ETERNAL LIFE (2)

ETERNAL LIFE (2)

John 6: 54-63; John 10:16-18; John 10:22-30; John 17:1-3

AJG We scarcely had time this morning to go into chapter 6 as fully as is desirable, so I thought we should return to it this afternoon. Chapter 6, as we were saying, has in mind how spiritual life is sustained, and deals with the matter, as chapters 3 and 4 do also, from the individual standpoint, the early chapters in John’s gospel having in view the building up of the believer’s constitution in order to his being able to fit into his place in the assembly, because the assembly is the great thought before the mind of God. But it is essential that every brother and sister should be in it livingly, and hence the early chapters of John’s gospel have that in mind. Then we shall see, as the Lord helps us, that when we come to chapter 10 and onwards the collective position is in view. It was remarked this morning that we have in verse 53 of chapter 6, “Unless ye shall have eaten the flesh of the Son of man and drunk his blood, ye have no life in yourselves,” that being an initial thought; and then following on that, “He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life eternal,” that being a characteristic and continuous thought. The Lord presents Himself in chapter 6 as the bread of life, as He says, “I am the living bread which has come down out of heaven: if any one shall have eaten of this bread he shall live for ever,” and then he immediately adds, “but the bread withal which I shall give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” This shows that while we have first of all to apprehend the idea that Christ is Himself the food which we are to appropriate continually if we would live, when it comes to the matter of our appropriation we have first of all to learn to eat His flesh and drink His blood, which evidently is an allusion to His death. So that the import of His death is to be brought home to us continually, and our affections fed upon it before we come to the further thought that he who eats Me, even he shall live on account of Me.

AB Does the question of eating His flesh and drinking His blood involve the breaking with natural things here?

AJG Yes, I think it does. It helps us greatly to understand that He came down from heaven and took flesh and blood condition in order by His death to terminate that condition and bring in in Himself beyond death as Man a new character of life altogether in which we are given part in the Spirit. Hence we are continually to feed on the great fact of His having come down from heaven and died. That will help us, as you say, to become detached more and more from natural things, because the things of nature hold us much more than we realise, even when perhaps we have learned in some degree to judge the flesh.

TJG What do you understand by, “Ye have no life in yourselves”?

AJG Well, it is a real thing. It is not just a question of seeing certain thoughts in Scripture, but it is a real thing. That was abundantly true in the early chapters of the Acts, how superior the brethren were to the conditions around them, and especially when opposition arose, how superior they were. It was the power of life.

HDT So that you have the expression in the Acts, “The words of this life,” Acts 5: 20.

AJG Exactly. That is a very striking expression. The apostles were told by the angel when he opened the door of the prison to “stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life,” Acts 5: 20. That is the kind of life that could be seen in Jerusalem in those who belonged to Christ.

HDT It found its impulse in a Man in heaven.

AJG Yes, exactly. It is power in the Spirit.

EJH Does it link on with what you said this morning, in chapter 4, “Shall become in him,” verse 14?

AJG Yes, “become in him.” I think it is very encouraging to see as has often been remarked, that John writes in view of the last days, the days when all that Paul set up had gone to pieces, but he brings in the great principle of life, so that no thought of God is allowed to lapse after all, it goes through in the energy of life in those who are affected by John’s teaching.

HDT Do you think it conveys the ability potentially to take in the whole range of divine thoughts in contrast to the apprehension of certain lines of truth? Sometimes we try to build things on points, whereas life would mean that there is ability in the Spirit to grasp what God has before Him in relation to Christ and in relation to the saints and the assembly, and where there is life in that sense, there is ability potentially to enter into everything.

AJG I believe that is right, because life is wonderfully free, it is not hedged about, so to speak.

HDT I was wondering whether it was really the answer to what we so easily drop into, a kind of rules and regulations. If things are developed in life the saints are to be depended upon apprehending what God has in view to convey.

AJG I think we may perhaps come to that more tomorrow, if the Lord will, when we come to “the Spirit is the truth,” which is a most important thing.

HGH Is this verse 54 an extension of verse 48, “I am the bread of life.”

AJG I think so. I think, “I am the bread of life” is that the Lord indicates that life is to be sustained on the principle of appropriating Himself. That is, our minds dwell on Him and the affections follow. But then when it comes to the question of how it is to be done, we are first to appropriate His death, and the fact that He came in from heaven for the express purpose of closing up one order of life and opening up another.

WMcK Does the appropriation of His death involve in some sense suffering in us? I am thinking of the breaking of the links of what binds us to what is natural.

AJG Yes, it must do, and I think it is well that we should see that, that in order to reach the order of life which is eternal in character, which God has before Him, we have at least in principle to enter into suffering. The coming in of sin has involved suffering for God and for Christ, and we are to enter into it too.

EJH Do you think that is why many say, “This word is hard, who can hear it”? verse 60.

AJG Yes, I think it is. But then you see God uses the influence of love to draw us over, and so it is the Son of man who gives His life, it is the flesh and blood of the Son of man, that is, Christ’s own death is to appeal to our hearts’ affections.

AB Would it move our hearts that the Lord was pleased in grace to terminate the condition in which He once was in the favour of God here as a Man in view of these greater thoughts being established?

AJG Yes, I think so. Because after all, although the Lord’s pathway here was one of much suffering and sorrow, “Man of sorrows” (Isaiah 53: 3) it says, yet on the other hand it was a life of continual joy - He speaks of “my joy” - and much pleasure to God. But that life was laid down, which meant He surrendered it, and God surrendered it, but it was laid down with a view to opening up in Himself beyond death an order of life in which we are given part.

HDT Is that conveyed in Hebrews 2 in Paul’s language, “It became him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons o glory to make perfect the leader of their salvation through sufferings” verse 10? Is not that the same thing, the same thought, wrapped up in different language? The Lord has reached His place on high through sufferings and we have part with Him there.

AJG I think so, and it helps to impress us with the reality of divine love, the depth of divine love, which has taken a suffering way to reach its end.

ACC Would the ark going into Jordan and the victuals that were taken to cross over, enter into this passage?

AJG I think this passage very much corresponds with that, except of course that is looking at the position collectively and this, as we were saying, is the individual reaching the truth so that he is built up in it. But I think this is very much that idea, that is to say it is victuals, the kind of food that will strengthen us to pass over.

WW Would verse 57 enter into what you have been speaking of? “As the living Father has sent me and I live on account of the Father, he also who eats me shall live also on account of me.”

AJG Well, it follows on that which we have been speaking of. It is a step further than eating the flesh of the Son of man and drinking His blood. The Lord says in verse 56, “He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me and I in him.” That is, it develops personal links of affection between the believer and Christ, and that leads on to verse 57, “As the living Father has sent me, and I live on account of the Father, he also who eats me shall live also on account of me.”

WET Why does the Lord add in the end of verse 54, and I will raise him up at the last day?

AJG The Lord says that several times in this chapter, “I will raise him up at the last day.” I think it is to assure us that as we move on these lines we shall go right through and the Lord will exercise His power and rights in regard of us in the last day, “I will raise him up at the last day.” We go right through in life.

EJH Would that mean that all that is being built into the souls of the saints today on these lines, and in the power of the Holy Spirit, is to be carried over?

AJG Yes. He says earlier, “This is the will of him that has sent me, that of all that he has given me I should lose nothing,” verse 39. It is not there the saints personally but rather the totality of the work of God in the saints.

TJG So it says, “I will raise it up.”

AJG Yes.

HDT That will be the great consummation of all God’s ways. The last day will be the final vindication of all that God put His hand to. Daniel continuing: “Thou shalt ... stand in thy lot at the end of the days,” Daniel 12: 13. Was not he really preserved in life. It is the same principle whether in the Old Testament or the New.

AJG Yes, except of course, that we have to mark the distinction between the present dispensation and all that went before.

HDT I was thinking that all God’s operations were in view of the incarnation, and the redemption accomplished by Christ, and all will coalesce to that end.

DJH And is raising up at the last day more in view of what is for divine pleasure than for the comfort of our hearts in the present dispensation?

AJG Well, it would be. Everything is committed into the hands of Christ, it is safe there. But I think it is very interesting and affecting that this chapter develops personal links between the believer and Christ, so that in each individual believer it is contemplated that there should be these personal links established, so that we live by Him and on account of Him. You can see that it is really underlying what is proper to the assembly, that the assembly is peculiarly linked up in affection and interest with Christ personally, and this is paving the way for it in the souls of the saints individually.

AB Would this involve the ability to continue in the testimony until the Lord comes, in view of what is stated in the end of the chapter?

AJG It clearly has that in mind. But what have you in mind as regards the end of the chapter?

AB Well, there are some who turned away, who said the saying is too hard, but those who are nourished by Christ can continue because they love Him and can depend on Him, because He has words of eternal life.

AJG Quite so.

GAL The I is emphatic, “I will raise him up at the last day.” Is it not really to draw attention to His glorious Son?

AJG I think so. It is immense when we think of all that is committed to the Son to carry through - and how He carries it through - at the moment not in the display of great power outwardly but on this principle of what He becomes in the affections of each individual believer.

FWK Does the type of Barzillai help at this point? There was an appreciation of David, but he would not go to Jerusalem; there was not the intimacy.

AJG Yes, he throws a very sorrowful light by way of contrast on this chapter, that he could be faithful to David in the wilderness position, but is not prepared to move with him into his own circle of interests.

EJH Even though David says, “I will maintain thee.”

AJG “I will maintain thee with me in Jerusalem,” 2 Samuel 19: 33.

HDT We should be thankful that the Spirit of God has given us an indication of what does go over in Chimham, the thought of “longing.” Is not that to develop a desire with us not to stop short of what is heavenly, and is not that really the principle that goes over? It is not merely an intellectual going over; that is not what is in mind at all.

AJG And therefore if we can once get in our souls the sense of the unique place the assembly has in the affections of Christ and that we belong to it, and all that Christ is to take up as Man we are to enter into with Him, I think it will greatly help us, because it will then become true what we sang this morning.

“No place can fully please us
Where Thou, O Lord, art not.” (56:4)

It is the sense that we cannot live in anything where Christ is not.

HFR Does the introduction of drinking - the Lord introduces drinking here - does that suggest the satisfaction that we find in these intimate relations.

AJG I think so.

HDT May I ask whether Mr. B. had in mind in connection with that that there were some who walked no more with Him? Is there some suggestion in that that the interim is to be filled out with walking with Christ?

AJG I am sure there is. We shall come to that more in chapter 10 where the saints are regarded as a flock moving together under the leading of the shepherd. So that they all move together in one direction.

FWT Would Paul be appropriating this chapter when he says, “The love of the Christ constrains us ... he died for all, that they who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who died for them and has been raised,” 2 Corinthians 5: 14, 15.

AJG Yes. That helps very much, that there are those who live. We are among them, and the intention is that we should not live to ourselves but “to him who died for them and has been raised.” So that He is raised from among the dead and there has His own range of interests, and we are to live in relation to that.

FGH Is the intimacy seen especially in verse 56? “He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me and I in him.”

AJG I think so. That makes it much more personal than the previous verse. In verse 54 it says, “He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life eternal ...” So that it develops certain mutuality of affection and interest between Christ and the believer.

HDT What we may speak of as understanding.

AJG Quite so. A life bound up with one another, speaking reverently.

JFP Would you say something as to the “living Father” - that expression in this connection?

AJG I think it is to stress that all this is living. The Lord when He was here said, “As the living Father has sent me and I live on account of the Father.” That is, it was a personal matter with Christ. It was the whole range of the Father’s interests and purpose to which the Lord was devoted, but at the same time the Father personally was the great Object in relation to which the Lord lived, and now He says, “As the living Father has sent me and I live on account of the Father, he also who eats me shall live also on account of me.”

ELM Would the objective in the Lord’s mind be involved in verse 62? “If then ye see the Son of man ascend up where he was before.” I wondered if this is the highway we have to take to reach that; to be found with Him the other side of death in living associations?

AJG I think so. I suppose those who said, “this word is hard” were not in the good of that. The Lord says that the answer to it is that, “If then ye see the Son of man ascending up where he was before”? “Where he was before” is a very striking thing, because it shows how all that had preceded has been a deliberate movement on the part of One of the Godhead.

HH ‘The Spirit quickening’ - what would be the difference between that and having life in yourselves; appropriating Christ?

AJG Well, if we have life in ourselves it is the result of the quickening of the Spirit, but now the Lord is saying that it is the Spirit that quickens, as though to remind us that we are dependent on the Spirit, that we cannot take these things up merely mentally. If we know a little of their power we may be able to say a little of what they import. In fact it is the Spirit that quickens, the flesh profits nothing.

JGW Is there any significance in the fact that the Spirit records that Jesus spoke these things in the synagogue, teaching in Capernaum? Is it to bring into relief that the assembly is a vessel of life greater than all that existed in the synagogue system?

AJG I suppose He would have in mind to reach all those in whom God was working, they would be found in the synagogue. So Paul in his service always went into the synagogue first if there was one, because he knew he would find there any in whom God was working. But actually the Lord says it is only those in whom God is working who respond to the truth.

HDT Is it because this ministry took place in Capernaum that the Lord could say it has been “exalted to heaven,” Luke 10: 15?

AJG Yes, exactly.

HDT Because they refused Him, it was cast down to hell, but doesn’t this show the character of His ministry?

AJG I think it does, yes.

DMcI Is there a distinction between what the Lord says about eating My flesh and drinking My blood and then the verse that we quoted so much, “He also who eats me”?

AJG Quite so. It is a question of Christ Himself, that is to say we first appropriate His death, we eat His flesh and drink His blood, but then He is no longer in flesh and blood condition. “He ... who eats me” connects the affections with the One who has died, but known now in His own sphere as the One who has ascended up where He was, before.

GAL This teaching covers the whole range of the Lord’s activities; His coming in from heaven; His death and His ascension.

AJG Yes, exactly.

SR Would it correspond with the “old corn of the land”?

AJG I think it probably does, save that that again is in a collective setting. The old corn of the land was not only what belonged to the land, but it was there before they got there. The note on Joshua 5: 11 shows that it is viewed not only as indigenous to the land but as there before they got there.

GAL Is this not really on the way to what the Lord opens up more fully in John 14, the whole Christian position. He says “In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me and I in you,” opening up the full force of our relationships in the dispensation, but verse 56 would be clearly basic to that, would it not?

AJG Yes, I think so. It seems to me that as we move on on this line there is really no limit to what it may lead us into, “he also who eats me shall live also on account of me.” I question very much whether we can place any limit on what is involved in that.

TJG The footnote helping us too, not only the fact of His living but the fact of His being, it would show the illimitable matter in mind.

AJG Yes, but I think it is important to understand that this is teaching for the individual in order that he may enter intelligently and livingly into what belongs to the assembly, so as Mr. L. says, it really underlies what we have in chapter 14 and other chapters which deal with the assembly position.

EJH Do you think, therefore, the Lord would have rejoiced in the confession and confirmation of personal links with Himself in Peter’s answer. “Lord, to whom shall we go,” verse 68?

AJG Quite so. I think we can see what an effect it will have on our assemblies locally if every brother and every sister is developed and strengthened in these personal links with Christ and in enjoying the heavenly things as appropriating Christ. It will make an immense difference to our meetings and to what there is for God.

FWK Would Philippians 3 be Paul’s way of speaking of these truths, “That I may ... know him” (verse 10) - the great objective that Paul had; to be conformable to His death. Would that be the appropriation of His death and then to know Him, would it fit into this chapter?

AJG I think it would. One has often been impressed with that, that such a spiritual man as Paul, just at the end of his course, should use language like that, “that I may ... know him,” Philippians 3: 9, 10. We might have thought Paul did know Him already, and he did, probably more than anybody else, and yet that is his language, “that I may ... know him,” as though the more he knew Him the more he wanted to know Him, and the more there was to know.

WET Would the truth of verse 57 help us to really merge in the testimonial position? I was thinking of the appropriation as being formed as the result of feeding, but the result of that will be that the testimonial side is seen as the saints are on these lines.

AJG I think that is right. All these chapters really result in the believer being made superior to the world in which he is actually moving according to God’s will, and if we are to be here according to God in the testimonial position we need to start by being lifted out of it and made superior to it.

ALO Are personal links with Christ sometimes formed through breakdown?

AJG I have no doubt they are. That is to say, as the grace of Christ is learned in breakdown then the heart becomes more attached to Him. But why do you say that, because we do not want to put a premium on breakdown, do we?

ALO No; but I was thinking of Peter. The Lord turned and looked upon Peter.

AJG I am sure that greatly affected him.

FVW Would the reference to the flesh here allude to the condition into which the Lord came up to His death, or do you carry it beyond death?

AJG That is a question, and I would not like to be dogmatic. Of course, in resurrection the Lord appeared in flesh and bones condition. He says, “a spirit has not flesh and bones as ye see me having,” Luke 24: 39. On the other hand I think as a rule where His flesh is mentioned it refers to the condition into which He entered before He died, so that Hebrews 5 speaks of “the days of his flesh” (verse 7), evidently alluding to the time here before He died. Certainly in this scripture it has in mind that He entered into flesh and blood condition, the condition in which we are, in order to terminate it by death.

HDT There is one thing clear; His manhood continues.

AJG His manhood continues. There is no question about that.

FVW So that would the “he that eateth me” connect with that more? It is a greater thought in a sense, without making undue comparisons.

AJG “He that eateth me” refers to appropriating Christ as He is now, as Man, of course, but in a glorious condition.

FVW So that Paul in Galatians says, “The life that I now live in flesh, I live by faith, the faith of the Son of God, who has loved me and given himself for me,” chapter 2: 20. Is that in that connection?

AJG Yes.

FVW Not so much what he says in Corinthians; that “He was determined to know nothing among them, but Jesus Christ and him crucified,” 1 Corinthians 2: 2. Would that be more the language of one who eats the flesh and comes to a judgment of the flesh?

AJG Well, this is not so much a question of coming to a judgment of the flesh, although that might be included in it, but I think this is more a question of the setting aside of the natural in favour of the spiritual. The judgment of the flesh is really involved in chapter 4, what the Spirit brings us to, so that the woman was entirely set free from her fleshly tendencies in the power of the Spirit, but this is a question more of overcoming what is natural in favour of what is spiritual.

ECM Is it not really the end of human life?

AJG It is really.

WMcK Is it a matter of building up an assembly constitution in that sense?

AJG That is exactly what it has in mind.

WMcK I was wondering if you would be free to say a few words in regard of verse 62, “If then ye see the Son of man ascending up where He was before”? Is it a similar expression to what we have in Ephesians? Far above all heavens: how far does that go?

AJG I do not think the point is so much how far it goes. Chapter 4 of Ephesians is to stress the exceeding dominance of the position from which the Lord is now operating, but this is that He has ascended up where He was before. That is, it is really stressing His deity and the fact that it is a divine Person who has deliberately moved in this way to bring in through death new conditions of life in manhood in Himself in which we are given part in the Spirit.

HDT Does it not introduce a touch of purpose into it all?

AJG I think it does, and it is the answer to our eating His flesh and drinking His blood. If we amply feed on death and nothing more there is nothing positive, but the answer to it is a new condition, of life outside of death in the Son of man who has ascended up where He was before.

GAL So that after this ministry which is to test faith and to bring in the truth of His death, the Spirit of God says “For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe and who would deliver him up.” It is quite clear that purpose underlies it all but that point is not brought in until the whole testing of the ministry is put out.

AJG No, quite so.

ELM Are there two great lines in the Lord’s movements, the coming down out of heaven and from heaven, one great line, and the other the ascending.

AJG I think so, and therefore we are to understand that eternal life involves a heavenly order of things.

HDT And something that was determined in, you might say, the aforetime; before the Lord took manhood.

AJG Exactly, I believe if we could get an impression of what is heavenly it might perhaps incite us to go in for these things more, because God has brought in the heavens and earth in order to give us a means of getting some impression of how superior the heavenly things are above earthly things, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts,” Isaiah 55: 9.

EJH And are we hindered sometimes in the realisation of that by thinking that the flesh can profit a little in these things? The totality of nothing has to be accepted as the Lord’s own words (verse 63).

AJG The flesh profits nothing.

HDT Do you think that practically we sometimes perhaps hardly learn that lesson until our desires are set in this direction and then we find that the flesh profits nothing?

AJG I think we do, and find out how inveterate is the opposition to the Spirit in the flesh, and hence that helps to deepen in us dependence.

ELM Would all this be in view of the formation of the heavenly man? “As is the heavenly one, such are the heavenly ones”? (1 Corinthians 15: 48).

AJG Yes, and heavenly tastes and heavenly interests, heavenly wealth too. You can understand that as Rebecca followed out her purpose to go “I will go” - and moved along with the servant, you can understand how she would become acquainted with the range of Isaac’s interests, how Abraham had given everything to him - the whole scope of things she would be getting into her heart as she moved along with the servant.

HFR It immediately speaks of “If then ye see the Son of man ascending up where he was before” (verse 62) - is that to encourage us that He would bring out these features with us too?

AJG Yes.

AB Would it give us the desire to know Him in His greatness in the new sphere in which He is?

AJG I think so. You often find that it comes out, sometimes on Lord’s day morning in the service, that brethren have got a real appreciation of Jesus as He was here, but we are tested very much as to how much we know of Him as He is and where He is.

GAL Then reverting to Mr. M.’s earlier remark, does it not lead on to the great thought that the Spirit presents in John 13, “Knowing that the Father had given him all things into his hands, and that he came out from God and was going to God,” John 13: 3. Does that not bring out both the dignity of His Person and the glory of His operations?

AJG Yes, I think so. That is the line in John’s gospel that He has come out definitely from God and goes to God, so that if He dies it is not presented as dying, but departing out of the world to the Father.

CJHD Would there be a link at all between verse 62 and that remarkable expression in 2 Kings 2, where Elijah says “Thou hast asked a hard thing; if thou see me when I am taken from thee.” I was thinking that the power that marked Elisha as he came back to move with the double portion of the Spirit was linked with the necessity of his seeing the ascending man in the figure.

AJG Quite so. And hence you can understand how deliberate Elisha would be that he was not diverted. He would be set upon keeping his eyes on Elijah lest he should lose that which was promised.

DJH And had he not had previous experience in following Elijah from place to place?

AJG Quite so, and that really leads us on to chapter 10, where the thought of following is a prominent thought, because we are now in the section of the gospel which is taking up the truth collectively, and the Lord introduces the idea of a flock, just one flock, indeed he stresses it in the verse where we started reading, where He says, “I have other sheep which are not of this fold: those also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one flock, one shepherd.” So that we are now in the collective position, and it is a universal position, involving all the saints. Jew and Gentile alike, just one flock, viewed as in movement as hearing the shepherd’s voice, and following.

EJH The collective position is maintained, would you say, through the individual position being maintained in hearing His voice each one individually.

AJG Yes, I think so.

HDT So that there is no need to attempt to erect another fold. The saints are going to be held together on the principle of a flock.

AJG Quite so.

EJH Have not divisions come into the public position because other voices have been listened to instead of this one voice that would set every individual together in one company?

AJG Yes, exactly. The thought, of course, of sheep in John’s gospel is that it is their nature to recognise the shepherd’s voice and follow. It is not their propensity for straying which is Luke’s and Matthew’s presentation of sheep, but it is rather their nature to hear the shepherd’s voice and follow.

WMcK In that sense, is the flock held together through their individual links with the Shepherd.

AJG Yes, I think so.

WMcK Every sheep is recognising the voice of the one Shepherd.

AJG That works out now in our recognising the universal ministry which the Lord gives by which the assembly universally is to be regulated, because this contemplates that we are in movement all the time we are here. But we are in movement as governed by the voice of the one Shepherd.

SJH Is that not exemplified in the Song of Songs? The individual side merging in the collective side.

AJG I was thinking of that before the meeting began, that verse in the Song of Songs, “If thou know not, thou fairest among women, Go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock,” chapter 1: 8. So that an enquirer was directed in that way to the footsteps of the flock.

THW Why does the Lord speak of it as giving? “My sheep hear my voice and they follow me; and I give them life eternal,” John 20: 27, 28.

AJG I think it is the result of following. If we follow diligently the ministry which the Lord gives we find it leads us into life eternal more and more. We are maintained in freshness. There is no stagnancy, there is a fresh entrance more and more into the things which God has prepared for those that love Him.

GAL I suppose the experience of chapter 9 would lie behind our finding our place in the flock?

AJG Surely. But then we are in the flock as given to Him of the Father, we have to find our place in it.

GAL I thought that was very interesting, because in chapter 9 the man himself is credited with having gone outside; but in chapter 10 the Lord shows that He leads us out and that He brings us in.

AJG Quite so. And it is in connection with the process of extrication that we get the idea that He calls His own sheep by name, as though in the process of extrication from what is contrary to the truth the Lord has a personal interest in each one and takes personal account of the circumstances and exercises of each one, but once that one is led out, then he is put in the flock, he has got to merge with the flock and move with it.

ELM Would the process of extrication lie in what we have in chapter 6 largely? Do you think feeding upon His flesh and drinking His blood would work out in extricating us from the false position?

AJG I do not know whether that enters into it in any marked way more than any other things.

ELM I was only thinking how that would extricate us from the whole life of the flesh in chapter 6 and I wondered if in principle the application of that would be working in chapter 9 in delivering the man from the position in which he was.

AJG Well, it is so, surely, only I did not want the idea to be conveyed that chapter 6 was simply a matter of extrication, because it is really essential for us all, even though we may have had the privilege of being brought up in the truth, and in that sense not be in anything from which we need to be extricated, but we have to take up the exercises of chapter 6 just the same.

ALO What would be the thought in the Song of Songs of his feeding his flock among the lilies?

AJG I suppose they are suitable conditions for the feeding. The lilies may suggest purity of affection.

DMcI Why does the Lord introduce the love of the Father and the laying down of His life here?

AJG It shows how all this we are speaking of is in the Father’s purpose, and therefore Christ draws forth the Father’s love in a peculiar way, that He takes this way of laying down His life in order that He might take it again, to give effect to it.

ECM Is not that where we come in; in the Lord taking His life again?

AJG I think it is important to see that, “I lay down my life that I may take it again.” It is the life that is beyond death that is in the Father’s purpose, and the Lord brings it in in Himself.

HDT Is not love induced in us by this term, “lays down his life for the sheep”? (verse 11) - “Hereby we have known love, because he has laid down his life for us,” 1 John 3: 16. Is it not calculated to affect every one of us? Not only the Father’s love to Christ but what is induced in the heart of the believer that recognises the way the Lord has taken for him?

AJG And to see that it is all connected with eternal purpose, so that the Lord says, “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself.” It is the dignified glorious movements of One of the Godhead come in to give effect in this way to all that the Father has in His heart.

TJG Would the appeal of love be seen peculiarly in this figure used of the Lord’s death? Are there not two main figures used as to the Lord’s dying - lifted up and laying down in John’s gospel, and the laying down is an appeal to love; the lifting up in John 12 is to draw all to Him?

AJG Well, quite so, and He says, “I, if I be lifted up out of the earth” (referring to the cross) “will draw all to me.” John 12: 32. Notwithstanding the outward reproach and opprobrium of the cross He is so attractive that He draws all to Himself, all that are in the Father’s purpose.

FWK Would an extricated company be seen in Acts 1, the Lord assembling with them and speaking of the promise of the Father, and then the coming of the Holy Spirit in chapter 2?

AJG Yes, I think so. But I think this passage in chapter 10 shows that our position, as following the shepherd’s voice, has a certain bearing on the profession around us, it exposes it. So that we read that “the feast of the dedication was celebrating at Jerusalem,” that is, it was cold formalism “and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple in the porch of Solomon.” The movements of Jesus had a certain exposing and discriminating effect, distinguishing between what was of God and what was not. And so “the Jews therefore surrounded him” and He says, “I told you, and ye do not believe. The works which I do in my Father’s name, there bear witness concerning me: but ye do not believe, for ye are not of my sheep, as I told you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give them life eternal; and they shall never perish, and no one shall seize them out of my hand.” So that those whom the Father has given to Christ are marked out from the cold formalism around them by the fact that they are in life, they never perish, they go right through in life.

AB Are the saints in that sense introduced into that which is most precious in the presence of the hatred of Christ?

AJG I think so. I think it is important to see as apostasy increases, that God intends we should be an exposure of what is all around in the fact that we are in the enjoyment of life, that we do not perish but go right through in life to the end.

EJH And the Lord speaks of very great opposition to these precious thoughts, the thieves and the robbers and the wolves and those who serve for wages. All these things are set in a hostile scene, are they not?

AJG There were those who were saying, “He has a demon,” there were those who were saying as much as that, “He has a demon and raves.” But against those conditions no one can deny the power of life, and the secret of our going through in life is that we have an ear that is attentive to the shepherd’s voice, that what the Lord is saying to the assembly at any time we are following up, it is bound to lead into life eternal, so that we never perish, we do not drop out.

GAL Is the position being more clearly defined as the Lord’s ministry proceeds? Chapter 8 is a sort of turning point when they rejected the ministry of Christ and placed themselves under the law. He then shows them to be lost and says ye are of your father the devil, from that point it seems there is no temporising of that any more, but the blessed position of the truth that the Lord is opening up and relationships with the Father are developed over against all that, are they not?

AJG Yes, they are, and it is remarkable, according to the New Translation, there is a double expression in that 8th chapter, the Lord says to some, “Ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sin” (verse 21), and then He says, “Ye shall die in your sins,” verse 24. That is to say, there is the dreadful sin of refusing the ministry which God gives, and then those who do that, die in their sins as well.

AB Would this violence of the enemy only bring out the greatness of the joys into which we are introduced as having eternal life, and the great security of the position in that such never perish and they can never be taken out of His hands, the Lord’s hands, nor the Father’s hands?

AJG Well, it is a most blessed position. The way the Lord brings Himself in and then the Father. It reminds us of the way Paul addresses the Thessalonians “in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ,” 1 Thessalonians 1: 1.

ELM Do you find the same line of thought in 2 Timothy with these wicked men, Jannes and Jambres were exposed by the power of life in evidence in the saints.

AJG Exactly. I think in the presence of the pretensions of formal religion it is a very important matter that we should see that we are intended to fill this position of exposing all that is formal and false by the simple fact that we are going on in life and we are maintained in it just as we hear the shepherd’s voice. There is only one voice for the whole flock.

WMcK Is the thought of the voice a very personal matter? It is not simply what is said, but it is the matter of the voice. Is it personal in that way?

AJG It is, quite so. But it is the voice now, not for each individual sheep but one voice for the whole flock, one flock, one shepherd.

AB Are you emphasising that it involves movement; the recognition of the Lord’s leadership amongst His people?

AJG Yes, exactly, that the leadership which the Lord gives among His people as the truth is followed up involves movement so there is no stagnation.

GM Does it suggest that this following is the result, not of commandment, but of affection and the attractiveness of the voice?

AJG That enters into it. I think that is a marked feature of this chapter, the shepherd’s personal love for the sheep and the sheep’s knowledge of the shepherd.

ERH Would the one voice suggest that it is likely we should be occupied universally with certain features of the truth at certain times?

AJG Yes, quite so. From one point of view, it is presented as the Spirit’s voice, “He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies,” Revelation 2: 7. But from this point of view it is the shepherd’s voice. He is in charge of the whole flock.

JFP “The words of the wise are as goads, and the collection of them as nails fastened in,” Ecclesiastes 12: 11. They are given from one shepherd?

AJG Yes, given from one shepherd; they are goads, that is, they incite to movement.

CJHD Would the sheep be seen in Solomon’s porch in Acts 5, where it says, “They were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch” (verse 12) and that is the same passage to which you referred this morning as to the words of this life.

AJG Yes. But here it says, “Jesus walked in the temple in the porch of Solomon.” In Acts 5 it says “they were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch” (Acts 5: 12) which is usually thought to refer to the porch of judgment, so that judgment had just been executed on Ananias and Sapphira and the brethren were all there with one accord, there was not a dissentient note, they were thoroughly committed to the judgment that had been executed.

HDT They were carried by what had been done.

AJG They were carried by what had been done, no one was questioning it. But here the Lord was walking in Solomon’s porch, the movements of the Lord, which are discerned in the ministry which He gives, have this discriminating or judging effect, exposing all that is just formal and bringing into relief what is living.

TJG Are we right in saying that the feast of dedication was not only formal but false and an attempt on the part of man to introduce evidences of life.

AJG I suppose so, but the Spirit of God says it was winter, it was cold and dead.

TJG As far as I can see, there is nothing in Scripture to show that this feast of dedication was a divinely inaugurated one, though abused. Was it not an introduction by man as an attempt to show evidences of life?

AJG I am not sure whether I could say as to that or not, but it is quite clear that whatever it was, it was just being carried on formally as is the case with all the feasts in John’s gospel.

FGH It is the emphatic “I.” “I give to them life eternal” suggests that this is assured to Christ’s sheep.

AJG Yes, I think so, and it is contemplated that we follow.

HDT Is not that over against the defencelessness of the position publicly?

AJG I think it is.

HDT There could not be anything much more defenceless than a flock, and if each sheep is given eternal life they are lifted into an invulnerable position.

AJG Quite so, then the Lord assures us of that in saying, “No one can seize them out of my hand, my Father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one can seize out of the hand of my Father.”

MR Is not the difference there instructive, that the Lord in speaking of Himself uses a future tense? “No one shall seize” and in speaking of the Father says, “No one is able.” One had noticed the same thoughts in the end of Romans 8 in connection with the love of Christ and the love of God. In the one case it is, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ” (verse 35) and in the other it is, “No one is able to separate us from the love of God,” verse 39.

AJG That is interesting, on the one hand the Lord says they shall not do it; on the other hand they cannot do it.

AB Is it protection against every contingency that might arise?

AJG Yes it is, but before we close we ought to pass on to chapter 17 because I suppose what the Lord says in verse 3, “This is the eternal life, that they should know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent,” places it on a very exalted level. The Lord asks that He should be glorified. He says, “as thou hast given him authority over all flesh, that as to all that thou hast given to him, he should give them life eternal. And this is the eternal life, that they should know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” There can be nothing greater than really to know God, and then to know the blessed Man who is the perfect answer in manhood to God. All that God looks for in Man is found in Jesus Christ, and we are to know both, to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent.

HDT Whilst the blessedness of that runs on into eternity itself, is it not a fact that in this setting it is in relation to those who have been left in the world and not taken out of it?

AJG I think so. I think it is well to see that, that the chapter in the main contemplates the disciples, and then ourselves, being left here in a position of testimony and in view of setting us up in that position we are to have the eternal life, to know the only true God, which is, as has often been said, deliverance from idolatry, so that God Himself becomes our object, and to know Jesus Christ whom He has sent, which as has been said, is deliverance from lawlessness. And those two things preserve us so that we are in the position of testimony without being overcome. But what impresses one is that while that is the setting of it, yet the essential thing is so great and eternal, that we can know God and know Jesus Christ whom He has sent.

FW To “glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me,” Jeremiah 9: 24.

AJG Quite so.

GAL Is not the fulness of the economy really spelt out in this wonderful chapter: first the Son glorified of the Father, but not that He may demand the world and make His foes His footstool, but to open up all the marvellous thoughts of the Father in divine love and purpose, and then He is the last Adam in verse 2 and He is the life-giving Spirit, which brings us into the blessedness of relationship in the knowledge of God and Christ. It is a wonderful opening up of the truth, is it not? The glory of our dispensation down here.

AJG Well, it is, and leads on to the most wonderful things in the end of the chapter, as we know, which we cannot touch on now, but this seems to me to be very wonderful, both in its immediate setting, that it is a great preservative, so that we may be here in the testimony as not overcome by the conditions that are around us, but then there is more than that in it, because when the position of testimony has ceased we shall still have this knowledge in all its blessedness.

GAL So it is a question of knowing God as Christ knew Him as Man.

AJG Quite so.

ECM It says of the Thessalonians that they “turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to await his Son from the heavens.” Would that feature be seen with the Thessalonians?

AJG Yes, they turned to God from idols.

DMcI You referred earlier to Paul at the end of his life speaking of knowing, “That I may know,” Philippians 4: 12. Does it not suggest that this is intended to go on continuously. This knowledge, it is a growing thing, is it not?

AJG Yes, I would think that. The Lord says this is the eternal life. He was to give eternal life to as many as the Father had given Him, and this is, He says, the eternal life, this is it; so that the very fact that it is called the eternal life shows it goes on eternally although in eternity, of course, the expression ‘eternal’ loses its force. It is evidently something to be known now in a contrary scene.

AB Would it be the great triumph of God in that way that God is known in all His blessedness and this blessed Man in whom perfection in manhood is known too.

AJG I think so. And, of course, we shall be brought into accord with Him as having His Spirit, but this is what is open to us to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent.

TJG Would you say a word as to that expression that seems to be linked on with the thought of eternal life: “The only true God” (verse 3) and then in 1 John 5: 20 “The true God”?

AJG I think it is, because what is immediately in view is the position in testimony here. So that there are many false gods, “gods many” it says. Many things or persons that would claim the allegiance of the hearts of men, but the Lord says, “that they should know thee, the only true God” - the only One entitled to command the affections of the creature.

HDT May I ask why this truth is conveyed to us in the form of a prayer?

AJG I think that is very wonderful, because you can understand that the Lord in speaking to the disciples was somewhat limited. He says in chapter 16, “I have yet many things to say to you but ye cannot bear them now,” verse 12. But when you find the Lord speaking to the Father He is entirely unrestricted. Speaking reverently, He can tell out His full heart and speak of all the Father’s thoughts, without the slightest limitation imposed by the weakness of the disciples, and that is what makes this chapter so unique.

HDT I wondered whether you had the same principle in Paul, that really the cream of his ministry is presented in the prayers in Ephesians and whether it involved communion on our part if we are to come into the gain of what the truth suggests to us.

AJG I am sure that is right.

GAL I suppose the distinction here would be, would it not, that the language which the blessed Lord uses, shows that they are speaking on equality, divine Persons are speaking on equality here.

AJG I think so.

HDT You mean, there is no bowing of the knees here?

AJG Quite so, they are on an equality. That is what makes it so wonderful and so precious, there is no limitation at all. There would be a certain limitation when the Lord spoke, to the disciples because of their lack of ability but here there is no limitation, and there is perfect equality and the most absolute accord of mind and thought between the Father and the Son. So we get divine thoughts in their purity and greatness in this chapter.

TJG And the Holy Spirit recording it provides an incentive to spirituality to look into it adoringly, into this matter, unlimited matter.

AJG I think so.

HFR The Lord quotes the passage you are referring to, “I and the Father are one,” John 12: 30. Does not there seem to be a development of that?

AJG Quite so.

GM Is there evidence of that liberty in the fact that the true God is mentioned before Jesus Christ?

AJG But does not that appeal to you as being in any sense morally right, I mean for us as creatures, it is right that we should know God and that He should come first, and then to know Jesus Christ is that you apprehend a Man in whom all that is right in Man God-ward is found, so that we have to know God first, and we have to know the Man in whom there is the answer to God.

GM I suppose in Revelation, would it not be right to say, that we take account of the Person, the glorious Person who has come into manhood first? (See end of verse 5 and verse 6 of chapter 1, and chapter 5: 9, 10).

AJG But then we take account of Him as Mediator, the One in whom God is known; I think we have to learn God first, then the answer to that in a Man.

GAL I think that is very important. There is no revelation of Jesus Christ yet. When He comes the second time He will be revealed; but He came to reveal God.

AJG Quite so.

FGP It seems to me that the second verse of John 17 would impress us with the various thoughts in the heart of the Lord Jesus, “That as to all that thou hast given to him, he should give them life eternal.”

AJG Yes, and the hour had come for it too. He says, “Father, the hour is come” and that shows how important this present period of the Spirit’s presence is, the hour has come for all this, that eternal life should be known, the power of it should be seen in the saints here in testimony.

EJH And heaven is impressed upon them because the Lord lifted up His eyes to heaven to say all these things.

AJG Yes, exactly.

HDT Would you say a word on “Glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee”?

AJG I think it is very touching that if the Lord asks to be glorified it is solely that He may glorify the Father; that is to put its impress on us too that the Lord has come in as Man with, I think we may say, the sole object of glorifying God. We are to take on that idea. It says in regard of those who minister in Peter’s epistle, that “God in all things may be glorified” even in the smallest things, that God in all things may be glorified, and we learn that as we take account of Christ in His movements.

HDT The acme of unselfishness is it not?

AJG It is indeed, yet you feel it is morally right, everything now is established on a morally right basis.