ETERNAL LIFE (1)

ETERNAL LIFE (1)

John 3:12-16; John 3:35,36; John 4:13,14; John 6:32-35; John 6:47-58

AJG The subject of eternal life is one that is constantly being revived and stressed among us, because it is only as we know more and more of eternal life that we become furnished and enriched in view of the service of God, and also because it is that which makes us superior to things around us, so as to be here for God; and one thing that requires to be pressed in relation to it is the need of faith on our part. It is to be noticed in the scriptures read and in others too, how much the thought of believing enters into them, that it is not simply confidence in God, but rather that our outlook is toward unseen things, toward Christ Himself, and toward the things that are connected with Him, and this is perhaps one of our points of greatest weakness, the great need among us of active faith. The Holy Spirit will link Himself in His service to us and His power with faith, but faith is essential, and hence John tells us that he writes his gospel so that we might “believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing we might have life in his name.” So that life in the name of the Christ, the Son of God, that is, life in relation to the whole range of interests and glory connected with Jesus known in that light, is to be realised on the principle of believing - that believing we might have life in His name. Hence where we commenced reading in chapter 3 the Lord raises the question of unbelief; He says, “If I have said the earthly things to you, and ye believe not, how, if I say the heavenly things to you, will ye believe?” and then He brings in eternal life as the great object that has been in the mind of God in giving His only begotten Son. So that at the outset we should be impressed with the importance in the sight of God of eternal life for us, that it was in His mind in giving His only begotten Son. But as we have been saying, it is to be entered upon on the principle of active faith in us.

FGH Would you say what you have in mind in the expression “active faith”?

AJG Paul says in the second epistle to the Corinthians, “while we look not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen; for the things that are seen are for a time, but those that are not seen eternal,” 2 Corinthians 4:18. So that there is a lot that enters into that - “while we look not,” he says, “at the things that are seen,” involving certain purpose of heart as to the direction in which our outlook is going to be; while we look not at the things that are seen but at the things that are unseen, and that is what I had in mind in speaking of active faith.

ELM Would eternal life be the crown of John’s ministry?

AJG I am not sure whether we can say it is the crown exactly because he leads further in John 17, but I believe it is a great point in his ministry that we should have life in the name of Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, and then in the epistle that we should know that we have eternal life.

HDT Is it rather more the sphere in which God is operating?

AJG I think so. It contemplates a sphere. It says, “passed out of death into life” (John 5: 24) and the verse we read at the end of chapter 3 says, “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things to be in his hand,” so that there is introduced the idea of a range of interests, of living interests, into which we are to find a part already.

HDT I was thinking in a certain sense it was basic in relation to John’s line of things. There are many things that are added - association with Christ as His brethren, and sonship, and a great many other things that are involved; but I wondered whether eternal life was the prime thought, that God is operating in relation to Christ out of death, and the sphere that is opened up to us as a result of that.

AJG Yes, I think that is right as far as I understand. It is clear that eternal life has reference to heavenly things, so that the Lord speaks of heavenly things to Nicodemus.

GAL I was thinking of faith. Do you not think we are rather weak in laying hold of the great truth of the incarnation? “This life is in his Son” (1 John 5: 11), and I was thinking of verse 4 of chapter 1, “In him was life.” He has brought it in in His own Person, hence faith is to be connected with the Son of God.

AJG Yes, I think so, and that is most affecting that such great matters are in mind, as you say; the incarnation, and then as chapter 6 has it, the Son of man having ascended up where He was before, and the Spirit having come. All these are matters that enter into our entrance into eternal life, are they not?

WMcK In regard to the matter of active faith, is the passage in Numbers 21 basic to what you have in mind? That is to say, everyone that looked upon the serpent lived.

AJG Yes, I think so.

GAL Do not both the scriptures that you started with in chapter 3 clearly place eternal life on the other side of death?

AJG That is an important matter, because there is the idea of life, which sometimes in John’s writings is the same thing as eternal life but sometimes has a wider thought; but eternal life is definitely connected with an order of things beyond death.

HDT That is just what I had in mind in my earlier remark, that in a certain sense it is the foundation of what John has to present, is it not?

AJG I think it is, and hence it comes in very early in the instruction of the gospel because in one sense the third chapter introduces the beginning of the teaching, not, of course, that there is not valuable teaching in chapters one and two, but John 3 begins at new birth and the teaching develops systematically from that point, and I thought it was striking that eternal life is brought in so early.

EJH Why does the word ‘things’ appear so much? “If I have said the earthly things to you,” and then “heavenly things,” the Lord says.

AJG Well, because life consists in things as well as in persons. That is, there are affections and interests, and eternal life has relation to a heavenly order of things, a heavenly order of relationships and affections first, but also to things; so that it says, “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things to be in his hand.”

EJH I thought perhaps what you said as to a range of interests enters very definitely into the matter, so that we cannot claim to be in the enjoyment of this precious blessing unless we are linked up with the things that are precious to Christ?

AJG Quite so. They all centre in the Person of the Son, and God has given us eternal life and this life is in His Son.

HDT Would it be diverting you to ask what the connection is between the kingdom and eternal life, seeing they both come into this chapter?

AJG I suppose the kingdom is necessary because of our condition. We need to be brought under the authority of the word. Perhaps you would help us yourself.

HDT I was just thinking that new birth being connected with the kingdom, we got an impression that in the initial operations of God in the soul, it was all in relation to another sphere of things altogether; what Mr. Raven called ‘the moral sway of God in the soul of a person’ is really the kingdom, and it gives us an understanding that God is operating in relation to Christ out of death, and He bestows eternal life, so that we may come into a sphere of things in which His pleasure is unalterably secured.

AJG Yes, I think that is right; hence the moral side of things must come in, and so the Lord says, “the Son of man must be lifted up,” John 3: 14.

AC So is the serpent of brass an aspect of the death of Christ as clearing the ground of every moral question, so that we may be free to take up the enjoyment of eternal life?

AJG Yes, I think so.

GAL Then the kingdom involves essentially an administration. There is the heavenly side as well as the earthly side of the kingdom. I wondered whether verses 35 and 36 give us the full scope of it, the glory of the administration of the Son. One of the things that are administered is eternal life.

AJG I think it is a great thing to understand that there is a range of holy affections and interests that are eternal in character of which the Son is the centre and the Father the great source, into which already we have entrance in the Holy Spirit. So that eternal life, although it is known on earth, is essentially heavenly in its character, and it is eternal in its character, so that in the Spirit we may touch things which are in their character eternal, and in a moment we shall find ourselves in them. But the point is how much we know of them now.

GAL It must be eternal because of the Person from whom it proceeds, and the order of life that it is.

AJG Yes, quite so.

AVW I was wondering if you could help us in relation to what the Lord means in saying “we” in verse 11. Has the Lord in mind that others are with Him in relation to this kingdom?

AJG I am not sure whether that is not the “we” of dignity. “We speak that which we know and we bear witness of that which we have seen.” There is a sense in which the plural is used, not as meaning many persons or more than one person, but more in the sense of dignity. I am not sure whether that is not the case here.

DMcI Is that why the Lord lays emphasis on what He says? He says, “I say the heavenly things.”

AJG I think there is a great deal of importance to be attached to the words of Christ, indeed in chapter 6 Peter says “thou hast words of life eternal” (verse 68), that is, as they companied with the Lord what the Lord spoke to them about was the things connected with life eternal. He did not engage them with the politics of the world and that kind of thing. He engaged them with eternal life, and Peter recognised that and he says “thou hast words of life eternal.” We need to pay attention to the words of Jesus which John’s gospel is made up of almost entirely.

EJH Would that suggest a continuous flow, and a continuous unfolding? There is nothing stationary or stagnant in it.

AJG No, there is not.

HDT Indeed, John says, “He whom God has sent, speaks the words of God,” John 3: 34. That gives further emphasis to what you are saying.

AJG I think it is a most touching thing how near eternal things are brought to us now, the Son having come and having accomplished redemption and ascended up where He was before, the Spirit having been given, all that is in the heart of God is opened to us and it is connected with eternal things bound up with the Father and the Son.

ELM Would the knowledge of “the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent” be one of the component parts of eternal life, one of the principal thoughts?

AJG Yes, I think so, that is what it says, “And this is the eternal life, that they should know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent,” John 17: 3.

GAL Do you think that perhaps it is a little easier to centre faith on a man in the glory than to understand the blessed dignity of God having sent His Son down here to bring in life, to bring in His words, to make known His mind, and bring everything in in His own blessed Person? I have been struck with the glorious dignity of the incarnation. How much is brought in in the Person of the Son, how everything is there substantially in a Person, “In him is life,” and one has felt it is the special urge of John’s ministry to bring us into the gain of that.

AJG I am sure that is right.

HDT Would it be equally true to say these things are only available to us redemption having been accomplished?

AJG Exactly. So that God has given us eternal life but this life is in His Son. It is in His Son, of course, as out of death and ascended.

GAL But the thought of incarnation of course attached to that?

AJG Exactly.

JGW I wondered if in that way verse 13 would have a bearing. Although the Lord was here, He says at the end of verse 13, “The Son of man who is in heaven.” Is the life seen in the Person and the sphere in heaven?

AJG I think that is right. The stress on ‘heaven’ is to be noted, because I think we must all realise how much we are bound by earth in our outlook and thoughts, whereas eternal life is essentially heavenly - the Son of man who is in heaven.

ECM Would it be right to say that the assembly is the sphere where eternal life is enjoyed and these heavenly things are opened up, the Spirit being here in the assembly?

AJG Yes, quite so. The circle of the brethren is the sphere where things are enjoyed. At the same time the initial presentation of it in John’s gospel is rather on the individual line. As we go on we find it is enjoyed in the circle of the brethren, and only there, but at the same time the gospel is presenting the truth systematically and insisting on the importance of the individual having it.

EJH That is confirmed by “The water which I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life,” John 4: 14.

AJG Yes, exactly.

TJG So that the individual is capacitated to enjoy the matter collectively, as the truth is taken on systematically.

AJG That is it, and I believe it is important to stress this, perhaps not unduly, but still it should be stressed, because some years ago a great deal of emphasis was laid, and rightly so, on salvation being in the assembly; it has been greatly stressed, and rightly so, that young people find salvation in keeping with the saints and so on, and one does not want to say a word to weaken that because that is most important; but at the same time that in itself does not constitute eternal life. There must be the personal entering into it in the power of faith and the Spirit to touch the reality of eternal life.

WHL Would Hebrews 11 bear on it: “Faith is the substantiating of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” Hebrews 11: 1.

AJG Quite so, and then what has been quoted from chapter 4, “the water which I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life.”

AB So would chapters 3 and 4 result in practical deliverance, chapter 3 having in mind a new order of things in contrast to a world where men are perishing, and then chapter 4 the uplifting character of the Spirit linking us with this new scene?

AJG Yes, I think so and really underlying worship, for chapter 4 as we know leads on to worship, not that it is our subject, but it is significant that underlying the thought of worship is this entrance into eternal life.

HDT So that the functioning of the assembly would be greatly enriched if the personnel had this substance in their souls?

AJG That is just what I had in mind, and no amount of mere consorting with the brethren will give us eternal life in actual power. It is important to consort with the brethren but the individual side of it is essential.

HDT I am very glad you have stressed the thought of what is personal, because one has noticed in many a collective position in the Scriptures, in Paul’s ministry, the personal side is introduced. We habitually speak of the address to Corinth as being to “The assembly of God, which is in Corinth,” 1 Corinthians 1: 2, but Paul immediately says: “To those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints,” as though he is not leaving the personal side out of any position.

AJG No.

HAH Does the type help us in regard of this reference to the wilderness and not perishing, in view of entrance into the sphere of eternal life?

AJG Well, eternal life is the great means whereby we are saved from perishing, that is from falling out, so that you might say Caleb, although he did not actually enter the land for forty years, yet he had been in it as one of the spies and he had it in his heart. He spoke according to what was in his heart, so that you might say that in his heart he was in the land through the forty years when the people were wandering in the wilderness; so that he goes through.

HGH Is it set here by divine necessity. It is a matter either of eternal life or of perishing.

AJG Yes, quite so.

AB So that would Caleb illustrate one who prized these great thoughts of God in saying, “If Jehovah delight in us, He will bring us into this land” (Numbers 14: 8) - the individual prizing of what is being presented.

AJG Yes, I think so, and that we are to start by being impressed that “God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal “.(John 3: 16), and then in the next chapter there is the great gift of the Spirit in view of eternal life. These are great transactions on the part of the Father and the Son in view of our having eternal life.

Ques One feels the importance of what you remarked earlier, as to the thought of God. The great thought of God was eternal life for man, as I understand it. It was God’s intention that men should have eternal life. Does that mean that it was in the mind of God before time was? Is that what was in your mind?

AJG I think we can say that because it says in the epistle to Titus, “In the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before the ages of time,” Titus 1: 2. So that I think it is quite right to say that it has been in God’s mind for man before the ages of time.

HDT So it says in the epistle of Paul to Timothy, “According to his own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages of time, but has been made manifest now by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who has annulled death, and has brought to light life and incorruptibility by the glad tidings,” 2 Timothy 1: 9, 10. It is pretty much the same, is it not?

AJG Yes, it is.

GM Going back for a moment to the matter of personal securing of eternal life, is chapter 9 the first and great example of one who secured it personally?

AJG You refer to the blind man who was cast out and came to appreciate Jesus as the Son of God.

GM “I believe, Lord, and he did him homage,” chapter 9: 38.

AJG Yes, I think so.

FWK With regard to the personal side, would you say a word as to the link between the kingdom and eternal life?

AJG We were saying earlier that there must be the moral side; there must be subjection, the moral sway of God in the soul. Obviously God will not give the Holy Spirit to an insubject person, and eternal life can only be entered upon in the Spirit; hence there must be the kingdom bringing in subjection on our part.

GAL According to the first scripture the thing begins in looking in faith on Jesus, the Son of man lifted up. That is where it begins and we see it is in the purpose of God. He has sent His Son for that great end.

AJG Quite so, but then it goes on further in that faith attaches to Jesus glorified, risen and ascended. We have to believe on Him lifted up in order to see how divine love in Christ has met every moral question that existed, so that we might receive the Spirit; but then the Spirit having been received connects us in our affections and faith with Christ in another scene.

GAL So that in chapter 3 it is in view of faith,

and in chapter 4 it is communicated by the power of the Spirit.

WMcK Is faith in that way the capacity to apprehend the matter objectively and the Spirit the power to apprehend it subjectively?

AJG Yes, I think that is right, so that it would be right, I suppose, broadly to say that the gospel of John presents the truth objectively, and the epistle of John presents the subjective side of things. In the gospel of John, for instance, the Lord says that He Himself is the truth. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” John 14: 6. In the epistle it says the Spirit is the truth, so that those are the two sides we have to keep together in balance.

EJH Might we say in one sense, therefore, that in the gospel of John you have the Person, and in the epistle of John you have the persons who are like Him, formed according to the truth, being expressive of it and enjoying it together?

AJG Yes, but the Spirit Himself being the truth. Perhaps we shall come to that, if the Lord will, later on.

ELM I was wondering if the importance of what we have before us is emphasised in, “He that believes on the Son has life eternal, and he that is not subject to the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides upon him,” John 3: 36. To refuse it you are objectionable to God.

AJG Yes, exactly. It seems to me to be very attractive that the One who is presented as an object of faith is apprehended as the Beloved Son, the centre of affections, and not only as the beloved Son but as a centre of a system of things too. So that it is an entirely different world outside of this in which eternal life is known.

ELM And that is present.

AJG It is.

HDT I was going to ask whether, in many believers’ minds, eternal life is synonymous with eternal security, and that has really had the effect of lowering the value of it in our minds.

AJG Exactly, and I think it should be a greatly stimulating and at the same time exercising thing that we have in the Spirit the power to live in relation to another world.

AAG You referred earlier to faith in relation to the Spirit. Had you in mind that we need faith to get the gain of what you have just said?

AJG Yes, I think so. Faith lays hold on what is unseen and the things that are unseen are in character eternal and the Spirit links Himself with faith; but if we are characterised by unbelief or indolence or unwillingness to have our attention held in relation to unseen things the Spirit cannot help us very much.

ECM Does the thought of consciousness enter into it? Faith does not give you consciousness. You get the consciousness by the Spirit.

AJG Yes, I think so but the Spirit has been greatly emphasised of recent years and I think we are beginning to realise the importance of it; but I believe this side is also very important that there must be faith on our part, active faith.

HDT The presence of the Spirit does not negate the importance of faith, because God’s dispensation is in faith.

AJG Exactly.

HDT I remember Mr. Coates saying, years ago, that the Spirit of God operated within the limits of faith. I thought that was a very good way of putting it.

AJG Yes, I believe that is helpful because you get the same thing in principle with the Lord when He was here that He could not do many mighty works because of their unbelief. The Lord was limited because of the conditions of unbelief in those amongst whom He was, and similarly the Spirit is limited if there are conditions of unbelief with us.

GAL I wondered if you would say just a word about chapter 4, “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is”? It seems there is a great deal in that.

AJG Well, quite so, because everything depends on our apprehension of the Person, the Person of Christ - “that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life in his name,” John 20: 31.

AWP As to what you have just said with regard to apprehension, is life particularly connected with light at the initial stage in our history? We have to apprehend it necessitated the Person Himself coming into the scene in order that we should apprehend both life and light in Him.

AJG Yes, He is Himself the true light. You have the two things brought together in the beginning of John, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men,” John 1: 4. Then He came in as the true Light. I think Mr. Raven used to say that God operates in the light. The first thing He did was to command light and then He brought life into existence.

HFR Would you say something as to the way that John stresses the present tense? This word ‘believes’ runs right through this matter, so that it is almost a state that we might be enjoying one day and not enjoying the next day.

AJG Yes, it is a characteristic thought.

WMcK We have been taught that the forty days that the Lord was here after His resurrection sets out the idea of eternal life. Does that explain why He stressed the need of faith in the disciples at the beginning of it? I am thinking of the end of the gospels, and the lack of faith in the disciples to apprehend what was really taking place.

AJG Yes, quite so. So He manifests Himself,

presented Himself living, it says in the first chapter of the Acts, after He had suffered. Another thing to realise is that the life in which we are to have part is life beyond death, and therefore it involves the principle of suffering; it involves that principle for us that life is reached by way of suffering. The Lord has set it out; of course, for Him the suffering was real and there are no sufferings to be compared with His, but yet He sets out that idea so that He presented Himself living after He had suffered, as though to impress the disciples with the fact that life beyond death is to be entered upon on that principle of suffering.

TJG Is that why the apostle links the thought of suffering in the scripture you have referred to earlier (2 Corinthians 6) with the active or characteristic faith?

AJG Yes, he says, “for we also believe, therefore also we speak” (2 Corinthians 4: 13) and he indicates that in that faith he was able to accept any degree of suffering “knowing that he who has raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise us also with Jesus,” 2 Corinthians 4: 14.

FVW Is John’s presentation of eternal life in contrast to Paul’s view of it? Rather an inward matter, something that the believer can always retire into, the knowledge of divine Persons?

AJG Yes, I think so, it lies in the power there is in the Spirit.

FVW I was wondering whether Paul looks at it in connection with the day to come.

AJG Yes, very much. That is why I suggested looking at it from John’s writings because it is the present aspect that we so much need.

HDT The more the believer retires into his links with the Persons of the Godhead, the less he individualises himself in his blessings.

AJG Well, I am sure of that because it is all saints that are in the mind of God, so that you cannot individualise yourself in your outlook though you must enter into things individually. In your outlook you have all saints in your heart, so that John in Patmos was undoubtedly in the enjoyment of eternal life, but he was isolated personally. In his outlook he was embracing all the brethren.

HDT The more we enjoy things in our souls the more we have the consciousness that it is the very thing God has in mind for every believer.

AJG Quite.

EJH The blessings and the people and the inheritance were all in the heart of Caleb.

AJG Yes, they were. So he says, “if the Lord delight in us he will bring us in.”

JGW I wonder if you would open out what you have already referred to, “the Father loves the Son, and has given all things to be in his hand. He that believes on the Son has life eternal.” I take that to be the enjoyment, the life being in the Son - is that correct? And I wondered if affection would mark us off from those who are not subject.

AJG Well, quite so. There are those who are not subject, who do not see life, they have no part in these things at all, but I think it is immensely encouraging to realise that there is a system of affection subsisting now of which the Son is the centre and object, and the Father is the great source. It is a great system, not only of affections but of interests; all things are delivered into His hand and we have entrance into it as having part with Christ, the power being in the Spirit.

ECM Does it mean that eternal life as you are presenting it according to John is lifted on to a much higher plane than Israel will enjoy it in a coming day, involving what is heavenly, heavenly relationships.

AJG Yes, exactly. We have often heard what Mr. Darby said about it that it is an out of the world heavenly condition of relationship and being.

GAL Is that the point in chapter 4, “the water which I shall give him, shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life.” Mr. Raven said, ‘It springs up to its source, which is in God Himself.’ Quite so. The Spirit will not occupy us with anything where Christ is not, we may rest assured of that. The Spirit is always faithful to Christ and to the Father, and so the Spirit becomes in the believer, becomes “in him a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life,” John 4: 14.

HDT So that it is not presented only as a blessing bestowed, but as a condition in which God is operating. It is a necessity from the divine point of view if God is to have man in conditions in which man can be at home with God. This is a necessity.

AJG It is indeed, and hence we have the very affecting circumstance that the Son has become Man and has accomplished redemption and the Spirit has been given, so that we might have life in Him; so that we are set in the very centre of love in Christ.

CJHD Does the enjoyment of this really give us independence of the sources of refreshment in this world. According to Numbers 21, they say, “We will not drink water out of the wells; on the king’s road will we go until we have passed thy border.” Is that after the experience of the serpent lifted up and the springing up of the well? Then we have no more occasion to drink water out of the wells of this world.

AJG Yes, that is good. All they wanted to do was to get through. Their eyes really were on the land. That is the position now with us if we are at all in the enjoyment of this, that in regard of present things all we want to do is to get through, but as you say, the Spirit makes us independent of sources of natural satisfaction.

AB Does chapter 4 of John have in mind the Spirit having a developing and increasing place with us? “The water which I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life.”

AJG I think so. It becomes that. That is what you had in mind, was it? It becomes that and, of course, that involves that on our part we must see that obstructions to the springing up are removed, it is a fountain springing up; the fountain is there and it will spring up provided there are no obstructions.

TJG Does that word ‘become’ mean that the Holy Spirit will thus work if those obstructions are removed? Is that the meaning of the word ‘become’?

AJG I think so. Not, of course, that the Lord is drawing attention to obstructions or anything of that sort, but He uses the figure of a fountain, a fountain in a well, that is really what it is; so that the Spirit is a fountain in the believer and obviously if the fountain is to spring up there must be the removing of any obstructions.

HDT Would not that help us to recognise the Spirit’s activities with us? I was thinking, from Paul’s point of view, the Spirit is largely given to assist us in our infirmities and bring us into deliverance, and set us up in relation to the things of God; but I wondered whether from John’s point of view it was a divine link with what was eternal in its character. It would help us to recognise His strivings at times with us to produce feelings and longings after that which can only be found in God Himself.

AJG Yes, I am sure. So that Paul in writing to the Philippians says, “I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content,” Philippians 4: 11. That is a remarkable example of a man who is in the gain of the Spirit; that he is not affected by natural conditions but he has learned in whatever state he is to be content, because the Spirit connects him with another scene, and with Christ the centre of it.

EJH Does he not say, “to be content within myself,” Philippians 4: 11.

AJG “To be satisfied in myself,” exactly.

HDT He knows how to be abased and how to abound. They are very striking expressions, are they not?

AJG Yes.

GAL Then he goes on to say, “My God.” Is not that where his soul lives?

AJG Yes, quite so.

EGH Would you say a word as to the matter of drinking, “every one who drinks of this water shall thirst again; but whosoever drinks of the water which I shall give him shall never thirst for ever.” I would like a little help as to the matter of drinking.

AJG I think that shows our side, that divine things do not work automatically, that while it is all of gift and free grace on God’s part, yet there is something that we have to do, we have to drink. That is, we have to appropriate what the Spirit is ready to give us. It has often been pointed out that in Exodus 17 where the rock is smitten there is no mention of the people drinking; it is the provision from the divine side; but when you come to Numbers the people drink.

FCH Would the practical working out of it be in the giving place to the Spirit?

AJG Quite so, that is an expression we often use, ‘giving place to the Spirit’ but we have to see that time is made for these things with a certain purpose of heart. It is a question of what our minds are on.

HDT It is a challenge, too, as to where we really find our satisfaction.

AJG Yes. “They that are according to flesh mind the things of the flesh; and they that are according to Spirit, the things of the Spirit,” Romans 8: 5.

PT “Have your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth,” Colossians 3: 2.

AJG Yes, that comes into it.

WFF Would you say a word as to the difference between Nicodemus in chapter 3 and the woman in chapter 4, bearing in mind especially the fact that Nicodemus does not seem to respond much to the teaching but the woman herself reacts to it immediately..

AJG It just shows how much anything that flesh can accredit itself with becomes a hindrance to us. Nicodemus has much that he could accredit himself with in the eyes of men, a ruler of the Jews and so on, and so the Lord goes into things basically and says to him, “ye must be born again,” as though to teach him that all that he might attach to himself naturally was of no value in the things of God. When it comes to the woman, she was of such a character as would readily embrace the free gift of God, the grace of God; she was, you might say, almost an outcast.

FVW In regard to the Lord’s words in chapter 4, “shall become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life,” is it going too far to connect it with what the Lord speaks of later, worshipping the Father?

AJG No, I do not think it goes too far to connect it with that. At any rate worshipping the Father is what results from it and what we are empowered for, too.

HDT Would it not in actual fact greatly enrich the souls of the saints in the service of God in the assembly? For we need to take heavenly ground as associated with Christ, and the Spirit is the power for it, and if individually we are in the good of what the Lord said to this woman there would be greater power in the morning meeting.

AJG Much greater and more substance, too. Not simply the liberty and freshness but what we often need is substance. How much can we say about the land? How much do we really know of God and of Christ in His own sphere?

FVW So that life eternal is spoken of as a proposal, so to speak, in chapter 3, but is it more defined in chapter 4, going perhaps beyond the individual position which is so necessary and basic?

AJG Yes, I think so. I think the idea in chapter 4 is that there is power for it in the Spirit. It is to make us appreciate the Spirit and that the Spirit will operate in that direction. The Spirit is not operating according to John 4 in connection with things down here. In Romans 8 the Spirit is the power to enable us to fulfil responsibility in the life down here; John 4 is not that but the Spirit becomes the fountain, springing up to eternal life.

GAL As to what the Lord says as to the Father to the woman, is it not well to recognise the very purpose for which the Lord came was to reveal the Father? He had nothing short of that in mind.

AJG No, exactly.

FWK Do Psalm 133 and 134 help in this connection? In Psalm 133, “There hath Jehovah commanded the blessing, life for evermore.” In the next Psalm, the closing Psalm, we have worship and praise to Jehovah.

AJG Quite so. They illustrate what we are saying.

ELM Would you say a word as to any difference between the Father seeking “such as his worshippers” and then what follows, “God is a spirit and they who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth.” Is that progressive?

AJG God must be the final thought. The Father seeks such as His worshippers, that is God revealed in that name of grace; but then as we come into the liberty and the blessing of that we are brought into relations with God. God must be the final thought and eternal life involves that man is in right relations with God.

ELM It is, “My Father, and your Father ... My God, and your God,” John 20: 17.

AJG “My Father and your Father ... My God and your God,” so that God is the final thought and man before Him in the Person of Christ, but man wholly according to God and in right relations with God. So that when we come to the end of the epistle we have “He,” that is Christ, “is the true God” on the one hand but He is also “eternal life.” That is, the idea is set out in Him of man in right relations with God.

HDT That is what the Lord had in mind in John 17, is it not? “This is the eternal life, that they should know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” The whole matter is really set out objectively in Him, is it not?

AJG Quite so.

HGH Is the thought in John 4 the thought of entering into the enjoyment of eternal life? The expression “never thirst for ever” precedes the thought of “springing up into eternal life.” Would you say a word about the difference. “Never thirst for ever” in comparison with “eternal life”?

AJG I think the Lord is making it attractive so that the woman should really embrace it. It is a very attractive proposal that we can be completely satisfied, “never thirst for ever.”

EJH The Lord did not tell her to leave her water-pot, but she left it in the light of that, would you say?

AJG Yes, quite so.

HDT The more we have known what it is to thirst here, the more we shall appreciate the opportunity of never thirsting for ever.

AJG Exactly, and it sets you up in independence of all that is around, so that you carry your supplies with you. “The water that I shall give him becomes in him,” so the believer carries his supplies with him, he is not dependent upon surrounding circumstances.

FW You have that in John at Patmos, as you have said, do you not? “I, John, your brother.”

AJG You do, quite so.

AB Does chapter 6 bring in a more substantial thought, bringing in the thought of food?

AJG It does, it brings in the thought of maintenance or sustenance of life and there is the Person of Christ again. The Spirit is the great point in chapter 4, now we come back to the Person of Christ in chapter 6.

WW In chapter 6, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Unless ye shall have eaten the flesh of the Son of man, and drunk his blood, ye have no life in yourselves.” Is that on the line of what is subjective?

AJG Well, it is. I think the great point in chapter 6 to start with is that the Lord presents Himself as the food, the bread of life; but He says, “It is not Moses that has given you the bread out of heaven; but my Father gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world,” and then He says, “I am the bread of life: he that comes to me shall never hunger, and he that believes on me shall never thirst at any time.” That is similar to what the Lord said about the Spirit in chapter 4, but now it is the Lord personally as the bread of life, and as One who has come out of heaven, that is characteristically heavenly.

HDT But not to sustain life here, but the thought is to die.

AJG That is a most important thing because some years ago when there was conflict as to eternal life there was an effort to make the bread of life the same thing as the manna and to reduce eternal life to life according to God in present circumstances, but that is not the idea of eternal life at all.

GAL It is very striking what the Lord says “Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and died.” He fixes the position on them. “This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, that one may eat of it and not die.”

HDT That life is only enjoyed in the acceptance of death here.

AJG Quite so.

GAL On the other side of death.

AJG Quite so.

DMcI Why does the Lord say, “My Father gives you the true bread out of heaven”? He had spoken of Himself as giving the Spirit, but now, as to the bread, He says, “My Father.”

AJG I think He is connecting us with the Father, the Father indeed as the source of all these thoughts. He is really drawing out our affections to the Father. He says, “My Father,” He is speaking in that affectionate way.

HDT Is it not remarkable that the Lord should find such freedom in speaking of His Father to those who were opposing Him tooth and nail, you might say? Much of this comes out in answer to the Pharisees and Jews. I wondered whether it shows how near the Father was to His own heart, if we may speak reverently, that He did not cease to speak of Him even in such circumstances.

AJG No, quite so.

ELM Does the Lord carry forward His ministry in chapter 4? In verse 35 He says, “He that comes to me shall never hunger, and he that believes on me shall never thirst at any time.” Would that be the linking of the two thoughts together, what is in the Spirit and what is in the bread sustaining?

AJG Yes, I think so. It shows that Christ Himself is the One to be appropriated. When we speak of appropriating we mean that our minds are engaged with Christ and His things and then the mind becomes the inlet to the affections.

WMcK Does it involve the apprehension and appropriation of another order of man, the order of man that is indigenous to heaven? Is that right?

AJG Yes, I think so. I have been rather struck with that, the frequent references to coming down out of heaven, not simply from heaven but out of heaven. It is an expression involving character.

TJG As to the Lord saying, “My Father,” in the presence of hostility, is that spirit open to us? Would it show the superiority and restfulness of eternal life enjoyed in hostile conditions?

AJG Well, quite so. I think when the Lord speaks of “My Father” like that it shows how near the Father and His thoughts were to the heart of Christ; we get something similar in the word to Sardis where the Lord says, “My God” - “I have not found thy works complete before my God,” and then the constant references to “My God” in Philadelphia. I think it shows how near God was to the heart of Christ, and all that God was looking for was dear to the heart of Christ.

HDT Would that show that the thing was extant at that time in Christ’s manhood here, but is it not touching that it is only available to us through His precious death?

AJG Quite so.

FVW The Lord connects eternal life with “My Father” in this chapter in verse 40, whereas it is “God” in chapter 3: Would you say a word about the distinction there?

AJG Well, it is God, of course, but it is a question of the way the Lord is speaking of Him. The Lord is speaking of Him in that affectionate way as having come from God to give effect to His will, but in all that He is doing He is moving in the affections of Son.

DMcI Why does He then speak of “the living Father” in verse 57? “As the living Father has sent me and I live on account of the Father.”

AJG It shows I think that as down here in manhood the Lord had an object before Him, a personal object, and that was His Father. That is to be brought before us, that we are to have a personal object before us and that is Christ. Christ where He is. “He that eats me shall live also on account of me.” Christianity does not become a system of ideas, it centres in a Person, and a range of interests that centre in Him.

HDT And that Person out of death.

AJG Quite so.

HFR The Father seems to have His own peculiar joy as we are occupied with Christ. It says here in verse 40, “This is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son, and believes on him, should have life eternal.” And then in chapter 12 the Lord says, “I know that His commandment is life eternal,” chapter 12: 50.

AJG Well, exactly. I believe if we can go away with an impression of what we have in verse 35 of chapter 3, “The Father loves the Son and has given all things to be in his hand. He that believes on the Son has life eternal,” it may perhaps enlarge many of us. There is a system of affection and of wide interests centring in Christ, having its origin in the Father and held in relation to the Father, and we have part in it already in the Spirit.

EJH Is not the Father often spoken of in John’s gospel as the Source in relation to a system of grace?

AJG Yes.

ELM Is not that strengthened in chapter 3, that wrath is connected with God and not with the Father?

AJG Quite so. The Father judges no one. So that the Father is the Head, you might say, of the economy in which God is known, so that that impress of the name of the Father is to give character to the economy, and yet God must judge the world, but He commits judgment to the Son; so that no thought of judgment shall attach itself to the Father’s name.

HDT Is it a striking thing, in that sense, that what we touch in the knowledge of God known in the economy is to continue for eternity?

AJG Exactly, that is what I feel is so important, that we can have entrance now in the Spirit into eternity. It is really eternity. We do not know what moment we may be ushered into eternity. We know, as a matter of what one may call the arrangement of things, that the millennium is to come between now and the eternal day, but the blessings we enter into in this dispensation are eternal in character, and when we are taken to be with Christ we enter upon eternal conditions. We do not know how near eternity is to us and we may find ourselves in it at any moment.

SAVW Should we not give thanks to the Father for drawing us to the Son?

AJG We certainly should because no one comes to Him except the Father draws him.

ACC Is it significant that it is in the present tense, “the Father loves the Son”? Is it the lovability of the Person? “The Father loves the Son” in the present tense.

AJG He loves the Son. It is a settled disposition of love; it is a settled system of love. That is the great thing to get into our minds, it is a settled system of love and of divine interests, too, of a wide extent into which we have part now in the Spirit.

AAG And is verse 40 of chapter 6 directly connected with that, “Everyone that sees” - or beholds - “the Son”? Is it seeing Him in that character as the centre of the Father’s affections?

AJG Yes, I think so, as though He holds the attention in that way, just as Moses turned aside to see the great sight of the burning bush.

MHT Is it of interest to see that in verse 53 the word for “eat” is different from that employed in the following verse, and the tense is also different? In the one case it is “shall have eaten” implying appropriation to satisfy hunger, and the other is the present tense, “He that eats,” implying eating for enjoyment?

AJG Quite so, it is the characteristic thought.