THREE DAYS
It is very interesting to notice the difference between the testimony of John the Baptist in John’s Gospel, and his testimony in the other Gospels. The testimony is quite distinct, and is of a different character. In Matthew 3 we have his testimony as regards Jesus: he indicates Him to be the King. John was the greatest of all the prophets, because he pointed out the Person of whom the other prophets had spoken. While it was a wonderful thing to speak of Him as Isaiah, David, and others had done, it was still more wonderful to point Him out as the Person of whom they had spoken. But in the Gospel of John he is on other ground: he comes to bear witness of the Light, that all men might believe: to bear witness of the One who coming after him yet was before him - the Son of God.
My intention is to speak of three ways in which John the Baptist bears witness to the Lord: and in these three testimonies I think I see three distinct periods in the history of every soul that gets blessing from God. I shall call these three periods three days, because in verse 29 we have “the next day”, and again in verse 35. I do not at all refer to the third day of chapter 2: 1, for I am not taking up the scripture in the way of interpretation, but only in order to give it an application to our souls.
Now the first day for the soul is in verse 7: “The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe”. Light is for every man, rich or poor. Alas! men love the darkness because their deeds are evil. You may escape the light now, but the day is coming when you will not be able to do so. The first day when God begins to work in a soul is when light comes in. There is a certain analogy between the work of God in the new creation and that in the old creation. “The earth was without form, and void: and darkness was upon the face of the deep”. God commenced to work, and on the first day God says, “Let there be light; and there was light”. And that is the first action of God with a soul - to bring light in. The first effect of light is to expose. You cannot get blessing from God without exposure, though there may be different measures of it. Light makes manifest. It you are an unconverted person, I will tell you what God must do before you are saved: He must search you. All through John's Gospel we see two things going hand in hand, exposure and disclosure - man exposed and God made known. When people came to Jesus, the first thing they found out was that He was light, and then that they were sinners. You hear people say that God is love. Quite true, but God is also light. You can only learn the love in the light. The light that exposes you discloses what God is; thank God for that! And let me say this to you Christians: You can only realise divine love in the light. We have our natural thoughts of love, but God's thoughts are not as our thoughts. These things cannot be divorced; it is in the light you learn the love.
Take chapter 3. There was a man named Nicodemus: he came to Jesus by night. His religion made him ashamed to come by day. He came to the Son of God - the Light, and the first thing the Lord says to him is, “Ye must be born again”. That is exposure. If the Lord had said, You have done things you ought not, he would have admitted it, I dare say. But the statement goes deeper than that, as John's Gospel always does. I think that is why men hate it as they do. If any section of scripture is hated, it is this Gospel, and the reason is because you get the deepest exposure. “Ye must be born again”; a sentence often on our lips, but how little do we understand its deep meaning! It is not reformation that will meet the case, but being born anew. That is exposure.
Nicodemus did not understand it; and the Lord gives him that beautiful figure of the brazen serpent, “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up”, v 14. What for? “That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life”. He then goes on to say, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son”. That is disclosure. The exposure is: “Ye must be born again”.
Take chapter 4. It is not here a religious sinner, but a poor immoral woman. She comes to the well to draw water, and finds Jesus sitting there, and He is so gracious to her. He who is over all, God blessed for ever, sits there a weary man. He stoops to ask a drink of her! What grace! He will turn on the light directly, but first He will weave a web around her to make her stay in the light. “Give me to drink”, v 7. Think of the Son of God asking a drink of such a woman as this! “If thou knewest the gift of God”, &c., verses 10-14. What is that? Disclosure. Does she see it? Not a bit, and why? She has not been exposed yet. She must learn the beauty of those words in the light which exposes her. You cannot understand anything till you have been in the light. “Go, call thy husband”. Now He is about to put the light on. She says, “I have no husband”. “Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband”. He pours the light in, but she does not run away. If He had said this at the first, she would have been driven away. He has won her heart by His grace; but she learns what grace is in the light. There is disclosure, but there is also exposure. She comes into the light, and then she gets the blessing, and when He is discovered to her as the Christ, she goes her way into the city and says to the men, “Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did; is not this the Christ?” If you will come to Him, He will tell you all things that ever you did. All things that ever you did! You, a wretched sinner! Yes, I have been exposed, but He has discovered Himself to me. Exposure and disclosure, they go hand in hand together.
Would you like Christ to tell you all that ever you did? You would not like the dearest friend on earth to know all you have been doing; but Jesus knows it. It is a real moment in your history when you are exposed. The first action of light is to distress. Have you ever been distressed? Did you hear of the naval manoeuvres off the Irish coast a few years ago? If so, you will have heard about the electric searchlight. You can imagine one of those huge ironclads brought up alongside the coast. It is so dark you can scarcely see the length of the ship. Orders are given to turn on the searchlight, and in a moment not the smallest thing on that vessel but is seen under its blaze. Ah, dear friends, it is a great moment in the soul when God puts on His searchlight. He is going to put it on full blaze one day. The day is coming when He will expose everything, but it is a great thing to be exposed now.
I now come to John 8. The last verse of chapter 7 says: “Every man went unto his own house”. Chapter 8: 1: “Jesus went unto the mount of Olives”. They all had their homes to go to: the people went home to sleep; Jesus went to the mount of Olives to pray, and early in the morning was found in the temple. And they brought a woman to Him, a terribly bad woman, and set her in His presence; they say: Here she is. Moses says she ought to be stoned; what sayest Thou? “Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground”. He was Jehovah who wrote the law. They are quoting the law to the One who wrote it. “When they continued asking him, he lifted up himself”; and now He puts on the searchlight: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her”. John Bradford saw a poor man going to execution, and exclaimed, “There goes John Bradford but for the grace of God”. That showed that he had been under the searchlight. Now look at those Pharisees. They went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last. They went out to their prayers, they went out to their religion, but they went out in the dark. Religious darkness is the worst of all. Then He says to the woman, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more”.
I now come to the second day in the soul’s history. “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world”. What does that mean? That the One who is the Light has come down to put away all that the light exposes. The One who is the Light is also the Lamb. He takes away the sin of the world - not sins, but sin; it is a deeper thing. It is sin as God sees it, as God knows it. The Lamb has come to remove it from before God, to settle for ever that great sin question. Do you remember Genesis 22? “Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac ... and offer him ... for a burnt offering”, v 2. “And they went both of them together”. Precious words! Twice repeated in the chapter. I should like to write over the Gospel of John: “they went both of them together”. Isaac said to Abraham, “where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” And Abraham replied, “God will provide himself a lamb”. And when he was about to take the life of his son, God arrested his hand, and he looked behind him and saw a ram caught in a thicket. “Behind”. I like that word. The provision was made before sin came into the world. As that little hymn says:-
My soul looks back to see
The burden Thou didst bear.
The One foreordained before the foundation of the world is pointed out by John as come to take away the sin of the world. It is not dispensational here. Light is for everybody; the Lamb is for every one. Light is universal: the aspect is towards all. It is not the Jewish lamb: it is God's Lamb.
It is very remarkable that John the Baptist should so witness. He indicates Him here as the One come to remove what the light exposes. The One who came to expose our sin has died on Calvary's cross to put it away. Have you the sense in your soul that that blessed Person has for ever settled the question of your sin and your sins? If not, look away to Him and you will know it is settled. God will not raise the question of sin with His people. He has raised it and settled it, and on the ground of what we have here, God will bring in the new heavens and the new earth. He will erect on the solid basis of this verse that glorious superstructure which nothing can shake. And I, a little atom in it - I rest there. There is not a thing about me, not a discovery I can make, that His cross has not met. We look back and see the Lamb in eternity, saying, “Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God” (Ps 40: 7, 8), and we look on and see that Lamb in the midst of the throne. He could, as it were, put His hand on the volume of the book and say, I have done it.
On the cross He met all the claims of the throne of God, and God has found satisfaction in the blood of the Lamb, and He is there now in the midst of the throne, a Lamb as it had been slain. The throne that was against our sins is for us now; it is a throne of grace. “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world”. It is peace to see Him there, in the midst of the throne, “a Lamb as it had been slain”, Rev 5: 6. Peace is this, that everything about you unsuitable to God has been met in the death of Christ. The Light-bearer is the Sin-bearer. With what holy delight do we contemplate it! “And the Lamb is the light thereof”, Rev 21: 23. You could not bear the light if the Lamb were not the light thereof.
There are two things in the second day - sin put away and the Holy Ghost given. Verse 33: “The same is he which baptiseth with the Holy Ghost”, v 38. That would make a subject in itself. The moment you rest your soul on the work of Christ the Holy Ghost is given to dwell in you. Just as in the case of the leper the oil was put on the right ear, the right thumb, and the right toe; but the blood was first put there. What was the oil a type of? The Holy Ghost. We have been anointed with the Holy Ghost in order that we may enter into all these things.
There are two things, then, in connection with this day the putting away of sin, and the baptising with the Holy Ghost. I can look up and thank God that Christ has borne everything for me; everything unsuitable to God is removed in His death; in other words, I am trusting in His blood, and if this be so, I have the Holy Ghost. “Ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father”, Rom 8: 15. “God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father”, Gal 4: 6. There are many blessed truths that come out in connection with the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Now we come to the third day: “The next day after John stood, and two of his disciples; and looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God!” He does not say anything about what He is going to do, or what He is going to give; he is looking on Him, beholding Him. I think, if I understand this scripture aright, John the Baptist is gazing upon Jesus, his heart filled with delight, and those two men are near enough to hear his breathings as he says, “Behold the Lamb of God!” He presents Him as an object for their hearts. In the second day you get salvation and the Spirit; in the third day you get satisfaction. The One who has saved you can satisfy you. That is what God proposes to do for us, to make our hearts deeply satisfied with Him who is the Fountain of Life. Do you not think that the One who is going to fill your heart with satisfaction and joy for ever is competent to satisfy your heart now? It is not what He does, it is not what He gives, but what He is. Have you ever had a taste of it? God would have us to know more deeply ‘What soon shall be our part’. God desires it should be our part now. If I knew it better I should be able to speak of it better.
The second day’s testimony had no practical effect so far as we can see; there was no attaching and detaching connected with that; but the moment you get the third day's testimony they leave John and follow Jesus. True ministry does two things: it brings the conscience into the presence of God and it entwines the heart around the Person of Christ. You can always judge true ministry thus. It is not that the mind is interested, that you have some new thoughts, but that your conscience is brought into the presence of God, and your heart is attached to Christ.
They left John and followed Jesus. They have a new object and a new centre. What a wonderful thing that we can have the same object before us now that we shall have in heaven! The Lord turns and sees them following. What is so sweet here is that we learn that He will encourage the least desire to know Him better.
You may say, I am a poor thing; often my heart has wandered; but it is moved by this scripture, and I want to know Him better. The Spirit of God will be with you in that desire. He is as true to Christ as the needle to the pole, and you have power too, the capacity to enter into the third day, because you have the Holy Ghost in you. And now, as they follow Jesus, He turns and says, “What seek ye?” They immediately say, “Rabbi … where dwellest thou?”
If that be your question to-night, Where dwellest Thou? Much that hinders will be discovered to you of which you are not conscious now. In Canticles the bridegroom says, “let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice”, SofS 2: 14. Immediately the bride says, “Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines”. She is made conscious of these the moment he draws her into communion. A little thing hinders communion. “Take us the foxes”; not that we can find them, but the Lord will put His finger upon them and show us what hinders.
Another thing is, If you take up this question, “where dwellest thou?” you must learn His cross. He says, “Come and see”. You will have to leave earth to find heaven. Is that difficult to you? You say, I understand I shall have to leave earth to have heaven when I die. That is not it; but in spirit you leave earth to have heaven now. I believe that is what the Lord indicates to us here.
“They came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him that day: for it was about the tenth hour”. They abode with Him the whole day, and “they came and saw”. This is the key to the whole gospel. “Where dwellest thou?” “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”, v 18. He dwells in the bosom of the Father. “Come and see”, He says. Do you know what it is to dwell there? There is a reality about that. He never left the bosom of the Father, the Father's affections6. It is a condition, not a position.
John says (John 1: 14), “and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father”. They beheld Him as the object of the Father's heart. Then in his first epistle John says, “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ”, 1 John 1: 3. And again, “these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full”. What is a full cup for the Christian? To abide in the love of the Son and of the Father. Very often we get trials, and we may say, like the little hymn, “Blest be the sorrow, kind the storm, that drives us nearer home”. No storm did that for Jesus. He was always in the Father's love, and He is saying to you, “Come and see”. We see in verses 41, 42 that the dwellers are the finders, and the satisfied ones are the servers. The Lord grant that we may be there, coming out in our little way and saying, “Come and see”. The woman of chapter 4 could say, “Come and see”. The Lord grant that we may know this third day better, this abiding with the Father and the Son, that our joy may be full.
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