LIFE IN RELATION TO CHRIST'S WORD
LIFE IN RELATION TO CHRIST’S WORD
This chapter views life in relation to the word of Christ, involving intelligence in those who hear it. There is the word in the earlier part of the chapter and the voice, involving more the thought of relation with the Lord personally. These are two features of the chapter — the word and the voice. The word conveys the thoughts of the Person, and the voice is more the Person Himself. You know a person by his voice. Lazarus is an instance of one who heard His voice: he comes in in verse 28: “All who are in the tombs shall hear his voice”. I think he represents that state. Then in verse 25, “An hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that have heard shall live”, we have the present time really; when we are here in the flesh, not in Christ actually but in a moral sense. In both cases it is the voice. The person is presented in the voice. The word is more command, and thus you have intelligence. Those who have done evil, will hear His voice, too, which will involve His authority. The Person will be recognised, but not known in that intimate way; the demons even recognised Him. John in Revelation 1: 12, says, “I turned to see the voice that spake with me”. He sees the voice of the Person and it was needful, because there was power in it. The man who was raised up at the pool of Bethesda said, “He said to me, Take up thy bed, and walk”. What the Lord said conveyed His authority from God, and was the reason for the man walking; he was doing what he was told to do. Mary sat at His feet and heard His word, which conveyed His mind and involved that she had intelligence. That is the detail of it. Here it is more His [p. 349] authority as a man on earth, but as conveying His mind. Here, in the infirm man, the word comes first. I think the Lord is asserting the authority of God. The state of the man was deplorable, for so many years there, and he says, “I have not a man”, it alludes, no doubt, to the want of sympathy and compassion, he was unable to go into the pool himself. The five porches here would point to the weakness of the thing; it stands for the old covenant, which had certain advantages for man; and was marked by weakness and unprofitableness. It was named Bethesda, or ‘House of mercy’. It had its limitations, but was an expression of the mercy of God. The multitude there shows the ineffectiveness of the system: “In these lay a multitude of sick, blind, lame, withered, awaiting ...” The words “in these” pointed to the state of things. They were lying there with their diseases. I suppose that the blindness, the lameness and the withered condition, all show that it was the very opposite of life! The angel troubling the water had its part in the old dispensation. The law was ordained through angels in the hand of a mediator. Now we have a divine Person Himself here in Christ first, and secondly, in the Spirit. There is the difference here between an angel and a divine Person! Anyone can picture to himself the condition of these people lying in those porches waiting for the moving of the waters. The waters were not living themselves, nor did they suggest life. Had there been a law able to quicken, then righteousness would have been by law. It was only an angel’s touch that gave the waters movement, so that the position here was extremely weak: “Whoever therefore first went in after the troubling of the water became well, whatever disease he laboured under”. I think it is a type of modern christianity, where things are stagnant. There is little or no visitation, no quickening. The prayer book remained the same for three hundred [p. 350] years! You see the thing remains the same for century after century. There may be some angelic visitation, but that is all.
The sheep gate here makes way for chapter 10. The Shepherd was already here and the teaching leading up to chapter 10 is found in chapter 9. The Lord does not make anything of the gate in chapter 10. He, Himself, is the door; it is not like an entrance to the city, but to a flock. He presents Himself as the door. This impotent man is typically in life now but I think in a very initial sort of way. It is not spontaneous, but rather movement under command of the word. It is an important thing, however, for young christians that they do move. Further down the chapter you have the voice, and connected with that the Person brought to your attention. Chapter 4 is more the Spirit; here it is the Person Himself that comes to your aid. There is a suggestion of the righteous requirements of the law being fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit, in the man walking; he tells the Jews that he is moving at the word of command of the One that had healed him. But he did not know Him; this shows the importance of teaching, because you may bring the Lord into persecution, in not knowing Him. The man represents one in whom the work is not complete, who has got the gain of the word. And the Lord has left him as a test. He is not like the man of chapter 9, for there the works of God were manifest in him. It says, “After these things Jesus finds him”. That is, after he had tried to witness for Christ, and not knowing Him, had failed. The man in chapter 9 goes on to the knowledge of the Son of God. He is ready for it; this chapter shows how you may get benefit from Christ and yet come short in the knowledge of His Person. The Lord finds him in the temple. The man of chapter 9 does not go to the temple. If this man had confessed Christ, he [p. 351] would have been persecuted instead of Jesus. He does not go on to the knowledge of the Person, and so makes no real headway. It says, “After these things Jesus finds him in the temple, and said to him, Behold, thou art become well”. But instead of moving on spiritually the man went and told the Jews that it was Jesus that had made him well. And for these things the Jews sought to kill Him. But why did the man tell them? You do not want to go to those people because they are characteristically persecutors. It was in this sense that the angel said to the Magi that they were not to go to Herod. If the work of God had been normal in this man he would not have gone to the Jews. In telling the Jews he was more with them than with the Lord. It is like people getting blessing and going back to the religions of this world. It is a poor thing for one to receive blessing from the Lord and become an agent of persecution! The Lord does not speak disparagingly of this system; but the manner in which the Lord had wrought in him should have been an indication to him that he should leave it. He had lain at Bethesda for thirty-eight years, the number no doubt indicating the period of the Jews suffering under the government of God, and they would suffer more, under God, as a result of denying the word of Christ. The “something worse” has happened to them. The man becomes a type of those who gain from Christ outwardly but who suffer far more under the government of God, as a consequence. The man in chapter 9 shows how persecution becomes our deliverance; but this man here is a type of Christendom benefiting outwardly and yet coming in for worse things. The word of Christ was the word of God as far as it went. In fact the Father had wrought from the outset and the Son had wrought, and it was there for the benefit of the Jews. In verse 17 the Lord says, “My Father worketh hitherto and I work.
[p. 352] For this therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he had not only violated the sabbath, but also said that God was his own Father, making himself equal with God”. This was intended by the Lord to bring out His relation to the Father, that He was not only working here as vested with divine authority, but was working in relation to His Father. It was the Father and the Son working. The Father was not before known as the Father but here He is brought to light: “My Father worketh hitherto”. So you see that when the revelation is once made, you can go back to the Old Testament and apply the terms according to their present light. “My Father worketh hitherto” would be the works of grace in the Old Testament, as the clothing of Adam and Eve, for example. The miracle of healing might have been wrought upon one who was unregenerate. The work of God is equal to that. This was a sign like the others in John’s gospel; it is not a question of the person on whom the sign was wrought, but of there being a moral element in each of the cases. This man is introduced to bring out that the Jews themselves were subjects of the word. Indeed, I think that James in his epistle goes on these lines, that Christ had come in relatively to the nation and they were taken up in that light, so that James says, “Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only”. The Lord in saying to the man, “sin no more” calls attention to the danger the Jews were in, they were still in the position of sheep, but instead of appreciating grace, they, throughout the chapter, are His persecutors. It says of them, “wrath has come upon them to the uttermost”, 1 Thessalonians 2: 16. The man gets gain, but all his movements are in relation to the temple system, and the Jews. As a nation they came in for the benefits of the Lord’s presence amongst them but did not go on; but the door of mercy was opened up in Christ for the remnant. The “worse thing” would [p. 353] be judicial blindness which is seen at the end of chapter 9. The Lord gave the man an opportunity to find Him by going away, but instead of doing this, he goes to the temple and the Lord finds him. In the case of the man in chapter 9, He waited till they cast him out, and so lets the testing have its full course. This is a very solemn warning to christendom today, for it stands now in the same position as the Jew did then. It says in verse 18, “The Jews sought the more to kill him because he had not only violated the sabbath, but also said that God was his own Father, making himself equal with God”. So the truth is now before them, that God was His own Father and He is charged with making Himself equal with God. The Lord does not deny it, but “answered and said to them, Verily, verily, I say to you, The Son can do nothing of himself save whatever he sees the Father doing: for whatever things he does, these things also the Son does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all things which he himself does; and he will shew him greater works than these, that ye may wonder. For even as the Father raises up the dead and quickens them, thus the Son also quickens whom he will”. Now the truth is out — it is the Father and the Son working. It is God Himself here in grace. In verse 24 it says, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, that he that hears my word, and believes him that has sent me, has life eternal, and does not come into judgment, but is passed out of death into life”. Now you have the word stated fully. It is not hearing literally but hearing in the true sense of the word, and quickening morally follows. The truth of eternal life is on those lines. The Son is speaking and there are those who hear what He says. If there is a work of God going on, wherever it is, the Son will be heard. Verse 24 brings out the position clearly. The Lord is here speaking and where the work of God is He will be [p. 354] heard. It is a question of the mediatorial position of Christ. He is sent and everything that He is doing is done as the Father would do it. Everything that the Mediator does is what God would do. The Father raises up the dead and quickens, and the Son quickens whom He will, to bring out the principle in this chapter that the Son is equal with God. Quickening, I think, has to do with the whole being — you are made to live. Raising has reference to the position, whether actually in the grave or morally dead. The thought in quickening is what you are, but in raising it is where you are. The power of God puts you out of one position and brings you into another. The word of Christ and the voice of Christ are made effectual at the present time by the Spirit. If you have a divine Person here all is carried out through Him. The presence of the Holy Spirit here means actual intimacy with the state of things that exists. So that quickening today is by the action of the Spirit. Ministry may enhance it, but it is the definite act of God, as new birth is also. The valley of dry bones is an example of being made to live; breath goes into them; that is a type of the Spirit. It is typically God raising up Israel. Everything that is done, or is wrought, in the saints, is done by the Spirit. He does not speak from Himself; He is the great power for carrying on the work. What He hears He speaks. Whilst, of course, He is a divine Person, yet He is speaking what He hears. It is a remarkable example of unity of action. It does not say here that the Son raises the dead, because it is quickening that is more immediately before the Lord, that is more emphasised than raising the dead. I do not think that the Father raises the wicked dead. The Lord Himself was raised from among the dead by the glory of the Father. It was delightful to the Father to do it. We shall be raised similarly. But as regards the raising of the wicked dead it is the Son that does it.
[p. 355] The raising in Ephesians 2: 6, is not our being raised out of the grave, but rather elevation. In Colossians our being raised is before quickening. In Ephesians 2 it refers to exaltation or elevation; we are raised together. We are made to live before we are raised. The being raised is change of position. Ephesians anticipates the rapture, we are raised or caught up after we are taken out of the grave. It says here, “All who are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall go forth”. It may be said that the wicked dead come forth and they do, but in what power we do not know. They that have done good come forth in the power of life. So that the idea of power is in the Person, power to raise out of the grave. Quickening comes in, not in regard of the dead literally in the tombs, but of those dead morally. “An hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that have heard shall live”. It refers to ourselves, or to persons, who have heard the voice of the Son of God. We must distinguish between His word and His voice. The word denotes intelligence as to His mind but, as in verse 25, the voice implies the Person. So that you have a type before you as being made to live. You are living in relation to the One who quickened. I think we are made to see the relation of the word to the quickening. It involves intelligence and the voice involves His Person. We are not said to be quickened in Romans but in Colossians and in Ephesians. It is an advanced thing that is dealt with. It is when you begin to apprehend the voice of the Son of God and it applies to us here in this world. With regard to the valley of dry bones, it is figurative, and alludes to the Jews, where they now are, grovelling in their commercial pursuits. When the Lord comes to take His saints to glory the question will follow of their being raised. There is no question there of quickening in resurrection. The voice refers to the [p. 356] bringing of the saints out of their graves. The Lord’s voice also raises the wicked dead; they will prove the authority in it; and will know that they have to do with the Son of God, but we know His voice in love; as those morally dead we hear His voice and live. The wicked dead will hear it by and by, but we hear it now in the way of life. The man in chapter 9 goes on to the knowledge of the Person so that he worships Him.