DIVINE TEACHING AND ITS END
[p. 377] DIVINE TEACHING AND ITS END
Address by F.E.R.
1 John 4: 1 - 21 It is interesting to notice the way in which the Spirit of God leads the saints into the thought and mind of God. God is continually bringing before the minds of His people His thought about them; and the work of the Spirit is to lead them into the reality of His thought. We have the perfect expression in Christ of His thought about us. There is the perfect setting forth in Him of God’s pleasure in regard to the saints. In that sense Christ is objectively the truth. The Spirit is the Spirit of truth, but we learn our title to everything in our apprehension of it in Christ. There is nothing set forth in Christ as Man to which the saints are not entitled, because He is the expression of God’s mind in regard to them. The death of Christ indicates God’s mind and attitude toward all men; but in the resurrection of Christ is presented His mind and pleasure in regard to believers. For instance, justification is set forth in the resurrection of Christ; that is His mind in regard to believers. So, too, we are risen with Christ by the faith of the operation of God that raised Him from the dead. That is, “risen with Christ” is God’s mind in regard to believers; and so I might go on. Eternal life is the expression of His pleasure in Christ risen; and so, too, is sonship, “Ye are all the sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus”. There is a full setting forth of God’s pleasure in regard to His people in Christ risen from the dead, and this must be learnt in Him.
The death and resurrection of Christ are the great study of the saints, the death of Christ as setting forth what God is Himself, the declaration of Himself in righteousness, and holiness, and love; while His [p. 378] pleasure in regard to His people is set forth in Christ risen again from the dead. He is the beginning. “The second Man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly”.
The point to which the apostle is leading the saints in this epistle is the consciousness of eternal life. This comes out at the close of the epistle; chapter 5: 18 - 20. The statements there mean that you have reached, by what the apostle has presented through the epistle, the point where it has pleased God to place eternal life, and that is in His Son. “He is the true God and eternal life”. I will give you the steps leading up to it in a moment, for there are these steps through the epistle, but it is of great moment to see to what end the Spirit of God is leading.
The epistle begins with christian fellowship. Fellowship is the common outward bond in which saints are bound together. Brought into the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin. That is the platform on which we are together as christians in the world. We participate in common in the light; that is the thought of fellowship; it is in a sense partnership. “And the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin”. You are clear from imputation of sin. John brings in the blood here because the point is fellowship, and fellowship is connected with our responsible place down here.
In the second chapter we have the stages of spiritual progress marked, and the apostle brings to light the snares to which certain classes are more particularly exposed. He speaks of the saints as fathers and young men and little children, and you get what marks each. Each is different, but each right in its place. There are [p. 379] different stages of spiritual experience which must always exist, just as fellowship, as in the first chapter, must always exist. It may be limited, but it must always exist; and there is always a basis for fellowship, since we are in the light as God is in the light; so too there must always be different measures of spiritual progress, and that comes out in the second chapter. And there are dangers which are peculiar to different stages; the danger to the babes is hardly the danger to the young men.
The babes were exposed to danger from bad doctrine, but the young men are strong and the word of God abides in them. It is not bad doctrine but the world that is the danger to them, and so the apostle says, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world”. If you look for vigour and stability in regard to the doctrine, you will find it in the young men, but even to the young men the world may be a snare. A time may come when by the grace of God we judge the whole world system, but that does not always come very quickly. Many christians are sound enough, like the two and a half tribes, in regard to doctrine, but are liable to be snared by the world or by association. That is a common snare to the people of God and keeps them from entering into the promised land. The thought of God is that we should enter into the land of His purpose and anything that keeps us out of the land is a snare. Like the subtlety of Balaam in regard to the children of Israel, through the daughters of Moab, which tended to hinder their going into the land of God’s purpose.
What marks the fathers is that they had judged the world system in the light of the death of Christ, according to the word of the Lord, “Now is the judgement of this world”. They had come to this, to know “him that is from the beginning”. They had nothing before them but Christ; He was the point of departure in the ways of God. He was the beginning and they knew the outset of God’s ways connected with life; for though there had been ways of God antecedent to the coming of Christ, yet the real point of departure in connection with life was Christ. He is the One who is from the beginning or outset of the question of life. The Lord says, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly”. The fathers had come to that point. It is of great importance to see that, in regard to life, Christ is the starting point. God’s dispensational ways began with Abraham, but until Christ there was promise, law, and prophets; but as to life, the point of departure is the One who is from the beginning. The expression “From the beginning” is of frequent occurrence in the writings of John; it is a moral expression, rather than a point of time.
In the third chapter the Spirit of God brings in the place of saints as children before God. “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God”. This accords with what, in the first chapter of John’s gospel, is noted consequent on the rejection of Christ. “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God”. Christ gave them title to take that place. In the epistle the place is viewed as of the Father’s love. “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God; therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not”. God has brought to pass that there should be a generation here according to Him. That is what one may call the [p. 381] true sequence to Christ. Christ was not a generation, but there is a generation now according to God, partakers of His nature, and they have a place before Him as children. The proof and evidence of their being born of God is that they practise righteousness and love. Anyone can understand that, in such a generation, there must be the disallowance of sin, which is the working of righteousness, and at the same time the expression of God’s nature.
In the fourth chapter the point is not the place which God has given, but rather the disposition of God toward us down here.
It is not exactly the mind of God toward the church, nor the attitude of God toward the world, but the disposition of God toward the saints till the close of the whole chapter of their responsibility. It is a lesson of the last moment for every one of us to learn; and then you are prepared to accept, in the next chapter, the witness which cuts you off from the wicked one and the world on the one hand, and introduces you into the heart of God on the other. Then it is you learn that you “are in him that is true, in his Son Jesus Christ; he is the true God and eternal life”. You have come to the consciousness of eternal life, because you have reached the point where it has pleased God to place it in regard to the saints, that is, in His Son.
It is outside of the wicked one and the world, and it depends on an understanding that we may know Him that is true; and we are in Him that is true, in His Son Jesus Christ.
The previous chapters show the steps by which we are led up to this. What I dwell upon now is the disposition of God toward us; it is what the apostle Paul expresses by the ministry of the new covenant. The apostle speaks of himself as being made competent as minister of the new covenant; in principle you get [p. 382] the ministration of the new covenant in the fourth chapter, verses 9 - 17.
I want you to notice that the passage begins with this, “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins”. That was the starting point of God’s ways with us. Now the closing point is found in verse 17: “Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as he is, so are we in this world”.
I call attention to these two passages because they show the love of God in connection with the christian all through his responsible history, from the time that he was a sinner till the day of judgment. As I said before, it is not exactly the presentation of the love of God toward the church in Christ. It is the presentation of the love of God toward saints, taking them up in regard to their responsibility. The two points indicated evidently include the whole of our responsible history. We began as sinners and morally dead, and end that chapter at the day of judgment; we must all be manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ. Now the passage unfolds the mind of God toward us all through this history, and that is in principle the ministry of the new covenant. Whenever you get the thought of covenant, it is the expression of disposition. If you refer to God’s dealings with Abraham, what He said to and gave him was His covenant; it was the expression of His disposition towards him; there were two things, blessing and inheritance, God would bless him and give him an inheritance. If you pass on to the children of Israel, God brought them into the wilderness, to Sinai, then His covenant was the expression of His disposition toward them. Their blessing was conditional on [p. 383] obedience, and this was the expression, so far, of God’s disposition toward man in the flesh. It was not grace coming out, but the disposition of God toward man in the flesh; they would be blessed and maintained in blessing on the condition of obedience.
The new covenant in the future expresses what the disposition of God will be toward Israel and Judah. God was displeased with the first covenant. The people did not continue in it, and God makes a new covenant, and this is the expression of His disposition toward them in the future. That is, He will put His laws in their minds, and write them in their hearts, and will be to them a God, and they shall be to Him a people. “And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more”, Jeremiah 31: 34. That is His disposition toward Israel in the future.
Now in principle the new covenant is the expression of God’s disposition toward christians. A man in making a will makes a disposition of his property; but his will exhibits his disposition toward those whom he leaves behind him. That is much the idea of a covenant, and it is valid by the death of the testator, that is of Christ; the covenant exhibits the thought of God toward His people. The terms of the covenant are righteousness and love.
In the covenant there is the ministry of righteousness, but the main feature of it with christians is the confirmation to them of God’s love. I think the disposition of God toward His people is included in the one simple term ‘love’. “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us”. I regard a covenant as an expression of divine teaching. God will hereafter teach Israel. Now He teaches us, and He does that effectually,
[p. 384] not by man, but in the power of the Spirit; that is, to my mind, in principle the new covenant.
I trust you will understand the order of divine dealings. God gives us a certain place before Him and there makes known His disposition toward us. To know this is a matter of exercise to saints. Nothing can be more profoundly important than to understand the mind of God toward us; and it is brought out in a wonderful way in the passage I have read. We knew nothing of the love of God at the outset of our history as christians. Our first apprehension of God was in His grace; and you must not confound grace and love; I could not say that grace is God’s nature, but love is. When we were converted we had a sense of the grace of God, and of the suitability of that grace to our state, for the gospel is the glad tidings of the grace of God, that is, God presents Himself in it to man in regard to man’s responsibility. He in grace remits His claim in order that man be delivered from the power of evil. That is what the gospel presents. There is remission of sins, so that man may not come into judgment, but may be delivered from the power of the enemy of souls. We are delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
When the Holy Spirit is received then it is that He becomes the teacher, and the subject of His teaching is, as we have seen, the disposition of God toward us. I cannot conceive of anything of more profound moment than that.
You get it in principle in the Lord’s supper. In the death of Christ is set forth the love of God; the blood is the witness of it. “This cup is the new covenant in my blood”. It is the expression of God’s disposition toward us. Hence when Christ died the veil was rent, and that is the way by which we go in.
If you go back to the beginning of your history, you [p. 385] see the love of God was before any movement in us. God first met us in grace and then communicated to us the gift of the Holy Spirit, and thus we came to find that, after all, God was first, and that all that had taken place was the fruit of His love. God sent His Son into the world that we might live by Him and to be the propitiation for our sins. You get those two thoughts in connection with the Son of God. He was given that we might live through Him. He has become to us a quickening Spirit, giving us the well of water that springs up in us into everlasting life; and at the same time He is the propitiation for our sins. From the beginning, before we knew anything at all about God, such was the disposition of God toward us. He took account of us, as we were, in death and sins and met it in the sending of His Son.
I pass on now to verses 11 - 17, and it is noticeable in verse 12 that the expression of God’s love is in christians. You get the thought introduced by the same formula as in the gospel, “No man hath seen God at any time”. There it is, “The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”; here “His love is perfected in us”.
The apostle says here, “we have known and believed the love that God hath to us”. If God loved us at the outset His love cannot diminish. Love is abiding. It is possible for a saint to lose in measure the sense of grace, but not the sense of love. Grace brought salvation to us at the outset, but a christian might grow old on that line and the sense of grace get dim. But the Holy Spirit is the abiding witness of love; He has shed abroad the love of God in our hearts. Now we can say we know not simply the love of God at the outset; we get a point further, and can say, “we have known and believed the love that God hath to us”. There is no diminution. We may get a larger sense of it, but after all the love of God is unchanging and unchangeable. What the love of [p. 386] God was at the beginning, it is to us now, and what it is to us now, it was at the beginning; and in our christian course in all its extent we can say, “We have known and believed the love that God hath to us”.
It is a blessed thing to be the objects of the love of God, and we have a divine witness of it in the Holy Spirit. I may say one word about love which is simple; love works to satisfy itself; it must have its objects, but it will satisfy itself, if it has power to do so; and God has power for this. “He will rest in his love”, when that love has satisfied itself in regard to those who are the objects of it. Hence we get to heaven by the love of God. Because He loves His people God will have them in His own place. Christ loves those given Him by the Father, and will come and receive them to Himself that they may be with Him in the Father’s house. God loved Israel and would have them in His land; and the same principle applies now. “God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, ... and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus”.
It is a comfort to know that our lack of apprehension cannot alter the disposition of God toward us; and it is a great thing when we have come to this point, “we have known and believed the love that God hath to us”.
Now mark how love works. If you have a bit of love to a fellow christian, it is a proof that God loves you, for if God did not love you, you never would love a christian. The fact is that you have had some little apprehension of the love of God, and hence you love what is of God; and if you find a person begotten of God, you love that person because he is begotten of God, and you have thus proof that you are loved of God. We have thus seen the bearing of love to us in [p. 387] all our course down here. Not simply the love which was beforehand, and met us at the outset, for “We love him because he first loved us”; but the love of God to the saints all through their course in this scene, and that love cannot diminish.
There is one point more, and that is, “Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment”. And it is made perfect in this way, that “as he is, so are we in this world”. I think you get in this the fulfilment of the Lord’s prayer in John 17: “I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it, that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them”.
The saints are under the eye of God according to Christ; as the Judge is so are we; loved as He is loved. That is the love which is made known to the saints down here, that they may have boldness in regard to the day of judgment. The day of judgment is certain, and we must all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ. We have to receive the things done through the body; but this cannot touch the fact for a moment that “as he is, so are we in this world”. The Spirit of God has taken the greatest possible pains to make clear to us what the thought and disposition of God is toward His people here.
Now what is the effect of it? It is to dispel fear. Fear has torment, and God would fill our hearts with love, or, properly speaking, with the sense of it, that His love may expel fear by begetting confidence; you cannot have fear where love is.
It is a point of the last moment that we should be quiet and confident down here. It has been said that confidence is a plant of slow growth; it is love that begets it, not faith. You can have the most unbounded confidence where you have the sense of love; children know this. And so in regard to God; if you are sensible of love you get unbounded confidence, and are then prepared to go on. You are prepared for the [p. 388] next chapter, to be here apart from the world, and the wicked one; and by the power of the Spirit led into the full light of the heart of God, and there conscious that you are “in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life”.
Now I think it is by these steps that we are led on. We first find our place in fellowship; that is the beginning of our christian experience. Then we learn the position which God has been pleased to give us before Him, as children in the presence of the Father. Known thus of God, but unknown of the world, as was Christ, then we learn the love of God toward us, as set forth in chapter 4, in connection with our path of responsibility down here; and in the closing chapter we find the power of the three witnesses, in severing our connection morally with the wicked one and the world, and carrying us into the scene and sphere where Christ is, who is the true God and eternal life.
May God give us to know His love toward us down here, that our hearts may have full confidence in Himself.