DO YOU BELIEVE?
[p. 385] DO YOU BELIEVE?
It was on my mind to say a word about the greatness of what we profess to believe, and what is designated, and rightly so, by Christians as Christianity. I just wish to call attention to it, by the Lord’s help, in a general way. The subject is great, but I venture to speak of it, for one is conscious in one’s own experience, and in observing the Lord’s people, that there is a very poor apprehension of the magnitude of Christianity. The place that human greatness has with us, among other things, proves that we are not alive to the magnitude of Christianity, and the place that we have before God in it.
I apprehend that the apostle John was specially qualified, and was assigned the task of writing about it, of presenting it in such a way that it should be impressed, in its true proportion, upon the hearts of the people of God. John writes his gospel in a peculiarly humble spirit; he avoids referring to himself, as having any official capacity, but as one whom Jesus loved. He is referred to in that way, one whom the Lord had, so to speak, kept in His quiver, a polished shaft for His use. The Lord had kept John, so to speak, hidden; and there is no safe hiding place for any of us except in the love of Christ. It is there that one is secure, and the more one knows the flesh and its capabilities, the more one desires to be there; for unless one is there one is exposed to the influences that govern this world. Hence the importance of being humbly hidden in the love of Christ. John was so in the good of the position that he could ask the Lord questions; he found out things from the Lord, so that he is the one of all others, who employs the words we know that is to say, he knew. He was not uncertain as to the things he ministered.
John begins: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”, John 1: 1. In this infinitely important statement the evangelist is calling attention to the Deity of Christ; but not only this, he is also calling attention to the fact that He was with God; for Christianity in its true power and moral bearing is marked as having originated with God. It is also added here, “the same was in the beginning with God”. And then he goes on to say, “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John”; the one who is to bear witness to the Light has also been with God. Notice, it is “sent from”, not by, God. But immediately the evangelist says, “he was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light”. It was “that all men through him might believe”. And then he goes on to say, “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”, verse 18. It is not now what He was, or where He was, but where He is. The declaration is in One who is in the bosom of the Father; you will see therefore how the Spirit links up all with God. So John says further, “we have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only begotten with a father”. This glory was seen, contemplated, by the disciples as He dwelt among them. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”. He became flesh; a wonderful fact! He came so near that the disciples contemplated His glory; they had that opportunity and they seized it. What glory they saw in Him! He was full of grace and truth. He was seen thus as with the Father.
Christianity has come to light in that One, and John says in his epistle, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and [p. 387] bear witness, and show into you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us”, 1 John 1: 1, 2. The apostles, who were the instruments through whom this wonderful testimony has come to us, were themselves with the Father and with the Son. Their fellowship was with the Father and the Son. That is how John presents the truth to us; and it is to impress us with the fact that the One through whom Christianity has been effected, is a divine Person, and also that He was “with God”, and “with the Father”. The gospel makes much of Jesus having come from God, and that He was sent by God; the two things are to be kept distinct, and, where God wrought in the soul, this was recognised. Nicodemus says, “We know that thou art a teacher come from God; for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him”, John 3: 2. And so it is, throughout the gospel.
John develops another point, which hangs on this. He presents to us the Lord, in the end of chapter 3, as the Son, into whose hand all things are given by the Father. He says, “The Father loveth the Son”; the Son is the object of the Father’s love, and in this way He communicated to Him all things. Now, that would be administration in the hand of the Son; God gives all into His hand, hence the boundlessness of the gift that flows from this; that is to say, the living water. “God giveth not the Spirit by measure”. That is a wonderful thought and it involves Christianity. How one feels the smallness of one’s own faith and affections! In dispensing what we may have in the way of stewardship, we are to be governed by the manner of God’s giving. The Lord says to the woman of Sychar, “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water”; and that would become in her “a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life”. That is limitless. One might see a fountain springing up into a lake, but it would be bounded; but everlasting life is unbounded; the water gushes up, it leads my soul, my affections, into a domain that is not bounded by time.
Then in chapter 7 this same water is received by the believer. What have I received? Chapter 4 is God’s gift, chapter 7 is what I receive; that is to say, it refers to my capacity, for I only receive according to my capacity, but the capacity is not regarded as limited. Faith that is formed by the Spirit in the believer is in keeping with what is presented of God in Christ, so that “out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”. That is a limitless thought, it does not say how many rivers. In the garden of Eden there were four, but in John 7 the number is not given, and it suggests to us the magnitude of what has come in; but mark, it is in the believer. “He that believeth on me”, says the Lord. This is what I am coming to: first, whether one does believe at all; and secondly, what one believes. In John 7 it is the believer in Christ. If the Lord had said: ‘Out of Me shall flow rivers’, it would be more understandable, but it is said of one who believes on Him. What a Person Christ is! And see what the Christian is! “Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”. Christianity subjectively is in keeping with what formed it objectively. Chapter 4 is objective; it is what God gives; chapter 7 is what those who have faith receive. Receiving is implied, of course, in chapter 4, but I am speaking of what is emphasised in both chapters. In the passage I read, the Lord says, “Do ye now believe”? It is a simple question; I listen to it, and I ask myself What do I believe? We use the word believe very freely and rightly, I [p. 389] suppose; but there are believers and believers in Scripture. The disciples were believers as a class, and yet it is said in this gospel, “This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him”, John 2: 11. They were already believers as a class, but their belief was in a small measure; hence, “he manifested forth his glory”; obviously, that His disciples should believe on Him.
Now I want to say a word about chapter 13 of this gospel. The Lord saw the position; it says, “Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God”. He was conscious at that moment that He was going to the Father. Now, mark, it is not simply that He came out from God, but He also went to God. He was going out of the world to the Father. Jesus has gone out of the world, and I would remind everyone here that He is not in it; and He has not only gone out, but He has gone out of the world to the Father; that is, in His own personal dignity, as a Man. It involves the perfectness of His testimony and work, under the Father’s eye. In this world there was not the slightest discrepancy in His service, He did always those things that pleased the Father, so He went out of the world to the Father. The idea is as to what is personal in His service, and so “having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end”, John 13: 1. That goes with the perfection of His manhood under God’s eye. He went to the Father as the High Priest, for He had the saints in His heart. He did the Father’s works, made the Father known, and then went to the Father. He returned to the One from whom He came. Christ is the “Yea” and the “Amen”. He is the “Yea” coming down, and the “Amen” going up. He says, “I have glorified thee on the earth; I have completed [p. 390] the work which thou gavest me that I should do it; and now glorify me”, John 17: 4. It was due to Him, so He has gone to the Father.
Jesus came “from God”, He was conscious of it, and in the consciousness of that infinite dignity, He lays aside His garments and washes the feet of His disciples. That is Christianity expressed; it is Christianity in the way in which it is to show itself among the brethren. Christianity is expressed in those who are dignified; let us not mistake that word. The Lord, knowing His dignity, not as Mary’s Son now, but that He came from God, He lays aside His garments; in the greatness of His Person He is great enough to do the most menial things. That is Christianity, in this sense. It is only those who are great who can take the low place, and smallness publicly is a great thing in Christianity. It is only one who is consciously dignified that can serve others; the service does not detract from the greatness, it is part of it. This is one of the great features of the Christianity which we all profess to treasure.
The Lord says, in John 16, “Do ye now believe?” This is brought in, not exactly as questioning their faith, but rather as accepting what they said. Now, I want to read verse 27 of that chapter. “For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God”. That is one thought, they believed that He came out from God. Then He says: “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world; again, I leave [p. 391] the world, and go to the Father”. The Lord is there bringing home to His disciples the great facts attaching to His position here, as Man upon the earth: “I came forth from the Father”. He is impressing it upon them, as He would bring it to our attention at this present moment, in order that we might believe. “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world; again, I leave the world, and go to the Father”. That was for the disciples, and it is for us to understand, dear brethren. They answer, “Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now are we sure that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee: by this we believe that thou camest forth from God”. They arrive at that by the plainness of His declaration. I would love to convey to every heart here, the plainness and force of these wondrous words from Christ. He leaves the world and goes back to the Father. Who is there that is lingering in the world, or that has hopes built up in connection with it? Jesus has left it. Let us accept that fact. He has left it, hence, all the hopes of those who love Him are with Him up there. Think of Him, coming into the world from the Father, and going out of the world to the Father. Jesus is with the Father; that is where He is now. I am not speaking of His official place, for that is not the thought John is presenting. He is presenting to us where Jesus is. He is with the Father, as having come into the world, and as having left it. They say, “Now we are sure that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee: by this we believe that thou camest forth from God”. Jesus answered them, “Do ye now believe”? As I said, it is not exactly questioning as to what they believed, but rather to confirm them in what they had said, as one would tonight, for we all take the ground of believing. One would impress upon everyone here the import of what he professes to believe; often we speak of divine things to one another and to God, but do we believe them? God knows what is going on in our hearts, whether we mean what we say or not. He searches the heart. If I look up and speak to God, He is looking into my heart, and searches it; hence the great importance of reality in what we say. Do we believe what we say? Is it [p. 392] light in our souls, and are we affected by it? Or, are we simply uttering forms of truth that we have heard others utter?
Christianity is a system of faith; and so I turn to John’s epistle. He says, “this is the victory which has gotten the victory over the world, our faith”, 1 John 5: 4. No other system of religion has the victory over the world. Christianity is a system of faith in God, it is not simply my individual faith, but the doctrine or system of truth that Christianity involves, which is held in faith in the souls of God’s people. With this in view, the Lord took great pains at the beginning to bring about in His people, in His disciples, a state of faith. In spite of what He had demonstrated before them in His ministry, they were still unbelieving when He died; they had hard hearts. During the forty days He laboured in order to bring about a state of faith in them, and He succeeded, blessed be His name! Hence, in sending down His Spirit, He sent it to a company that had faith. The Holy Spirit having come, the apostles set out a system of truth which they, and those who believed through their word, held in faith. It is said that those who believed “continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine”, Acts 2: 42. There was in this way, so far, the “unity of faith”, and what was thus brought about in the power of the Spirit, superseded the law. It was “the faith”; a blessed system of truth delivered by the Lord through His apostles in the power of the Spirit, and held by faith in the people of God. It was entirely outside of, and independent of the world. It was thus victory over the world.
The apostle Paul laboured that those from among the Gentiles that believed should be brought into the truth: “until we all arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, at the full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ”, Ephesians 4: 13. That is the object in the gifts given by Christ as ascended, and so this faith, that is said to have gotten the victory over the world, is to be made good to you and me; the question is therefore, are we in it? Or, am I holding one thing, and you another? The principle in Christianity is unity. Do we hold the same thing and speak the same thing? It is true, alas! that differences arise; but this is not from the Holy Spirit in us, but from the flesh. If differences exist they are the outcome of the will; the Holy Spirit would dispense with that and bring us into the unity of the faith. There can be no greater falsification of the truth than to assume that it needs, in any way, the support of men, or the principles of the world. The faith is itself a victory over the world; it is indeed, we may say, founded on the condemnation of the world. The Holy Spirit is here to support the truth, and He supports it by maintaining it in the souls of God’s people through faith. From the day of Pentecost until now it has been thus maintained, and it will be maintained until the end.
This brings in the individual side, hence John further says, “who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God”? 1 John 5: 15. I have the greatest comfort in this, that the truth stands. The point for me is, am I going to stand with it? “We can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth”, 2 Corinthians 13: 8. It stands like a rock against every assault. The question is therefore, am I standing with it? “Who is he that overcometh the world?” One overcomes the world in the knowledge that Jesus is the Son of God. Further statements in this chapter (1 John 5) amplify what I am saying, and help us as to the bearing of it. Mark the “we knows” of this chapter.
Finally he says: “We know that the Son of [p. 394] God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true; and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life”. Have you got that? I ask the question as to whether each one has the understanding that Christ gives. He has given us an understanding, that we might know Him that is true. That brings in another thought, that we are to know the Lord as true. He never deviated one iota in His path. “He that is holy, He that is true”, Revelation 3: 7. And then it says, “we are in him that is true”. That is our status. It is wonderful to think that we are taken account of as in Him that is true. It is a great power in the soul to retire into this. The passage further says, “This is the true God, and eternal life”. He is thus before my soul as an object for my affections, and I worship Him. My status is, that I am in Him that is true; the understanding I have through Him enables me to see this. And, secondly, I see Him as the true God and eternal life.
The subject is very large, but I would go back to the question, “Do ye now believe?” The question is, What do the saints believe really? What you believe thus is what affects you.
May the Lord bless His word!