THE ELEMENTS THAT MILITATE AGAINST THE FAMILY OF GOD
[p. 137] THE ELEMENTS THAT MILITATE AGAINST THE FAMILY OF GOD
John 1: 11 - 13; John 9: 35 - 38; John 11: 5
I wish to speak of the family of God as presented in this gospel and of the elements that militate against it; more particularly of the elements that militate against the ministry intended for its instruction and guidance and refreshment. In view of speaking of the latter I shall have to refer to other scriptures besides these three, but I thought of confining myself to these three as on the positive side of the subject and to refer to others as the address may require.
We shall find what intrudes in chapters 2 and 7. These negative features may be divided into natural relationships and religion as currently accepted in the world, and will be spoken of under those heads. The enemy is inveterately active to becloud and spoil the family of God. John has it in mind throughout; he was a suitable vessel unto the Lord for this purpose, one who valued affection, valued love. John pours contempt upon any system or person devoid of love. Judas is outstanding in this and John never fails to cite the Lord as knowing Judas. The Lord was never in the least degree unaware of Judas, who he was and what he was. No love is negative, but hatred is sure to be there along with such a condition. Before John proceeds very far in his gospel, he reaches the main point, namely the family. He speaks of the Lord in these early verses as no other scriptural writer speaks, establishing incontestably His deity and speaking of Him not simply as a phase of the Deity, but as a Person in it, One who is designated as God. The Word was God. And he pursues the thought as to the Lord here in flesh, saying, “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not”. The Person here in flesh was the Maker of the world. It did not know its Maker. What it must have been in the Lord’s mind in this relation is to be meditated upon, how He felt in regard to His own work. He was in the world, and it knew Him not; He made it, but it knew Him not.
And then, He came unto His own. There were those that were His own, involving the whole testimony rendered in regard to Israel. All the beautiful expressions and pleadings under the title Jehovah in the Old Testament come into this. He came unto His own and His own received Him not. That is how the matter stood.
And then the divine family, the family of God is introduced; they are marked off as receiving Christ. It may be there are some here who have not received Christ. “As many as received him, to them gave he the right to be children of God”. It is presented in this way: they received Him. It marks the family of God; it marks the members, that they receive Christ. And they are accorded the right, as it says, to be children of God. A right is something that is to be taken up and if God accords us a right He loves us to take it up. He has accorded those who have received Christ the right to be His children, and lest it might be in any way disparaged, for we are apt to belittle our greatest privileges, John says, “See what love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God”, 1 John 3: 1. All the dignities of heaven would bow to that, would recognise our rank. We are called; that is our rank here; we have the right to take the place. And then John shows that we believe on His name and that we have been born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. That is our lineage, it is indisputable. Lineage, birth, is greater than creation; we are the creatures of God, too, but birth is greater: we are born, as it says, of God. Our [p. 139] position therefore is indisputable. It is not adoption; children are not adopted, sons are adopted. The only son not adopted is Jesus; He is born. “Thou art my Son; I this day have begotten thee”, says Jehovah (Psalm 2: 7). He is unique in that as in many other ways. We have received the adoption, the sonship, but we are born children, and hence the peculiar kind of dignity attached to the family viewed in this way. Nature goes with it; the divine nature goes with it, that is, the family feeling and instinct and nature. So that you say that person has not only the right to be a child, he is called that, and he is that. The word ‘called’ does not mean that I am called into it, but I am addressed in that way and I am that. “Now are we children of God”, it says (1 John 3: 2).
Well, now I want to make this work out in the local setting, because that is how christianity becomes more tangible and concrete to us, especially if we are not travellers. It is what you see worked out in a company of believers in a locality. John works it out in chapters 9 to 12 and later in its general bearing, culminating in chapter 20. They were not called children there, but the brethren of Christ, the family thought. That thought runs through into eternity, dear brethren. “Go to my brethren”, says the Lord to Mary, “and say to them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God”. Those very words may be used, and will be used in the eternal state of things. Think of those words being used in eternity — “My Father and your Father”, “My God and your God”, “My brethren”. He will be the Firstborn amongst us, anointed with the oil of gladness above us as He is now, but still that is the setting, My Father, your Father, My God, your God. All that enters into John’s gospel, and I want to show how it works out locally; so chapter 9 takes up a man who is an outcast.
He is outside all worldly religion, not by his own [p. 140] act but by the act of that religion. The family cannot be developed in the accepted religions of this world. You may take that as an absolute truth; not that you may not get light, for there is light in religions professing Christian ground. Wherever doctrines of Christianity are held in any sense, even in a creed, there is light and God works in relation to that. Most of us, perhaps, would not be here tonight as we are, were it not that God operates in relation to those systems, but now we have nothing to do with them because they are not according to Scripture. But God is greater than all, greater than our unbelieving hearts, and He rises above all these incongruities and iniquities that exist in Christendom and operates in spite of them, as we see for instance in Moses and Aaron, who were at one time typical of lawlessness. Moses called the people of God rebels and he smote the rock contrary to divine command, and yet water flowed in spite of that. And so today in spite of man’s lawlessness, God is operating, and the water flows and the light shines and the Spirit operates and men are born again. That is going on all the time; but notwithstanding all that, you may accept as absolutely true that the family of God cannot be developed in a humanly organised worldly religion. Given all credit possible, it is absolutely true that there are no conditions for the development of the family of God in a humanly organised and humanly recognised religion. Hence this man was still among the Jews in Jerusalem in chapter 9. The Lord opened his eyes in Jerusalem. Many of us have had our eyes opened in these circumstances, but his faithful confession of Christ as a Man who had opened his eyes, led to his being cast out. And that is another absolute truth, that if, in any of these organised religions of the world, a believer is faithful to his light, he will be cast out. If he stayed there it must be a compromise between [p. 141] truth and evil; if I am loyal to the truth there can be no room for me there.
Now, the Lord heard it. These are great incidents in heaven, great items of news up there. When a man is cast out of a humanly organised religion for his defence of Christ, it is a signal matter in heaven.
It is put that way, that Jesus heard it. Heaven has got ears as well as eyes. Of course God is all-knowing, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and the Holy Spirit is here having first-hand knowledge of every transaction, small and great, and yet it is put that way, that Jesus heard it, and He moved according to what He heard and found that man. He is looking for such men; such men are of the greatest interest to heaven and as soon as the Lord hears of any He finds them.
He found this man as an outcast. Now the Lord says in effect, This is the kind of man that I can use in the family, he belongs to it. This is the beginning of a section that culminates in chapter 12 where the Lord comes deliberately to the town of Bethany six days before the passover; coming in relation to Lazarus and others of the family there. The subject begins here. That is, the Lord is seen as over the house. He had said in chapter 8 that the Son is over the house and that if the Son sets you free ye shall be really free.
Now this man is cast out, and the Lord says, ‘This is the man I want’. If there is one here tonight moved in any way by what I am saying, I would tell you the Lord is interested in you and He will move towards you and give you to understand there is a place in the family for you.
The first thing here is, “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” The Lord does not say, ‘Do you believe on Me?’ Volumes of truth are wrapped up in that question. The Son of God is to be believed on, and as you take that ground as the man did here,
[p. 142] the Lord will instruct you, and qualify you, educate you and furnish you so that you may be in the family, in holy liberty and dignity in the family of God.
And then chapter 11 brings before us that the members of this family are loved personally. They are loved as a family, but they are loved severally, a very precious thought.
First of all the sisters send to the Lord saying, “He whom thou lovest is sick”, and He loved that message. I am sure it was a delightful message that somebody knew that He loved somebody. How precious it is to know that you are loved personally by Jesus and others know that you are, and they tell Jesus that He loves you. “He whom thou lovest is sick”. And then we are told that “Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus”, so that there is no mistake about it. The sisters were right. They did not say to the Lord, ‘You love us three’, but, ‘You love somebody and that somebody is sick’. But the Spirit of God does not leave it at that but goes on to record that Jesus loved each member of the family. Table talk amongst us is very often unedifying, degrading indeed; this young sister or that is engaged, that is very interesting, and so on. But do you ever hear it said that the Lord loves that young sister? It is a beautiful word, that the Lord loves that person, and then again that she loves Him. That kind of a conversation is listened to in heaven; heaven can join in that. As it says, “They that feared Jehovah spoke often one to another” (Malachi 3: 16), it does not say what they said, but it does say the Lord hearkened and heard. He was pleased with what they said.
We might multiply suggestions of that kind so that the brethren might be more elevated in their table and supper talks, because the holy things ministered to us in these meetings are very often annulled by these talks and laughs and jokes. In order that it might be understood that these sisters were right, the [p. 143] Spirit of God says that the Lord not only loved Lazarus but the two sisters as well. That is the family; that is the family at least in the sense of its members in a locality. That is what is in view in this section. Something was to happen in this locality that should glorify the Son of God, that should glorify God, and this shining out of glory should be in relation to love already known and there, Christ’s love to these three. Love is the shining out of the divine glory.
The Lord remained away for two days deliberately and then He went to that town, and one of those sisters that was loved, heard that He was there and she went out to see Him. It was a great matter to her. She is the one that we should regard as the least spiritual of the three. The Spirit of God mentions her as the first of the three. Luke mentions her and leaves her grumbling with a rebuke from the Lord. But the rebuke was not for nothing, for John mentions her as a good sister, a lovable sister that the Lord Jesus could love. The Lord has a keen sense of lovableness. If Martha was loved in this way it was because she was lovable. His rebuke had been effective; she was a different woman now from what she was when the Lord entered her house first. This time she came to meet Him outside, but undoubtedly she was the least spiritual of the three, all facts considered. I am saying that because we are prone in our localities to attach undue importance to certain ones, and perhaps no importance at all to others; almost intimating that we would be just as well without them, a very sorrowful feeling to have.
Martha meets the Lord and she says certain things to Him and a conversation ensued of great importance, and it culminated in this, that Martha says, “Yea, Lord; I believe”. Like the man in chapter 9 who said, “Lord, I believe”, and worshipped Him, Martha says, “I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of [p. 144] God, who should come into the world”. The Lord said certain things to her and added, “Believest thou this?” and she says, “I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, who should come into the world”, and she left with that confession; it does not say she worshipped Him. She went and told her sister about the Lord. She says, ‘Mary, the Lord asks for you’. She does not pretend that the Lord was satisfied with meeting her, she says the Lord “calls thee”. There was not a bit of rivalry in Martha’s mind. But the Lord did not come to Mary. She was still sitting in the house. It looks as if she was the spiritual one in her own mind and she sat there.
We are not to rest too much on reputation; the sense of reputation is dangerous. I am not casting aspersions at this beautiful sister, for the Spirit of God exalts her, but she did not go to the Lord until He sent for her. It does not say the Lord told Martha to call her; it is as if the Spirit of God would say, ‘Martha is not an envious sister now at all’. She gives her sister to understand that she has a great place with Jesus and that He is calling for her. All that makes for beautiful local conditions. It is the members of the family making as much as possible of each other. But the Lord says, ‘I am not going to Mary’, and He remains in the place where Martha met Him, as much as to say Martha has established the great general principle of the locality and Mary has got to come here. If you follow what I am saying, it works out locally in brethren making as much as possible of each other, as members of one family, having the same status, all called children of God.
I need not go further into this well-known chapter, only to point out that in the next chapter the Lord comes again. He comes now into the locality in view of Lazarus; particularly in view of Lazarus, but not, of course, ignoring the family. It was a question of the family, and “there therefore they made him a supper”. You will observe the adverb of sequence, “therefore”, indicating that everything is working as it should work. Affections are free, light is governing the position and there is no rivalry in the family. You say, I have been in such a place and really it was delightful; everything was as it should be, one thing leading up to another and conditions such that divine principles and instincts operated perfectly, with the great and glorious result of the Lord Jesus being worshipped, worshipped in a higher way than the blind man worshipped Him. He is worshipped by a person in the family who sees that an opportunity has arrived, and seizes it, and in seizing it, acts in a most seemly way, having got what is just suitable for that particular opportunity. For the house of God is a place of opportunity; it is a living state of things, and a living state of things occasions opportunities, and if we are in accordance with the position we shall seize the opportunities and act rightly and in a seemly way, as Mary did here.
So we are told about Lazarus and then Martha and then about Mary, what she did. And in order to bring out more clearly that she is the one who did this, it says (chapter 11: 2), “It was that Mary, ...” and she is in mind in the whole narrative. Jesus is everything to her. She apprehends that He is going to die, and anoints Him in view of that and the house is filled with the odour of the ointment. Everyone there got the benefit of her action, that is the idea. The thought of the family is worked out in one member filling the whole house at a given point.
That is how it works out in a locality. Opportunities will offer and someone is ready. Watertight compartments are not suitable to the assembly of God. It is a living state of things and if I am ready to seize an opportunity I will fill the house, and this is the line on which things proceed.
[p. 146] We do not want to mar that, Judas marred it here, we do not wish to be in the company of Judas. He was the first one to break the silence, and what a voice! A wretched covetous critic of a worshipper of Jesus! That is how the matter stands. It is intrusion. Judas has committed the most abominable intrusion in an assembly meeting one can conceive of. Talking commercially in an assembly where Jesus is made much of and worshipped, where the house is filled with the odour — think of a man talking commercially at such a time!
I come back to the two points I made negatively. The first is the natural link. One is thankful as one moves about for the family links amongst the brethren.
You get them in every town where the saints are, and if we are to marry within our tribe it must be so. Such links are ordained of God, right in themselves, but at the same time they may become an intrusion. They may become material in the hands of the enemy to spoil the family of God, to rob us of our privileges as of that favoured family, and here in chapter 2 the mother of our Lord, the most honoured of women, is seen acting in this way. It was a marriage, a time which always calls forth these natural feelings, and they have to be watched against. She says, “They have no wine”. Now you might say that was seemly enough, but the Lord did not think so and I prefer to take His mind rather than listen to any other. He was very displeased about it. Some mother telling her son, who has a gift, to do this or that — the Lord does not like that. Some sister, some wife whose husband is supposed to be a leading man, urges him to assert himself — the Lord does not like that; and so one might multiply suggestions of this kind. If the Lord did not like it in His mother, He will not like it in your mother, wife, child or sister. And we do not want to displease the Lord. The Lord says to her, “Woman”. Some people would say that was [p. 147] very rude, that she was not doing anything out of the way, but if we think thus, it only means that we are not spiritual. The Lord Jesus, the Son of God, God manifest in flesh, He must determine everything.
And Mary came to that at once. “Whatever he may say to you, do”. She was adjustable. He had said, “What have I to do with thee, woman?” What a remarkable word that was in the mouth of the Son of God to His own mother after the flesh. We have to be spiritual to understand the force of that, and if the Lord felt in that way towards His own mother, you may depend He will feel exactly the same way towards you, or any mother who influences her son, or wife her husband, in relation to the things of God.
The next intrusion on the natural family line is in chapter 7, where we have the word “brethren”, the brethren of Christ. These relatives were unbelievers, for it says (verse 15), “neither did his brethren believe on him”. I have been speaking of one, a mother or sister or wife, in fellowship, but now we are dealing with relatives who are unbelievers, and their advice, of course, was worldly. They would say to a man of ability, ‘Why do you not go and make a show of yourself? Get to be known in town as a preacher’.
That is exactly what they said here: “Remove hence and go into Judaea, that thy disciples also may see thy works which thou doest; for no one does anything in secret and himself seeks to be known in public. If thou doest these things, manifest thyself to the world”. Any such suggestion is want of faith.
It is what has built up christendom, falsifying christianity and making a show of it in this world. The Lord says to them, “My time is not yet come”. The time of show is coming. We shall have show and dignity, and the world will see it. “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory”. But our time is not yet come. This time [p. 148] is marked by concealment, hiding as far as we are personally concerned. “Your time is alway ready”, the Lord says to them. The whole history of the world in every country makes room for this kind of thing — ‘make yourself prominent; be somebody’. And that is from persons who are related to us after the flesh, but they are unbelieving and we are not to trust them. They are instrumental in the enemy’s hands in flattering us and they become a snare to us. “Woe to the world because of offences!” the Lord says. It is that kind of thing that is in view, and we have to be on our guard against our relatives who are unbelievers. In Mark 3: 21 it is “relatives”, a more distant thought than brethren, and they go so far as to say the Lord Jesus is out of His mind. That shows how little you can trust a kinsman. Spiritually it is hopeless to expect anything of a man after the flesh even if he be your nearest kinsman.
Finally we have the religious element. In chapter 1 instead of persecuting John the baptist, the leaders in Jerusalem sent a message to honour him, as much as to say, ‘We are ready to take you on’. And they will, too. The leaders of the religions of this world are ready to take on christians, godly men; the more godly you are the more suitable you are, provided you recognise them. I have known of that — godly men drawn aside and becoming officers in worldly organisations. You ornament the world by doing that. The Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask John, “Who art thou?” That was a great honour in those days. It was as if the Archbishop of Canterbury sent a message, ‘Who are you?’ conveying to me that he is ready to honour me, being in a position to do it religiously. How flattering that is, how deceptive it is!
“And this is the witness of John”; it is as if the Spirit of God is delighted to write such a record of a true servant. It says, “He acknowledged and denied not”, as if to suggest that he was too great a man to fall to that; he is not going to be taken in that trap — flattery. It works ruin without a doubt.
So he confessed, “I am not the Christ”. He was a witness of Christ, that is his business; he is here in that relation. And then they say, “What then? Art thou Elias?” He says, “I am not”. If he had wanted to accept a little flattery he could have said truthfully, ‘Yes, I think I am Elias’. But he did not, he was a true servant, loyal to God who had called him into service. “He who sent me to baptise with water”. He was consciously a man sent from God. Flattery from the religious world is not good enough for a man sent from God; he will not accept religious honour. In verse 22, they say, “Who art thou?” “He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the path of the Lord, as said Esaias the prophet”. Is not that glorious? I think John the evangelist, under the influence of the Spirit of God, just loves to put forward this great servant, John the baptist. John does not record any failure marking him; he gives us the bright side. He tells us of John the baptist as passing out of this scene, that he said of Jesus, “He must increase, but I must decrease”. Jesus was all and in everything for him. That is John the baptist.
And so finally he says to them, “I baptise with water: but there standeth one among you, whom ye know not; he it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose”. These verses from 19 to 28 are the Spirit’s record of this great servant, how he refused to be moved in the slightest degree by religious flattery. He is the example for us in this gospel, the gospel for the family, that we should not come under religious influences or flattery of any kind, or we shall to that extent spoil the family.
May the Lord use the word to help all of us to [p. 150] maintain the family, that we may keep it clearly in view, and disallow all intrusion, all that casts a cloud upon it and hinders its working, its enjoyment and affections.