1 JOHN 5 (NOTES OF A READING)
[p. 409] 1 JOHN 5 (NOTES OF A READING)
CAC I think it would be good to get help as to what it means that “Jesus is the Christ”. What is your impression?
Ques Do you think that it means the Anointed to fulfil God’s will in the fullest sense?
CAC Yes.
Ques Does it signify that every other man has to disappear out of the sight and thoughts of the believer, so that there is only one Man in view — nothing else at all before the person who believes it, in that way?
CAC That is the evidence that one is born of God.
Rem I thought it could not be reached by any other way or means. It is entirely against all that is natural.
CAC Such a person as Jesus could never be selected to fill any important post in the world.
Rem “I have found David ..., a man after my heart, who shall do all my will” (Acts 13: 22).
CAC Ought we to connect this in our minds with the thought that He was hardly in the position of the Christ until He was anointed? There was the wonderful character of the thirty years previously under the eye of God — time given for the full development of what was there in true humanity, so that God could say, I, have found a Man for My delight. It is not merely that it was there, but it had been fully developed during all that time. He was fully delightful to God. It is something to come to in our inmost soul, that that Man is God’s selected Man and anointed One, so that it is not only written in the Scripture but is in the faith of the soul. It makes the believer a very distinguished personage, he is marked off from every other person in the world.
Rem The woman of Samaria said “Is not he the Christ?” (John 4: 29).
CAC We all need to go through the exercises of [p. 410] that woman. He knows all about what I am, and along with that we get some sense of what He is. She had got something that was greater in her estimation than all her sinful past, so she goes back to say, “Is not he the Christ?” There is not a trace of her going back to the things that she did.
Rem She said, when Christ is come, He will tell us all things.
CAC He got it out of her as the testimony of what was there, so that the woman was born of God.
The Lord says to Peter, “Who do ye say that I am?”, and Peter says, “Thou art the Christ”; that is, the Lord expects us to say it. What do I say about Him? Anyone born of God can say in a spirit of adoration, He is the Christ. And He has no rival, you cannot put any other man anywhere near Him.
Rem It would be a good start for the service of God.
Ques The two thoughts — the Christ and the Son of God — are looked at together, both in Peter’s confession and here. Would you say a little as to that? Would the Son of God involve the Lord’s manhood here?
CAC Yes, and it is true that He not only has this wonderful official place, for Christ is an official title giving Him pre-eminence, but then He is the Son of God, that is His glory personally. ‘Christ’ speaks of His glories officially, but ‘Son of God’ of His glories personally.
Ques Would the woman be the illustration of the first, and the man in John 9 of the second?
CAC I was thinking of that. The woman does not go further than the Christ, and she did that as the result of being born of God; but the Lord loved to make Himself known to the man in chapter 9 as the Son of God. “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?”
Rem There would not be any hankering after the world then. “All that has been begotten of God gets the victory over the world”.
CAC That is very good. I do not suppose be ever wanted to enter the synagogue again. They had cast him out [p. 411] of it. This is the true bond between the saints, the fact that they are born of God, as evidenced by this confession; that is how we regard one another, every brother and sister.
Rem The second part of the first verse speaks of it.
CAC Yes, because the object of all this is to set up relations between the brethren which will bring about conditions of eternal life. They can be brought about while we are in a scene of desolation and destruction, and are surely what we must long for, and we get these conditions here. I suppose the object of the writer is to make this a precious reality to us — that we have come into eternal life now.
Ques Would you explain what is involved in having the Son? “He that has the Son has life” (verse 12).
Rem I was thinking of verse 12, which might be rendered, ‘He that has the Son has the life: he that has not the Son of God has not the life’. Eternal life is in contrast to a death scene where everything is changing.
CAC Yes.
Ques I can understand that statement, but what is it to have the Son?
Rem Well, does not verse 5 give that? Is it not the appropriation by the Holy Spirit of what that Person is, and what He is to me? So it works outs, “He that has the Son has life”. It is in contrast to all that is passing and changing here.
CAC Yes, I think that is right.
Rem “I am come that they might have life, and might have it abundantly” (John 10: 10).
CAC Yes.
Ques Would it be their enjoying it in the company of Christ?
CAC It is the thought of personal possession. It is put that way. It is possible to have personal possession of the Son, a divine Person having come into manhood so that He might be possessed by us, a tangible reality to us, and in possessing the Person we have life.
[p. 412] Rem It is right outside the world, which is really death.
CAC I love to think that all that is in that Person is for my appropriation and possession. He says, “This is my body which is for you”; that is, you are welcome to appropriate it.
Rem “He also who eats me shall live also on account of me” (John 6: 57). Does that come in?
CAC Yes.
Rem It is so easy to get hold of things in an abstract way, mentally, without having touched them in reality.
CAC That is where the prayers of the saints come in. When we have light through ministry we should earnestly pray that we might have it for ourselves, and not merely be content with looking at it. It is for all of us to pursue the exercise in secret, that we want to be personally in possession of the Person whom we are assured is the Christ, the Son of God. Paul had been converted many years, perhaps about thirty, when he said, That I might know Christ (Philippians 3: 10). Do you not know Him, Paul? I want to, he says.
Rem It is outside the realm of memory.
CAC And I have seen that. Speak of Jesus to saints who have lost their memory and see if they do not beam. We were led to sing 174:1 at the beginning of our meeting. Well, it is all there, is it not?
Rem Paul lived in conformity to His death, through the fellowship of His sufferings, and the power of His resurrection.
Ques Would verses 6 - 8 be liberating, so that we could appropriate the Son?
CAC That is, you have in mind the death of Christ, and do we ever understand the death of Christ until we know the Person? We must know that He is the Christ, the Son of God, to be able to estimate the meaning of His death; so faith in Scripture is connected with divine Persons. “I believe God”, Paul says. Having got the Person, we approach the thought of His death in an entirely different way; then [p. 413] we begin to understand the water and the blood. And with reference to that, we have a most remarkable statement in the gospel, have we not? “And immediately there came out blood and water. And he who saw it bears witness, and his witness is true, and he knows that he says true that ye also may believe” (John 19: 34, 35). 1 do not know if John or any other writer puts such emphasis on what he is saying, as here in relation to this matter of the water and the blood.
Ques Why does it say, “Not by water only, but by water and blood”?
CAC That is another remarkable emphasis. It is to bring out the great liberating power of His death, as was remarked before, of Jesus the Christ.
Ques Would you distinguish between the blood and the water?
CAC I think the testimony of Scripture would give us the witness of the blood to meet all that is due to God — that is the universal testimony of Scripture. Every claim is met by the blood that cleanses from every sin; every question Godward is met by the blood. But then we also need purification; and water in Scripture is what purifies. Numbers 19 is the Old Testament scripture we should go to, where we get the water for purification of sin. There must be a character of purification that is suitable.
Ques Is it a question of the removal of the man?
CAC Cleansing by blood is better understood than the cleansing by water, generally speaking. Every converted person finds every answer in the blood. It enables God to justify him. But this cleansing of water is not always followed up and understood. It is the question of the blood in the epistle of Romans up to chapter 5. Another question is raised as to what I am in chapter 6 and he brings in the thought of water there, for he brings in baptism, which is the great figure of cleansing by water. We are baptised unto Christ and His death, and it involves purification for man — the man has to go. Figuratively seen in baptism, the man [p. 414] goes down under out of sight. Where did I go out of sight? Not in my baptism, which is figurative of it. I went out of sight in the death of Christ.