ATTRACTION TO CHRIST IN ETERNAL RELATIONS
[p. 72] ATTRACTION TO CHRIST IN ETERNAL RELATIONS
John 1: 35 - 39; John 6: 66 - 69; John 9: 35 - 38; John 20: 15 - 19
I have it before me this evening to speak about the Lord Jesus in His personal touch with us. I have read from John because he presents Him in His eternal relations. In order to apprehend the Lord personally and in His personal attractiveness we need to apprehend Him in His eternal relations. That is to say, we need to apprehend Him as at home. John having in view that those who believe on Christ shall be brought into eternal relations, eternal living conditions.
I need not remark that I take a most blessed subject, believing that the Lord and the sympathy of the brethren will help, so that He should become known to us in His eternal relations; for I hope to show that in the scriptures read we have persons attracted to Him, and that the attraction had an inward and upward bearing.
You all remember how that David on taking Zion built round the citadel inwardly. David is a type of Christ in the sense in which I hope to present Him at the present time. He is a type of Christ as personally attractive, and so he has gained an entrance into hearts; that is really what the taking of Zion in one sense means, the hearts of God’s people taken up in relation to His eternal purpose. A wonderful conception. God takes our hearts up in relation to His eternal thoughts, and in order that He should have these hearts He comes out in the Son, who is, as seen in that relation, unofficially but personally attractive; so that David as he appears first in Samuel is said to have been ruddy, meaning that he was full of life. Then he is said to have been beautiful-eyed and [p. 73] of a lovely countenance (see 1 Samuel 16: 12, and note). That is the description given of him by the Spirit of God, and so his name is given for the first time in Samuel as he is anointed, his name meaning ‘Beloved’, as if the Holy Spirit were to say, ‘Beloved!’ as he appeared here. And so he became attractive; hence we have the description of him that was given by a young man who came into contact with him and admired him, and who, speaking to Saul in words of intelligent appreciation, describes David as “skilled in playing, and ... a valiant man, and a man of war, and skilled in speech, and of good presence, and Jehovah is with him”, 1 Samuel 16: 18.
You see thus what Jehovah had in this remarkable type of Christ, and so in the epistle to the Hebrews, the first chapter of which is full of the Person of Christ, after the Holy Spirit in a few brief sentences shows that the Son had come in, and that it was the Son, and that this One was the effulgence of the divine glory, the expression of His substance, and that He upheld all things by the word of His power, and that after He made purification of sins He sat down at the right hand of the Greatness on high — after these things are said, conveying in majestic language the Person, the Speaker, the Spirit of God, brings forward the estimation of the saints, what they had to say about Him; and so the citations which follow in quick order in that chapter are from the Psalms, as if God were to honour His people by allowing them to convey in their appreciation of Christ the greatness of His Person.
Is it imagination, beloved, to say that some day we shall be called upon to give an account of Christ, as the feminine speaker in the Canticles is called upon to give an account of Christ? What account shall we be able to give? In the epistle to the Hebrews, the Spirit of God cites saint after saint, as I may say, to establish the glory and beauty of the Person of [p. 74] Christ. Should we not emulate these saints of old? Should we be behind those who spoke of Him anticipatively? Surely not. The divine intent is that He should be known personally in His eternal relations, that if any of us are enquired of in that day in those eternal courts about Him, we shall be able to give a true account.
“Who shall declare his generation?” There is the question. “His life is taken from the earth”. You will not find it in the annals of this world. No historian or biographer of this world can declare the generation of Christ, only those who have come to know Him, because He is out of view of this world, for His life was taken from the earth. Those of us who apprehend Him taken from this earth and gone into heaven, those of us who know Him now, those of us who know Him according to this gospel, shall be able to give some account of His generation.
The so-called synoptic gospels present Christ not as in His eternal setting: they present Him as come in to effect a certain thought of God in regard of what existed on earth before. In other words, to speak in a general way, these three synoptic gospels present Him officially. In Matthew He comes into prominence as the Son of David and the Son of Abraham. That is not an eternal setting. In Mark, while it is true that He is the Son of God, as expressed at the beginning of the gospel, “Beginning of the glad tidings of Jesus Christ, Son of God”, it is Christ in relation to what existed before, namely the service of God. In Luke we have Him in relation to man who had been on earth for thousands of years, so that Luke connects Him with what existed before here upon earth: He is the Son of man; that is not an eternal setting. True enough, the Son of man is in heaven, and the Son of man ascends up where He was before.
But when we come to John we have the eternal [p. 75] relationship. How one approaches it with diffidence! The sense one has of the need of the support of the Spirit to deal with it is difficult to express. And yet, beloved, that relationship is there, and it is of all moment that the saints should understand it. Things are written in regard of Him that man would not have written. Only the Holy Spirit could write them, and so we do well indeed to approach the subject humbly and yet confidently, for it is for us. As I said, beloved, it is the Son, and what I wish to dwell upon is what the saints in this gospel see, those saints who are singled out as having come into personal contact with Him, as having been personally attracted, so that it may not seem beyond any of us.
First we have John the baptist. True indeed that the writer of the gospel refers to himself and others in saying, “We have contemplated his glory”, but John the baptist is the first person presented who was personally affected by, and personally attracted to, Christ. He it is indeed who is the first to declare in this gospel that “this is the Son of God”. I say these things so that you may see that they are not beyond us, and so the baptist says “I knew him not”. As John the baptist did not know Him by natural means, no man or woman on earth can know Him by natural means. He was related to Him, he was contemporary with Him in childhood, and yet he says “I knew him not”. Of course he knew Him as his relative, the child of Mary and Joseph, but he knew Him not, nor do any of us know Him on natural lines.
He is beyond the range of the cleverest or the shrewdest, or the most experienced man or woman upon earth. They may write about Him — sometimes in a patronising way — but, O, they do not know Him. They are writing in the dark as if they were speaking or writing in their sleep. He is beyond their range.
John says, “I knew him not; but he who sent me to baptise with water, he said to me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and abiding on him, he it is who baptises with the Holy Spirit”. And what does John say? What designation does he give Him? Does he refer to ‘the Baptiser with the Holy Spirit’? No. He says, “I have seen and borne witness that this is the Son of God”. He had knowledge of Him by spiritual means. What we find is that John designates Him as the Son of God. He had in him spiritual ability to name what he saw, and that is what is so essential — to be able to give a right name to what we see spiritually.
And so it is that John the baptist introduces to us the Son of God from his own personal appreciation of Him. “I saw”, he says, “and bare record that this is the Son of God”. And so the knowledge of Him as such is within our range. I do not say that there was the inward effect or the upward effect, for John belonged officially to a past dispensation. “A little one in the kingdom of the heavens is greater than he” (Matthew 11: 11), according to Christ’s own words, for the reason among other things that such has access within and above.
The two disciples who heard John say “Behold the Lamb of God” followed Him. We now arrive at the first movement after Christ according to this gospel. It is a movement which began with the words of one who had given Christ the title of the Son of God. Were they likely to stop short? No, beloved, and so the Lord says to them as He saw them following, “What seek ye?” He would bring out what they had in their souls, and so He will ever. All divine questions put to us thus are to bring out what may be of God in us, however little.
They did not say that they sought the Son of God; they spoke according to their measure. “Rabbi” — He was a teacher known to them — “where abidest thou?” You see the inner bearing. And so it is ever. We learn in the full light of christianity that the first movement is towards Christ as the great attractive Centre as presented by John. “Where abidest thou?” The bearing was inward. As I said, David built inward, securing the hearts of his people. The Lord leads inward. The movement is inward and upward.
And as He says, “In that day” — what day? The day of the Spirit, the present day. “In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father”, John 14: 20. You see it is an inward movement, an inward thought. “I am in my Father”. The idea is really suggested in this chapter — the bosom of the Father. The bosom is an inward suggestion. And so the only-begotten Son was in it. As I may say, He came into it — not that He was ever left of the Father. “Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world”, John 17: 24. But as here in right of His own Person, in right of His attractiveness, His beauty in the eye of the Father, He had a place in that domain.
And so John had a place in His bosom. The Lord says, “In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me”; that is the present time, it is all inward. We have a place in His bosom, and then we come out in testimony. Coming out in testimony is coloured and characterised by what is within, and so He adds, “and I in you”. Our hearts are the centre. He found a place in them, and so He is here in testimony but the place He is in now is known to us. He is in the Father, and we are in Him.
As I said, these two disciples enquired of Him; they wanted to know Him at home. Think of the vastness of the thought that lies behind it. But what they knew not then they knew afterwards. That is the principal point. They knew afterwards where He abode, and it is for us to know. “They abode with him that day. It was about the tenth hour”.
[p. 78] Well, now, I want to go on to Peter. As I was saying, the drift of this gospel is inward and upward, the result being to fit us in mind and heart and affection for Him for eternity. That is what is in view. And so passing over Nicodemus who was deeply interested in Christ, and passing over the woman of Samaria, I come to Peter. One might show the same thing from each of those mentioned, but time would not admit going into every one. I take Peter.
There was a drift away from Christ. Many of His disciples went away back and walked no more with Him. What a spectacle for heaven — that such a blessed Object, such an attractive Object, attractive in every way, should be left! Is there anyone here with any thought of going away back from Christ? One has known of such, alas! And so the Lord challenges them, “Will ye also go away?” I only want to bring out, beloved, how the attractiveness of Christ and those who came into special touch with Him, have an inward bearing. And Peter says, “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast words of life eternal”.
Words of life eternal! They do not belong to that which is without. You will not get any such words in the newspaper, nor in current literature, nor in current oratory. These words are not discussed in the athenaeums of the world: these words belong to another world. Words of eternal life. The Lord Jesus had them, and He has them. They are living words, they are not in a book but in a Person, words which He has to speak to any interested one. Think of words of everlasting life!
We have scientific books about animal life. Every species in the animal kingdom is discussed with the minutest detail by men called scientists; we have vegetable life also discussed. Who is able to discuss eternal life? What is any other life compared with [p. 79] eternal life? And there are the words of it. Words are the means of conveying the thing so that it should be understood. These are outside of science so-called: they are in the realm of spiritual knowledge, knowledge which remains when every scientific book under heaven shall have gone into oblivion, never to be mentioned in the world again — never.
The classics: what are they? So much rubbish, in the light of the words of everlasting life. Men may boast in them and be utterly ignorant of one syllable of the words of everlasting life. Peter heard these words. They had an inward bearing. They attracted him to Christ. He says, ‘You have got them’. Then when he says, “We have believed and known that thou art the holy one of God”, that is an inward thought. That thought has no place whatsoever in this world. The word, to be sure, is in every dictionary, but the thing is not anywhere in the world. It lies in the spiritual.
There is no holiness according to God outside of the work of God, in the souls of men and women, and only those in whom that work is know anything about holiness, know anything about the Holy One of God, for He is the Holy One of God. Not a holy One, but the Holy One. There is one glorious Person essentially holy. Peter apprehended that there was a minister of the sanctuary, and One in whom was infinite holiness. He who came out from God and was going unto God, according to chapter 20. He could go in in the right of His own Person; He goes into the infinite holiness of God; He is the Holy One of God.
Think of having such an One, as the epistle to the Hebrews sets out, for really what the epistle to the Hebrews develops is an extension of what Peter says here, with reference to the One who has “set himself down on the right hand of the greatness on high”. Such a high priest! Think of the glorious Personage there, and He is there in infinite holiness. He has [p. 80] made a way for us inwardly, and we have boldness for entering the holiest. It is in the apprehension of the Holy One who has made us holy, and so I go on to the man in chapter 9, a man with a remarkable history that the works of God should be manifested. The Lord heard that they had cast him out. We have had the words of eternal life, and the Holy One of God, and the next one who is attracted to Christ acquires a knowledge of Him as the Son of God. John the baptist found that out, but he did not belong to our dispensation. I am speaking of those who enter into our own dispensation. And so the Lord heard that they had cast him out. You may be an outcast from the world, but an outcast from the Christian circle is another thing, a terrible thing. To be an outcast from the world for Christ’s sake is a glorious thing. For the confession of Christ this man was an outcast, and Christ was an outcast — two outcasts together. The Lord wanted company, and when He heard that he was an outcast He found him. And so He finds the outcasts, for He is an outcast Himself and He knows the heart of an outcast. He is looking for all outcasts in the world at the present moment. If you are an outcast from the world He will find you. He found him, it says, and having found him He says, “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?”
A wonderful question. And the answer — “And who is he, Lord, that I may believe on him?” He was ready for it. The Lord knew what was in his heart. He was ready for the question, and he answered, “And who is he, Lord, that I may believe on him?” He says, “Thou hast ... seen him”. How oft it is that christians see the Lord in His dealings with them. In this case he had seen Him. His eyes are opened by the Lord. He went and washed, and came seeing. He had seen Him. And then the Lord says, “He that speaks with thee is he”. You see He is forming a link with this outcast,
[p. 81] a link of dignity. He is making him acquainted with the greatest Personage in the universe, and that is what He is at now — that we should all become acquainted with Him in His eternal setting. His eternal relationships. That is what He was at with this outcast — to bring him into the light of Himself in His eternal relationships, for He intended to take this man with Him into eternity.
That is what He intends for every one of us, to take us with Him into eternal blessing. And so the man says, “I believe, Lord”. And he worshipped Him. May we not see that the beauty of holiness is the trend of the gospel? That Holy One is before you: worship Him in holiness. The Lord goes on to disclose that He is the shepherd of the sheep, saying that there shall be one flock and one shepherd, and then He says, “I am the good Shepherd; and I know those that are mine, and am known of those that are mine, as the Father knows me and I know the Father”, John 10: 14, 15. Think of it. What an inward bearing it has — the knowledge that the sheep are known and known as the Father knew Him and He knew the Father. That kind of knowledge, beloved, the Son of God has brought into this world; it is utterly beyond the range of man. Think of being possessed of that knowledge. The Holy Spirit has spoken there, and the bearing is inward. It is the way of knowing divine Persons. Marvellous thing! Such is the instruction which is opened up to us in relation to persons who are attracted to Christ.
Now I go on to Mary Magdalene, because she is really the climax of this instruction. She stands out as truly attracted to the Lord. John makes much of her. Mary of Bethany disappears at the beginning of chapter 12. Mary Magdalene stands out prominently in John’s gospel as attracted to Christ. She stood without at the sepulchre weeping. The whole world was a sepulchre to her, a graveyard to her.
[p. 82] The One she loved had died, the Object of her affection was gone. She is the vessel that He will use in this great inward and upward trend of His ministry and influence. She thinks He is the gardener. Her mind was on a low level although she loved Him, like the minds of many who love Him, thinking Him to be the gardener. He calls her by name. He has great things to disclose. He intends to use her for this inward and upward instruction. He says, “Mary”, and she knows Him.
She rightly owns Him as Master, but that is not an eternal relationship. He has greater things for her than that. He would lead her and all those who hear her into the light of our eternal relationships. I hope these words will enable us to know that we are to be brought into eternal relationships with the Lord. And so He says, “Touch me not”. What seems to be rude and unfeeling has blessing in it. It is no love at all to withhold from people the best there is; that is a false love. The Lord intended the very best for this woman. He says “Touch me not”. He rigidly refused any link with her. He says, “I have not yet ascended to my Father”. He was about to ascend. “Go to my brethren and say to them, I ascend”. It is the character of the thing here; it is not historic. We have no historic account of His ascension in John. It is the character of the thing; it is the One who does it, the One who ascends, it is the Person.
How He would draw the heart after Him as He goes up! “Go to my brethren and say to them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God”. You see the upward trend of the thing, to carry her away from the garden and the sepulchre into an eternal region. And so He says, “Go to my brethren”. And she went to the disciples and told them she had seen the Lord and that He had said these things to her. I need not say that she [p. 83] did not teach them; it was simply a message she carried that He had said these things to her, but they were wonderful things. They were things which Peter and John and the others could take up and formulate into doctrine, and they have been formulated into doctrine, built into men’s souls, and have stood the test of time. Such were in this simple message, this profound message, this message of eternity, as I may call it, sent by Christ through a woman to His disciples.
And now they are gathered together. They have got the idea; they are within and the doors are shut. The thing is received into their souls. The doors are shut. What is inside those doors? The principle of eternity is inside those doors. Now I am not using simple words. What I am saying I know, beloved, if you will believe me, that what is inside those doors is a spiritual realm, and the spiritual realm is eternity. It is open to us, it is available to us. The trend of the teaching is inward and upward, and the taught are inside. They have received the message, they are inside, and the doors are shut, meaning, I apprehend, that their hearts are shut from all that is without, especially current religion.
When the Lord comes in it is a spiritual matter, and He says, “Peace be unto you”. We have now the company, the result of the teaching; we have them within and Jesus with them. These persons are companions for Him, such as He can regard as His brethren in that eternal home. It is a marvellous thing, and it is presented in such simple fashion — the apprehension of Christ presented to us in persons like ourselves so that it should be within the range of every one of us — brothers and sisters. May the Lord bless the word.