LIVING WATER
[p. 219] LIVING WATER
John 4: 10 - 14; John 7: 37 - 39
We have to recognise that there is nothing for God save what is in the Spirit. In the Old Testament man in the flesh was recognised; he was being tested, and in that way was recognised. But all that order of things connected with man in the flesh was terminated in the cross, and now there is nothing for God outside the Spirit of God. “Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit”, could not have been said until the Spirit of God came. The outward circumcision in the flesh was only figurative; the real circumcision is that we come to see that “the flesh profiteth nothing”, and have no confidence in it.
Last time we were together we had faith before us. It is important to apprehend that we are justified in Christ, and not in ourselves; and if we are justified in Christ we must live in Christ, and we live in virtue of having received His Spirit. Justification cannot be in ourselves, we are not our own righteousness; we are justified in a Head, and Christ is our righteousness. The witness that our liabilities are met is not in ourselves; it is in Christ, and therefore our justification is in Him. He “was raised again for our justification”. This is a point on which many are defective. Justification is that you are clear of liabilities — of all that lay upon you. The actual expression “justified in Christ” occurs in Galatians 2: 17 (New Trans.). “Justified by faith” means that you are justified on that principle. “Justified in Christ” is in contrast to being justified by works of law, for if you were justified on that ground you would be justified in yourself.
The one who is justified in Christ has to go down into the water of death. Baptism in its significance is the acceptance of death, identification with Christ in His death; the person immersed is being identified with the [p. 220] death of Christ, and that means our death. We get justification in Christ; then we get the water of death, which is an end of us; and then we are to reckon ourselves alive to God in that Man. But there is a great reality about that, for we get the Spirit of that Man, and we have to walk by the Spirit of Christ. If our justification is in Christ, we must die, we must go down into the water of death. Death removes us, so that we may count ourselves alive in Him. Christ was not delivered up for us that we might go free, but that we might accept death. The common idea of a substitute is that one takes your place and you go free, but this does not give the true thought. Christ died not only to clear us of what lay on us, but that we might accept death, and so count ourselves alive in another Man.
The succession of the chapters in Romans is very interesting. In chapter 4 we have the acceptance of the testimony; in. chapter 5 we are justified in another Man in the eye of God; but in chapter 6 it is a question of how things are to be right on our side. God cannot sanction the continuance of what has been removed in the death of Christ. It was impossible for Christ to bear what lay upon man without removing the man. Christ was both the Victim and the Priest. The Victim was a sacrifice, and devoted, and never revived in that character. Man’s liabilities involved death, and all came to an end in the end of ‘the life to which sin attached’, as Mr. Darby said. What has come to an end in the death of Christ cannot survive in me. Romans 6 follows close on chapter 5. In chapter 5 we learn the mind of God towards us in grace, but if we accept that we must also accept chapter 6. We have to accept that “our old man is crucified with him”. Life must be in the One in whom we are justified. We have to come into living relation with God; it is really “justification of life”.
The difficulty is that people do not want to break with things down here. If you are going to account yourself “dead indeed unto sin”, then everything around is sin,
[p. 221] and it calls for your breaking with the entire course of things here. People live practically in what is exterior to them; a man lives in business, or in art, or in pleasure, or in his family. Men’s tastes lie in different directions, but they fail to see that all the things here are sin because all is away from God. A man has to “hate” them all, even the home circle; that is the Lord’s word at any rate. The point of that is that I cannot approve in others what I disapprove in myself. What I “hate” in myself I must “hate” in others morally. All that people are in the flesh (even in father, mother, sister, etc.), I hate in them as I hate it in myself. There is to be a moral hatred of all that is of the flesh, whether it be in myself or in others. It is in that sense that we are to hate “father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also” (Luke 14: 26).
When we come to Romans 8 the point is that you are to be in living relation to God. The truth is that you must live in the One by whom your liabilities have been borne. This is by the Spirit. “The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4: 54). The One who in John 3 is “lifted up” to meet all the liabilities which lay upon us is the One who in chapter 4 imparts living water.
The divine way is that we live in a Head; we get this at the end of Romans 5. When the head, Adam, fell, all reaped the consequences of it; death passed upon all men. Now Christ is brought in by God as Head; He has met the liabilities that we may live in Him. Baptism comes in morally between righteousness and the Spirit. Baptism is that we are identified with the death of Christ, but this is in order that we may live unto God as accounting ourselves alive to Him in Christ Jesus. Romans 6 is essentially practical and it is the foundation of liberty. There is a living God, and a moral universe, and righteousness is the law of that universe. If people [p. 222] do not accept this they will not be governed by the Spirit, nor will they make progress in divine things. The one who believes has the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Spirit; all beyond that is a question of the work of the Spirit.
Ques What is “complete in him”? (Colossians 2: 10).
If I were a reading man, and had a good library, I might be able to say, ‘I do not need to consult other libraries, my own is perfectly complete’. The force of being “complete in him” is that you lack nothing; all light and revelation is in Christ, and you do not need to turn anywhere else. This completeness was presented to the Colossians that they might be prevented from turning to other sources, philosophy and the like.
The “living God” is a frequent expression in Scripture. A dead world cannot be in relation to the living God. What is living in man in regard of God is Christ, and we come to Him, the “living stone”, and then we are living stones. The Spirit is life subjectively in us. But it all comes back to our living in the One who has met our liabilities. It is Christ who lives in relation to the living God, and all who live to God must live in Him. The church is the church of the living God.
Ques Is there not advance in John 7 on chapter 4?
In chapter 4 it is Christ come down, but in chapter 7 it is Christ gone up; the latter is connected with the apprehension of Christ glorified. In chapter 4 it is God who gives; the living water is the gift of God. It is God coming down in divine goodness and grace close to man in order to communicate living water to man; but in chapter 7 it is connected with the apprehension of Man glorified.
The living water springs up, and the effect is to form us anew according to Christ. We must live in the One by whom our liabilities have been met. In chapter 7 we get an apprehension of the acceptance in which Man is in glory, or as it is put in Hebrews, Man “crowned with glory and honour”, and in the sense of that out of [p. 223] our belly flow rivers of living water. To get a sense of this wondrous acceptance is like the great supper (Luke 14), and the Spirit of God leads you from the house to the sanctuary; the sanctuary is God Himself. The Spirit springs up to eternal life; the springing up is moral; the living energy within brings about in us conformity to what Christ is in righteousness and holiness, and that in order that we may be brought to association with Christ. Every christian forms part of the house because he has the Spirit, and the Spirit works to lead to the sanctuary.
Rivers flowing out is testimony, the result of having a sense of the place that man has with God. The Man in glory supersedes every other man; He is worthy to be at the right hand of God, and when we see Him we have done with man here, from the worst to the best. Man is in acceptance with God in the highest way, and He has eclipsed every other man. That Man glorified God and accomplished righteousness in a scene where all was contrary to God; now He is received with acclamation at the right hand of God. In view of that the glory of man looks like tinsel. Now we are connected with that Man, we have received the Spirit from that Man. I decline to put any honour on man here, be it the best or the worst, because I am delighted with that Man. The effect of seeing that Man comes out in Stephen; his face shone like an angel; it tells in the face and not merely in speaking or preaching. If we are not in John 4 we shall not appreciate John 7. We need the practical setting aside of all that man is down here; we need to get free of the man that was removed in Christ’s death, and we get free by being conformed to Christ morally.
The feast of tabernacles was connected with Christ coming in glory, but we get now what is connected with Christ in glory, and thus rivers of living water flow out. We get by the Spirit what surpasses the feast of tabernacles. John 5 and 6 give the conditions of life; we could not understand life spiritually and its conditions [p. 224] apart from those chapters.
I do not think we sufficiently apprehend what has been set forth in the death of Christ. The Victim is gone, and we must go, and that in order that we may live in the One who is risen. No one can live now for God in the order which Christ has ended. Where are we to live? It must be in the One who is risen, and that brings in a Man of another order. I doubt if we appreciate the meaning of the cross, and what it meant for God. The grace of God came in to meet all the judgment that lay on us, and that judgment was death, and therefore the man is removed, he goes in death. Nothing stands in relation to the living God morally save what is living, hence the importance of living water. Christ is the Son of the living God, and there is the church of the living God; saints are now living stones.