FRUIT
[p. 228] FRUIT
Fruit-bearing is by Christ and is the natural product of healthy vitality. Leaves show vitality but not healthy vitality. Sap — the principles which keep the christian in healthy vitality. Comfort (chapter 14), is necessary before fruit can be borne. Verses 21 - 23 mean that after the Lord’s departure, the disciples would get by the Spirit the real present good of the revelation made by Christ when here, viz., of the Father in the Son, they would not lose it; what they had known objectively was to be then known subjectively by the Spirit’s power.
Romans 5:1 — I am relieved of the judgment of death; Christ is risen, death is annulled. Israel was not set in movement till after the passover, at the Red Sea the experimental ground commences (”by faith they passed”, etc., Hebrews 11).
Romans 5 is the evidence of the relief from judgment, the Holy Spirit is given. Verses 14 and 17, the last Adam. We have part in the grace and righteousness which He has brought in and we look to reign in life. Chapter 6:10, we are buried to die, by fact of our baptism, are severed from the first Adam and are alive in the Head, Christ. Chapter 7:4 goes further than the last Adam (5) or the new Head (6) — new husband, one who loves me and maintains me. Grace flows from the husband and thus fruit is produced. The pressure of chapter 6 is body of sin and chapter 7 is body of death. Fruit is found only in the measure in which a christian abides in the sense of Christ’s love.
John 15:1 — He supersedes Israel as the vine. In verse 7 the vine is dropped and we begin what is present during His absence. Fruit is morally after Christ; by it they would be manifestly His disciples, learners of Him. In Galatians 5 the fruit of the Spirit — qualities inaugurated in man by Christ; never [p. 229] seen in man before, now to be seen in His disciples — morally His traits reproduced.
Romans 6:9-13 — practical righteousness of the christian. A new principle of righteousness was inaugurated by Christ, viz., He was towards others according to what the Father was towards Him (verse 9). He took the place of obedience and this was the principle of righteousness (see 1 John 3, “we ought to lay down”, etc.). Continuance in the sense of love was the spring of Christ’s conduct. Constant consciousness of His love, or no fruit — legality must thus be got rid of. He loves us because we were given to Him by His Father — not for any worth in us. I am to order my conduct here by what Christ is towards me. John 15:12, different from law, “thy neighbour as thyself”.
The second principle of healthy vitality is the consciousness of His confidence; John 15:15. Friends, not servants — He committed Himself to these poor fishermen. Third, His appointment for us (verse 16). Fruit is for God, testimony is for man. Chapter 15 in principle applies to us as much as to the disciples. Christ is here inaugurating new principles. We must get back to the first love; Revelation 2.
No efforts for fruit-bearing — only sap, consciousness of Christ’s love which we then reciprocate to Him and carry out to others.
Forest Hill, 1892.
John 6 Chapter 7 brings in the power of the Spirit; the energy of the Spirit in connection with Christ in glory. Chapter 4 the believer is to get eternal life from the Spirit, “springing up unto eternal life”.
Three steps in the history of the soul: first, faith in the blood; second, the sealing of the Spirit; and then we get eternal life from the Spirit.
[p. 230] Chapter 5 supposes you have the Spirit; you cannot have any apprehension of Christ as Son of God apart from the Spirit and He leads you into the knowledge of the Father — you are put into the divine circle by the power of the Holy Spirit, and then there is another step, you are to be in it constitutionally.
I am to feed upon the bread and the Spirit produces something totally different from all before. You are formed by food as you take it, and the food is the living bread come down from heaven. The Galatians had the Spirit but were not formed by the food. There are many in the present day who think when they have the Holy Spirit they have all; but they have to learn. The Galatians had John 4.
Chapter 3 is the great divine proposition, then up to chapter 7 we get a series of developments.
The great end of the gospel is that we should get the Holy Spirit — for instance, Acts 5:32, also Cornelius, Acts 10: 44, “While Peter spake these words, the Holy Spirit fell on all them which heard the word”; and the Samaritans, Acts 8.
Verse 62 of chapter 6 brings us back to the starting point in chapter 3:13, and in the next chapter we are brought to it; two great truths, Son of man which is in heaven (chapter 3) and the Spirit makes alive (chapter 4). Quickening is not equivalent to new birth.
In chapter 3 we get the great divine thought, the proposition to be worked out into result in the succeeding chapters — how the love of God to the world is going to find its satisfaction (chapter 3: 16), not merely that you will not perish; but the result is not fully reached until chapter 7. In chapter 5 the full revelation of the Father and Son, and we brought into the circle. In chapter 6 we are in it constitutionally. In Romans the Spirit is life; in Colossians you are quickened, you are constitutionally in it. John 6 brings you into it constitutionally.
[p. 231] Food forms my constitution. John 6 runs with Colossians; bread is food which ministers satisfaction. My constitution is formed by the food l eat.
Security for the christian all lies in the Holy Spirit. We do not get the Spirit in John 3 because it is the divine side, not the work in the soul. There are two ‘musts’ in John 3 and each is for God.
I do not believe that anyone can touch John 5:24 without the Spirit; “He that heareth my word” is the Son’s revelation of the Father, what He had revealed in the verses before as to the Father. Then it is that the believer is passed from death unto life; it is not so much the mode by which he passes; it is characteristic of the believer.
When Christ was first here He called some to follow Him, but when His rejection comes in He ceases to call, He falls back entirely upon the work of the Father, and He gets the church as a compensation for Israel.
Chapter 5 comes to Romans 5:11, “We joy in God” — here we have full light. Romans does not carry us to John 6; that corresponds to Colossians. Giving life to the world goes on to the new heavens and new earth.
The word ‘came’ gives us the historical side, ‘comes’ the characteristic side. Verse 33, “the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven”, that is characteristic; verse 38, “I came down from heaven”, historical. Verse 41, historical, verse 50, characteristic.
The living bread is in contrast to the manna, it is not the manna. You must appropriate the death of Christ, must die to the system of things in which flesh lives; you must cut off your hand if you would enter into life, as the Lord says; Matthew 18.
Christ is the living bread, the satisfaction of God’s heart, because He has carried out what is in the heart of God, He has expressed God’s heart. Our part is to [p. 232] eat the living bread, to appropriate it. Some limit the thought of the living bread too much to a humbled Christ, but it is an incarnate Christ and this brings in the glory of His Person. Christ in humiliation down here answers to the manna, not to the living bread. “The Word was made flesh.. . and we beheld his glory”, this is incarnation. Verse 58, we cannot understand our relation to the Father unless we know there is One who is there by personal excellence. He is become Son of God by being Man; He acquires the church by becoming Son of man, and He retains the church. No one could be in the presence of God as Father without One to support Him there — the living bread — it would be impossible.
We find as a rule that when He is spoken of as Son of God it refers to Him as Man, and when it is ‘the Son’ it is His eternal Sonship.
In Romans 8 you get the Spirit of sonship but no light as to what it is; you must go to Ephesians 1 for that, verses 3 - 6. There you get the truth of sonship, and at the end of the chapter you get union; full light as to sonship and full light as to the body. Romans 8 does not give you the true heavenly character of sonship — outside of earth entirely. A person in the experience of Romans 8 is a son, but it is one thing for that to be true, and quite another to get the import of it.
The sign of life in a believer is that he appropriates the death of Christ — that is the real proof of christianity. You could not appropriate the death if you had not the Spirit of life.
Ventnor, 1894.
1 John 3 The nature of a thing is what is characteristic of the thing, and you cannot talk of the nature being there until the thing itself is there. Take sugar: sweetness is what characterises sugar, its nature is sweetness, but [p. 233] you must have the sugar before you can have the sweetness.
The nature of the christian is that he is righteous even as He is righteous. The christian has not two natures; the flesh in him is like a foreign substance, it is not his nature. I may get a foreign substance in a lump of sugar, but that is not the nature of the sugar.
You cannot understand your relationship as a child of God unless you know there is One in that place before God who is there by personal right and title. If you take your place as a child of God you are bound to take your place with a rejected Christ (verse 1), “therefore the world knoweth us not because it knew him not”.
The Father gives you to the Son in order that the Son may bring you to the Father, and the Son reveals the Father’s name. There are three things: the Father’s gift — love — the Son gives the title to take the place, John 1:12; and in Romans 8 the Spill witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God,
Nothing can go wrong with the christian because he is the object of the Father’s love. I see the idea of righteousness in the burnt-offering; Christ’s object was God, and the principle on which He acted was that He acted towards man according to what the Father was towards Him, “As my Father hath loved me, so have I loved you”. Love in us is a consequence “We love him because he first loved us”. God loves because He is love; I cannot say God is righteousness God is love; righteousness is a necessary qualification of love with God. My first obligation is the children of God; righteousness with the christian is an obligation; he must act towards others as God has acted towards him. “Hereby perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us”, then the obligation “and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren”. The christian circle is the first obligation; those who have the first claim upon me, if I an [p. 234] walking in obedience, are the children of God. The christian circle comes first, and then the natural obligations. 1894.
2 Peter 2 What we get in Paul dispensationally we get in John morally. Paul gives us Jew, gentile, church of God; John gives us the children of God, the children of the devil and the world. I see these three classes in 1 John 3: I will tell you who I believe to be the children of the devil in this day; the scientific men of the day, the philosophers who reject revelation, who limit their knowledge of things to man’s mind, and reject what God has revealed, reject light from God. And this is sure to lower the practice and bring down the morals of man.
Then again Paul develops the truth of the church, the house and the body, while John gives you what is essential to it — eternal life. It is of no use to have the plan of a house, architecture, etc., without the substance!
1 Peter gives us Matthew 16, the assembly, living stones, etc.; 2 Peter gives us Matthew 17, the kingdom.
2 Peter 2:4 — “that ye may become partakers of the divine nature”; this is not new birth here. New birth alone does not make us partakers of the divine nature; you cannot reason about divine things in the same way you do natural things.
Verses 19, 20 — If we want to understand prophecy we must have a knowledge of Christ; we get at prophecy by Christ, not at Christ by prophecy; we must begin at the right end. You must make the New Testament your own before you can understand the Old. You understand prophecy in the light of the [p. 235] day. The day has dawned, the day-star has arisen in the christian’s heart, but the day itself has not yet come.
Ventnor, 1894.
Notes at a Reading Ephesians 2 Quickened — a moral condition — the word not used of Christ in this place.
Verse 7 — display to others of God’s satisfaction to have us in His own place.
Quickened is God’s side of it — new created is our side. First, new birth; second, enlightened by the gospel; third, Spirit is received; and then the formative work begins.
In the glorified body the Spirit will be the source, volition, etc., it is a spiritual body.
September, 1894.
Colossians 1:12, etc.
There are two lines of truth, viz., (1) God in Christ, and (2) the Father and the Son.
(1) Christ is the vessel of purpose as Man — His body displays Him — the Bride is the vessel in which the glory of God will be displayed; Revelation 21. Display is the thought.
(2) There are more blessed ideas here, viz., what the church is to God, what He secures for Himself — greater than outward display. Ephesians 1, sonship — to Himself. Here it is the line of the Father and the Son.
Verse 18 — the Son of His love is the Head of the body in this passage, because it is what we are to God — not display. ‘Son’ is the antecedent in the whole passage. See also Ephesians 1:4, the moral side of sonship is to know the Father’s love, to respond [p. 236] to it, crying Abba! Sonship takes in the whole church, it is not individual altogether. The whole system of divine affections is in this line of truth — we are loved as He is loved, etc.
Of course the two lines converge in the church.
Notes of a meeting at Hazelville, January 29th, 1895, to commend Mr. and Mrs. R. D. Edwards to the Lord. John 2: 9, 10 I only just want to say one word. I feel the gravity of an occasion like this especially in regard to one who has been distinctively in the place of the Lord’s servant, and if you consider what the result has been in the case of many such that married life has not been successful. That proves to me there must have been some defect.
I feel we have less prospect of prospering on natural grounds than most people. In the case of a servant of the Lord there is a paramount claim which must come before natural happiness. Married life may be very happy in regard to natural affections but we have less chance of being supported by it than people of the world.
I want to try to say one word as to what I have arrived at. If you take this instance, The wine ran out. That is what the natural things must come to. In the world people may greatly avoid it by what is artificial, but in divine things you cannot be maintained on that ground. Now Christ comes in and He acts in divine power and goodness and then they are bound to confess “Thou hast kept the good wine until now”. Divine things are on a ground of sure footing. There is no reason why marriage should be a failure — it is a course of things that may lead to good or to evil and I am sure every heart would earnestly desire that in the case of our beloved brother and sister it may lead to great good.
[p. 237] As has been said by others the wife must be content to merge her own individuality in her husband. When there is undue assertion of her own individuality on the part of the wife, it will not tend to happiness, and a very heavy responsibility devolves on the husband. The husband is to give character to the wife. You see it in the church. The church takes its character from Christ. Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it. What for? That He might give character to it. It has been said that even the appearance of the wife may change, so intimate is the relationship. The principle at all events is true. The husband should imprint a character upon the wife, but there is only one thing will do it and that is love, pure unselfish love. The church takes its character from Christ but it is because He loved it and gave Himself for it. That is what love will desire, to conform its object to itself. The husband (if things were ordered rightly) will imprint a character upon his wife; the wife is to merge her interests and individuality in subjection to her husband. It is of all moment that the heart of the husband should be kept right in the blessed light of the love of Christ. Nothing can go right except this is so. That is, you get the thing set upon its proper basis and it will not fail and it will be said, “Thou hast kept the good wine until now”. How can we thank God enough that Christ has brought these things on a divine basis. You cannot take them up artificially or naturally but only in the divine light of the revelation of Christ.
1 Corinthians 3 In these chapters all is God’s.
(1) THE WITNESS OF GOD — before which the things that then were have come to nought. The heathen, Roman power, and civilisation — and Judaism — have [p. 238] been overthrown by the preaching of the cross. God’s intervention here was Christ, the wisdom and the power of God. The cross sets forth man’s true condition before God, viz., under curse.
(2) THE WISDOM OF GOD in a mystery, viz., the one body — in which the absent Christ is reproduced (see Colossians — Christ in you the hope of glory — here, the Lord of glory). Chapter 2, verse 9, “Them that love him”, this brings in condition — the love of God.
(3) THE WORK OF GOD in the saints which results in the temple; verse 9, the work is God’s, He uses instruments but God makes all effective.
God is the source; verse 5, the Lord is the administrator, and there are the ministers — Paul, Apollos or others. Verse 11, what the foundation is morally is the knowledge of God — not mere doctrine, which may not be effective in the soul. It is God known in the heart of man and this is only effective by Jesus Christ.
There is a revelation of God in three ways, viz., death, resurrection, glory — not by creation nor by law. First, by death — Christ’s blood; God’s righteousness declared — Romans 3 — you can trust Him. Second, by resurrection; His power — Romans 4 — hence peace with God and hope in God. Third, Spirit given from glory — Romans 5 — from which we respond to God’s love. The effective principle in the soul is always the knowledge of God — the government of the world does not give the knowledge of His presence and power. The solid foundation in souls of knowledge of God is often lacking.
Verses 12, 13, the superstructure — gold, silver, etc. — is what could deliver the saints from present things, thus they might enter into the light of God’s revelation. Death must be accepted first, for deliverance from the course of things down here — viz., sin — which governs all. Accept it, for it lay upon us — I identify myself with Christ’s death in order to live into God; Romans 6.
[p. 239] Wood, hay, stubble: sacramentalism, ordinances, etc., what christians take up in common with what men in the flesh can take up — not spiritual.
The temple: each stone is living, reflects and radiates the glory of God, viz., the light of the revelation of Himself. Verse 17, corrupting the temple, is a subtle effort to corrupt christians by principles inconsistent with the revelation of God — to induce them to recognise the god of this world, to make associations with the world.
Streatham, 1896.
1 Corinthians 4 The place of the servants. In chapter 12 each member in the body has its function, none superior to others nor superfluous — there is no prominence of any member. In this chapter we have Christ in relation to the servants.
Chapters 1 and 2 — Christ in relation to God — crucified (1), wisdom (2). Chapters 3 and 4, Christ in relation to us as foundation (s), as to the servants (4).
Chapter 1 — Christ crucified. A wonderful testimony: true representation of man’s state in God’s eye and under sin and the curse — by One Himself perfect. God’s power, His intervention which subverts philosophy and Judaism — God’s wisdom, i.e., His resource. Satan has since brought in Mahometanism, rationalism and ritualism.
Chapter 2 — God introduces heavenly wisdom, the body of Christ to perpetuate Christ here — a new man, endued with the sensibilities of Christ Himself. Be here intelligently for the will of God in this day of ruin. The new man is inexplicable to the world. The moral conformity now, precedes the material conformity — Christ in you, the hope of glory.
[p. 240] Chapter 3 — God is the builder, Christ the foundation, the temple the climax — where God can dwell. The foundation is God revealed in Jesus Christ in suitability to Man’s state; Romans 3, Romans 4, Romans 5. The superstructure is Christ as what He is in God’s presence, Romans 6, Romans 7, Romans 8; 6, live unto God (i.e., the Father); 7, married to Christ; 8, in the Spilt.
Chapter 4 — from the servant, the saints take their character. There is what the servant is as well as what he says. Verse 4, not conscious of defect in his service, but we cannot estimate now a servant’s course — it is not the time for it. I am not entitled to exhort others beyond what I am or have done myself; the servant is to be the pattern of what he says.
The Corinthians wanted to make christianity a name in the world, thus falsifying it.
1896.
1 Corinthians 1, 1 Corinthians 2 — Christ presented in relation to God: (1) Christ crucified; (2) hidden wisdom. 1 Corinthians 3 — Christ presented in relation to us. 1 Corinthians 4 — The servant’s place.
In Chapter 1 — Christ crucified, One altogether for God’s glory — a perfect presentation of man’s real condition in God’s sight. John 3, ‘bitten’ — what had bitten Israel, represented before God, it could only be set forth in the Son of God. Here was God’s power, His intervention, His wisdom, His resource. Thus (1) to subvert Judaism and philosophy and (2) to introduce christianity. God meets us in the entire condemnation of the flesh and now by the gift of the Spirit we are led to expect everything — “the flesh profiteth nothing”.
In Chapter 2 — we see what God intended to introduce — the reference is to the introduction of the body of Christ: not Christ as He was, nor Christ as [p. 241] He will be: but Christ presented and expressed in His body. The new man — Colossians 3 — a body endowed with the sensibilities of Christ Himself. All the grace of Christ expressed. In order to be here intelligently for God, we must know God’s purpose. To walk about in a religious garb is a denial of all this: it is not needed for God, it could only be for man and to seek credit from man for what is outward rather than what is moral. The world is to see Christ morally and spiritually reproduced in the saints down here, “Christ in you, the hope of glory”. What is outward (in display) follows the moral.
In Chapter 3 — Jesus Christ is the foundation, God is the builder and planter. The temple of God is formed — the Spirit of God dwells among them. A builder employs servants, and a husbandman, men, but he is said to be the builder, etc. Jesus Christ is the foundation in the saints because in Him we have the revelation of God: righteousness (Romans 1), power (Romans 2), love (Romans 3). Then the superstructure has to be raised, i.e., what Christ is in the presence of God: this is by the knowledge of this revelation — the result is to make saints the temple of God, His shrine. Every stone suitable — the whole a suitable dwelling-place for God here. Woe be to the man who defiles the temple! The house becomes corrupt — the temple not so: is holy; Ephesians 2.
In Chapter 4 — the servant and his responsibility. Converts take their character from the servant — a person must be largely affected by the one who puts the truth before him. He judges of the effect of the truth by what he sees in the servant; 2 Timothy 3:10. There should be nothing in the servant inconsistent with the truth he brings. The Lord is the Judge here, not man: and the present time is not the time for judgment. “Every man have praise of God”, i.e., not man. None of us is competent to judge any servant. The servant is to be a pattern to all the saints. I am [p. 242] not entitled to exhort any to do a thing I have not done myself; “my ways as they are in Christ”, the apostle says. He had been the right and true expression of christianity before them. We cannot affect others save as we are under the power of the truth ourselves. The apostle was not on a pedestal here, though they make him so now, calling churches and cathedrals by his name!
Streatham, 1896.