. Man’s thoughts would leave us in bewildering uncertainty, but when we come back to this marvellous reality, it settles everything; we do not need to argue about anything, knowing this great fact that Jesus is the Son of God.
Rem It is a very crucial moment when it dawns on the soul.
CAC To believe that Jesus is the Christ and that He is the Son of God is the great foundation in the soul; my knowledge of God, my blessings and my relations with God, all hang on this Person.
Ques Would you say what it means when it says, “Abides in God, and God in him”?
CAC I should be slow to attempt to define it, but I can see that if Jesus is confessed as the Son of God, the whole light of God that has come out in His Son is in the heart of the believer, and then the believer abides in God as looking for nothing outside the knowledge of God. It is real stability of soul, would you not say?
Rem It was the first note of Paul’s preaching.
CAC Yes.