THE TWO VOLUMES IN JOHN'S GOSPEL

THE TWO VOLUMES IN JOHN’S GOSPEL

I think it is of the greatest importance to hold to the truth committed to the church, as Paul exhorts Timothy, “Thou hast fully known my doctrine” (2 Timothy 3: 10) - the gospel and the church. The gospel comprises all Christ has ^[p. 486] done for us; the church or assembly all He has made us for Himself. If you do not know the first, you cannot be in the truth of the second. Even in John you get the gospel, I may say, from chapter 3 to nearly the end of chapter 10, which I call the first volume; and from chapter 13 to 17 you are taught His grace in fitting you for Himself here during His absence. I do not see that any one could enter into chapter 13 but a lover of Christ. He is going away; Do you miss Him? Do you desire to have part with Him where He is? Do you seek to be for Him here? This is the second volume.

You will derive much help from studying John’s gospel. I feel that some are painfully dark as to the church or assembly - what it is to Christ; and also as to the judgment on the sinner. You would hardly think that these two apparently different subjects could be so intimately connected. The body of Christ is His complement, derived from Himself. We are members of His body. You do not understand the mystery - the church which is His body - if you do not see that “As is the heavenly [Man], such are they also that are heavenly” (1 Corinthians 15: 48). You must apprehend the second Man, but you cannot do so, unless you see that the first man has been totally removed judicially - that is, in the cross of Christ. The present judgment on every sinner (every unconverted soul) is death, not only is there guilt as a sinner, but there is the weight of death on him, which cannot be removed but by death. So if he dies before he is relieved - ransomed, he is eternally lost. Now our blessed Lord judicially ended the first man in the cross, and He so glorified God under the judgment, that He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. In Him the first man under judgment has been historically ended, and He has risen from the dead, the last Adam. If you do not see the old man crucified, you cannot be fully relieved of the weight that is on you, and you do not fully enjoy the gospel; you have not travelled in faith through the ^[p. 487] Red Sea to the other side, literally, through the death of Christ into the bright day of the resurrection. And if you have not come to the spot of unspeakable joy where you are in the favour of God, you are not able or ready to accept that you are a member of His body - “all of one”. That He has fully cleared you of all that lay upon you, and set you in the presence of God to His infinite satisfaction, is the gospel; and that you are a member of the body of Him who has effected all this for you is the “mystery of the gospel” - the church.