CHRISTIANITY MARKED BY FINALITY AND STABILITY (1)
CHRISTIANITY MARKED BY FINALITY AND STABILITY (1)
John 13:1-5; John 13:31,32; John 14:1-20
AJG I think it is clear that this 13th chapter commences a final section of the gospel, so that it begins with “Jesus, knowing that his hour had come that he should depart out of this world to the Father.” That is that the moment had now arrived for what was final in the mind of God to come in; because Christianity is the greatest thing that the heart of God has devised, involving the most wonderful place for men - that is for those of the assembly in relation to God known as Father - and the hour for this had now arrived; and what is to be noticed, I think, is that everything is in the Lord’s hands, so that the more we dwell on these chapters, the more we get a sense of great stability and great certainty and that everything is in the Lord’s hands, and not only so but the Lord knows everything. At the end of chapter 16 the disciples come to Him and say, “Now we know that thou knowest all things” (verse 30), showing that they had arrived at that point. I believe that what was now to open up in the Lord Himself finds its answer in the point we have now reached in the history of the assembly, that we have arrived at some sense of the immensity of what God has brought in in Christ and the Spirit; and arrived at a sense, too, of great certainty and stability, that everything is in the Lord’s hands and that He knows everything, and though Satan is near - and will be near until the Lord takes us to Himself - yet even Satan is in the Lord’s hand, so that the Lord says to Judas, “What thou doest do quickly.” The whole matter is under divine control, and if Satan is allowed to be near, yet, if we are with Christ, we shall find that even his activities only work out to bring the truth into fuller and more glorious display. So this chapter not only presents the Lord to us in a very attractive way as knowing everything and conscious of the Father having given all things into His hands, and that He comes from God and goes to God, but it also gives us the final solution of every issue in the glorifying of God in verse 31, and then the opening up in chapter 14 of the economy, you might say, leading up to a kind of climax in the word we finished with, where it says, “In that day” - that is the Spirit’s day - “ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” There is an immensity of wealth in that verse that, I think, grows upon us as we think about it.
GAL Are we left here with the impression that everything is really in the hands of divine Persons, and They are going to give effect to what is in Their mind according to divine counsel in Their operations in love?
AJG I thought so, and that the whole matter is definitely fixed, even the hour; that everything is going through according to plan. It is most assuring to know that the hour had come and no one could have brought it forward, nor delayed it: “The hour had come.”
HDT It had been stated earlier in the gospel. The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand.” Would that not emphasise what you are saying, that the plan was fixed long before?
AJG Yes, I think so, and the Lord is presented as knowing it, too - “knowing that the Father had given him all things into his hands” - so that the whole position is in the hands of Christ, and then for us in the hands of the Spirit, and that we are to go forward in great stability of mind and heart. It is not that you are unfeeling as to Satan’s activities,
because it says the Lord was troubled in spirit as conscious that one of His own would prove a traitor. So that we are not unfeeling as to what happens, but, at the same time, we go forward in unshaken stability.
HW Would it contribute to our stability to bear in mind the reference in Job that Satan had to give an account to God Himself?
AJG It would. I think what we see more and more is that the introduction of sin into the universe of God has given occasion for God to take up the challenge that it has constituted, and to meet it in man, in the Son of man, of course, but also in the saints, and that in the meeting of it God shines out with a glory in which He could not have been known apart from it; so that there is great establishment in seeing that even evil is under divine control and used for divine glory.
SEE Would the fact that it was during supper, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas the son of Simon, Iscariote, that he should deliver Him up, show that Satan was attacking things at the very centre?
AJG Yes, I think so. He is always seeking to get in amongst those who are nearest to the Lord positionally. Of course Judas was not near to the Lord morally, but he was in that position of being near to the Lord. We are told earlier what the secret was, that Judas was a thief and had the bag and what was put therein, showing that if Satan gains an advantage or gets in through one or another, you can rest assured that there is some reason underlying it, some moral reason that gives Satan the opportunity. John is presented as the opposite to that. He was in the bosom of Jesus and leaned on Jesus’ breast, showing that there is a way in which he could go through in stability.
HDT The only way, I suppose.
AJG Yes.
HG Would that way be shown in “Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end”? Is that another feature of stability?
AJG It is, because that is something that we can rely upon, the love of Christ. The great thing is to appreciate it and to avail ourselves of it like John.
GCS Would the washing of the feet enable us to have part with Him? He goes back to His Father and God. In chapter 20 He says, “I ascend to my Father, and your Father, and to my God, and your God.” Is this feet washing a necessity for us to have part with Him?
AJG We have to learn to allow ourselves to be served by Christ, do you think? Peter had a great difficulty in getting rid of himself, what he was going to be and what he was going to do, but we have to learn to allow the Lord to serve us. I think it is most touching that the Lord should desire that we should have part with Him, not only, I suppose, in privilege, but also in testimony. I believe He would bring us with Him into every position that He fills out in manhood.
WSS Is this “part with him” a present thought?
AJG Surely.
EuR Does it bear on all the following chapters right up to chapter 20, “part with me”?
AJG I think it does. I think it is well to see that, that we are to have part with Christ in service God-ward, and we are to have part with Him in the privilege of testimony here. In each case we have to recognise our need of being served, served in love by Christ Himself, and then we are to learn from Christ to serve one another in love, and thus to constitute a circle of love here which would be invulnerable against the attacks of the enemy.
GCS Does Satan go out here under the power of love?
AJG Yes, I would think so. You mean Judas goes out?
GCS Yes. Satan entered into him.
Ques Is not the form of the Lord’s service here intended to touch our hearts with the greatness of the stoop in love? His divine glory shines through His manhood.
AJG Yes, exactly, so that if He serves in love it does not derogate from His glory in any sense, but rather enhances it. And then it says that He took His garments again.
Ques “Part with me.” Would that include the thought of suffering?
AJG The thought of suffering, I suppose, in the testimonial side of the matter.
JSE Does all this hinge on our being helped by the Spirit to enter upon this great matter of what is final? Do we not need some help as to the blessedness of this matter, that the Lord Himself is now in final conditions?
AJG I think we do, and conditions that are wonderful the more we think of it. “I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” I believe that goes further than merely that He is in a place of affection with the Father. He is in His Father’s affections and we are in His affections and He is in ours - that is perfectly true but I believe it goes further than that, and shows how wonderful the economy is, that there is a Man - speaking reverently - a Man in the Father who can be there because of what He is in His Person; and we are in Him, united to Him in the Spirit, and He is in us. It shows the immensity of what has come in in Christianity.
HDT Have you in mind that that is implied in the verse you have read, “God also shall glorify him in himself?”
AJG Well, only that that is more in relation to the solution of moral issues, is it not?
HDT Yes. I was thinking of the final result as the ultimate end of it.
AJG It seems to me that the first part of John 14, down to the end of verse 14, is setting out the position objectively in relation to the Father and the Son, and then the Spirit is brought in, from verse 15 onwards, in order that we might not only be intelligent as to it but learn our own part in it.
GAL Is it not a divine necessity that the whole matter of the challenge to God’s rights by the introduction of sin should be removed by the Son of man, before the divine privilege of the Father’s house is opened up to us?
AJG You feel it is morally right that there should be no issue left unmet.
CEJ The Lord says in verse 1 that He should depart out of this world to the Father, and then in verse 3 that He came out from God and was going to God. Would you say a little as to the two suggestions: “depart to the Father,” and then “going to God”?
AJG I suppose He was going to open up the Father’s realm, as we often say. That is as a Man He was going to take a place in relation to the Father, but then what was involved in that was that God was brought into full declaration, and a perfect answer was being secured for God; but we reach God through the Father, it seems to me.
CEJ I was seeking help. I was thinking of John 20, “My Father, and your Father, ... my God, and your God.”
AJG Evidently the great end must be God. God is the great beginning and He is the great end. He says in Isaiah 48, “I, the first, and I, the last,” that is God began everything and everything ends with God. But then, in order to bring us in, in relations with Him in the greatest possible intimacy. He has been pleased to conceive the economy and to take the name of Father.
HFN In view of what you are saying, is the final thought in view, in your mind, in 1 Corinthians 15: 24 - 28, “Then the end, when he gives up the kingdom to him who is God and Father; when he shall have annulled all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign until he put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that is annulled is death. For he has put all things in subjection under his feet. But when be says that all things are put in subjection it is evident that it is except him who put all things in subjection to him. But when all things shall have been brought into subjection to him, then the Son also himself shall be placed in subjection to him who put all things in subjection to him, that God may be all in all.” Is that the great final end to which we are moving, and which we are reaching at the present time?
AJG I believe so, that God would make Himself, in the fulness in which He is known - the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit - everything to us.
HFN So does that really touch God’s eternal supremacy?
AJG I think so, for after all we are very near to eternity. We talk about the millennium having to come in first, and, of course, that is true from the standpoint of God’s ways, but actually when we are taken to be with Christ, we ourselves enter upon eternal conditions. We are much nearer to eternity than we realise.
HFN We feel in the Spirit that there is only a thin veil between, that divides from the other world.
AJG Quite so.
JSE In the allusion to the millennium, do you mean that no actual change takes place with ourselves after the millennium, but before?
AJG Exactly. Those who have part on the earth during the millennium and are carried on to the new earth will undoubtedly have to take on some nature of change, corresponding in a sense to resurrection; but we enter upon our final conditions when the Lord comes for us, so that we are a great deal nearer to eternity than we may realise.
HDT Is it not a fact that the millennium is part of God’s ways, whereas the assembly is linked with Christ as part of His purpose?
AJG Well, quite so.
JMcK In the first chapter we have “No one has seen God at any time: the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” Is the going to God the answer to that revelation?
AJG I think so. The going to God has that in mind, as I understand it. He brings God out perfectly in coming from God, and in going to God would secure an answer in perfection in the saints.
HDT I wondered whether “He came out from God” is a reminder to us as to who He is in His Person.
AJG So that you might say it is God coming out.
JGW Would you open out a little why the service of the Lord to His own, and the example which He has left to us, follows immediately on the words as to coming from God and going to God? In what way do we carry on the service?
AJG I think it is a question of our position here in testimony. The Lord would have a circle characterised by love in this world. He is gone, but there is to be a circle of love in which God is served and in which the truth as to God is maintained, so there is to be the service of God maintained in the presence of evil, and there is to be a testimony to God in His nature in this circle of love; and the more love is active amongst us and cultivated, the less Satan can get in. Jerusalem is as a city that is compact together (Psalm 122) - that is the great answer to Satan’s activities. The saints should be compacted together, and the service of love to one another goes a long way towards securing that.
EuR In verse 35, as to the new commandment, He says, “By this shall all know that ye are disciples of mine, if ye have love amongst yourselves.”
AJG Quite so. It is a most important feature that there should be a circle here where love reigns and can be seen to reign; and not only is it important in the way of testimony, but it is also important because it is a great support to us individually in our position in the testimony.
AB Does it have in mind a reserve amongst the saints - “love amongst yourselves” - that can be drawn on if the enemy attacks, and in view of difficulties that may arise, that love would meet them?
AJG I think so. So that attention is drawn in the note to the link between the statement that the Lord loved His own which were in the world, and then in Acts 4 that they depart to their own company. There is a link between Christ’s own and our own company; it is the same company.
SEE Would the service following immediately on that wonderful statement, suggest that it would be carried out from the highest level?
AJG Yes, it is very menial service to wash feet, but that service has been ennobled by the One who has done it, and not one of us should think it beneath him to get down to the saints and serve them as occasion requires.
FVW Would this service help to merge the saints together and put a check upon the tendency to too individualistic features as seen in Peter?
AJG Yes, I think so. I am sure we need to cultivate it. Sometimes we begin to show love when a person is beginning to stray and it may be it is a little too late. We might have helped more if we had cultivated personal links with one another more when things were normal.
HDT Does it involve what is mutual - “By love serve one another,” Galatians 5: 13?
AJG Yes, exactly.
HFN Would this service of feet-washing really provide a suitable atmosphere, in view of the truth the Lord was ministering here? Do we not often try to develop the truth apart from an atmosphere?
AJG I think so, but I believe the Lord is stressing conditions, holy conditions of love amongst ourselves, because of the greatness of what the Spirit is prepared to open up and bring us into, He must have conditions.
HFN That is exactly what was in one’s mind. Would you say a little more in relation to how this bears on the scene of testimony and then the realm of privilege. You were referring to it a few moments ago.
AJG Well, of course, love amongst ourselves is in itself a testimony. I mean there is a sphere in the saints in the midst of the world in which what is of God is seen. It is seen livingly expressed. So the characteristic word in John’s gospel is “Come and see.” It is not a question so much of verbal testimony, as of the thing being set out in love, so that people can be invited to “Come and see.”
AJEW Is that not involved in the Lord’s words to Philadelphia? He speaks of those of the, synagogue of Satan, and then he says, “I will cause that they shall come and shall do homage before thy feet,” Revelation 3: 9.
AJG Yes, that is good. So He says to the overcomer that He will make him a pillar, that is the characteristic Philadelphian stands out as himself exemplifying the truth.
ALRT Does the bosom of Jesus stand relative to the privilege side, and the breast of Jesus to the testimony side?
AJG I would think so. The bosom of Jesus is the restfulness and tenderness of love as enjoyed, but the breast of Jesus is where support and strength are found.
HDT The reliability of that love.
AJG Yes.
PGB In the epistle to the Corinthians Paul has to speak of love in an abstract way because it was not sufficiently developed practically in that assembly, and then he refers two or three times to Satan, as though to show that the enemy gets in when love is not operating amongst us.
AJG Quite so.
JMcK Would John himself help to provide what was needed in the way of conditions? I was thinking of the way he has given himself over to these eternal relations of love, as distinct from how he is presented in the synoptic gospels (see, for example, Luke 9: 49 - 55 and Mark 10: 35 - 37) and whether his presence and his attitude in the bosom of Jesus would not help in the general atmosphere, giving an impression of the Lord in this matter.
AJG I think so. He shows that there was at any rate one who appreciated the assembly’s unique position in the love of Christ and was enjoying the restfulness of it, so that he could go through in John’s gospel. There is very little that suggests anything in the way of failure with John.
GCS Does it show the effectiveness of this in the beginning of Acts, where John and Peter were together?
AJG Yes. Peter is foremost in the sovereignty of the Lord to take a more prominent part in public testimony, and yet you feel John is there as providing the moral basis for all that is set out in Peter.
AH Would you say something about Mr. B.’s enquiry?
AJG I thought it was complete in itself, if I may say so. That is, I think, he was bringing to our notice that in Corinth Satan had a certain inlet, a certain opportunity, because of the lack of love. When Paul speaks of love to the Corinthians he cannot speak of what is there in the company, he has to present it abstractly.
AH Would you think that the household of Chloe might bear some features of this feet-washing?
AJG I think so, and the household of Stephanas. It was not that love was entirely lacking in Corinth, but it needs to be brought forward in an abstract way because it was really so little esteemed.
HDT He does bring it in in the injunction “Let all things ... be done in love,” 1 Corinthians 16: 14. He was not content to leave it in the abstract. He intended everything to work out actively.
AJG I believe that is a most important matter. One has often been struck with that thought, that in Corinthians, which is an administrative epistle, he should finish with that word, “Let all things ye do be done in love.” I believe that is a great need in certain parts at the present time.
WSS As to the position of the “disciple whom Jesus loved,” to which reference has been made, is that a concrete example of one having part with the Lord, and do we reach that, as far as we may reach it, at the Supper particularly?
AJG Yes, I would say so.
HDT May I refer again to your earlier remark? Do you mean where there is conflict for the truth, and where administrative action needs to be taken? You have that verse particularly in mind, “Let all things ye do be done in love.”
AJG Well, not only where conflict is on, though that comes in, I am sure, but in all that is done by the assembly love has to be in evidence. There may be need for discipline, there must be rule, things must be maintained, but, at the same time, love is to be the dominant feature in everything.
HFR We have had a good deal brought before us as to twelve being an administrative number.
AJG Yes, exactly.
GAL Is it not striking in this chapter how the Lord brings in everything that is requisite in His own Person for administration? There were the betrayers there, and Peter was about to forsake him, but the Lord brings in in His own Person everything that was requisite to set their minds at rest.
AJG Yes, he does; that is striking.
FWK Why does the Lord refer to Himself as Teacher and Lord in connection with this incident?
AJG Well, they called Him that: “Ye call me the Teacher and the Lord, and ye say well, for I am so. If I therefore, the Lord and Teacher,” He says. I think it is a question of His own personality being pressed upon them, that He should have taken up such a service; and, as has often been remarked, Paul could gather sticks and make a fire. If so great a man as Paul should do that, any of us could do it. Now in verse 31 we come to this crucial point, “When therefore he was gone out Jesus says, Now is the Son of man glorified.” Just before that the Lord had said to Judas, “What thou doest, do quickly.” The whole matter is under His control, and now the Son of man is to be glorified in the devotion in which He would give Himself up to glorify God.
HG Would you say something as to the fact that in the first scripture, where it speaks of the devil having put the thought of betrayal into the heart of Judas, Jesus is seen going down; but in the second scripture it is “When therefore he was gone out,” and He is spoken of as being glorified?
AJG Well. He goes down, of course, in the service of love, but the Lord now, as thinking of Himself as about to be glorified, is referring to Himself being glorified in a moral sense. He goes on to say, “God also shall glorify him in himself, and shall glorify him immediately.” The first thing He has in mind is that the Son of man is to be glorified in a moral sense, that is that He would surrender Himself in love in death, in order that every issue raised by the incoming of sin should be met in Him, and God could shine out in the glory of redeeming love.
GAL This would be the first time a man had gone into death to the glory of God.
AJG Yes, indeed. I think it helps to see that in juxtaposition to this you have Satan. Satan had entered into Judas, so that Satan had entered into a man in whom he would express himself fully, in the act of the gravest wickedness in the history of the world. Now God has - speaking reverently - this Man, in whom, in the presence of evil, He would shine out, not as condoning evil but as judging it and yet finding a way to come out in love.
HDT So that the point of the greatest shame publicly, was the very point of the greatest moral glory.
AJG Exactly.
HDT It is the cross, really, is it not?
AJG It is.
GAL It is propitiation He has in mind, is it not? He glorifies God in that.
AJG Oh, yes, surely. That is to say, the rights of God’s throne are challenged by sin, and His nature was affronted by sin; and all that is due to God’s throne, and all that is due to His nature, is met in the wondrous fragrance of the sacrifice of Christ.
HDT Might I ask, to make it clear, as to this expression, “Now is the Son of man glorified”? That is personal to Christ, is it not? That is, the cross, being the point of shame, becomes the point of the greatest moral glory; and then God is glorified in Him, that is something further, is it not? The conciliation of God’s nature and attributes in that glorious way is a matter of testimony. So that, is there not in these glories something which we need to distinguish, in that sense?
AJG Exactly. That is to say that it was the personal glory of the Son of Man that He would devote Himself in self-sacrifice, meeting all God’s claims according to His holiness, and setting free the floodgates of redeeming love, and in His so doing, God Himself shone out in glory.
HDT Does that not give us an admiration for the principle of obedience which we would never learn otherwise?
AJG Quite so, and then as you say God has been glorified in Him, and His attributes and His nature have been perfectly conciliated, and God stands out supreme and Satan disappears from view. In spite of evil being seen, the scene is free from it, and what remains is the fragrance of Christ and the blessedness of God.
GCS Satan’s man is exposed. His bowels gushed out in Acts 1.
AJG Yes, but that is not brought in here. In a sense you are no longer occupied with evil, the whole thing has been closed up, and what you are left with is the fragrance of Christ and the blessedness of the love of God.
GAL “Where sin o’er all seemed to prevail, Redemption’s glory shed” (235:4).
JSE Does the first part of the chapter link our affections on with the Lord in a personal way, as to what He has gone into Himself, without reference to saying anything? It says that He knew that His hour had come, not that He said it, but He knew it, and then as Judas goes out the Lord says all this about the Son of man. Is that with the intent of our being at home in the sense that everything is consummated by that Person as the Son of man; whereas in this earlier section it seems to link with Himself apart from His saying anything?
AJG Yes, I think so, but now the Lord is speaking, as you say, in verses 31 and 32. He is speaking with a view to our being intelligent and also restful in the sense that God has stepped into this matter. He has taken up the challenge and met it in grace in the Son of man, and everything now has been met, and we can be restful. Although Peter turns out to be a failure, as he does in the end of the chapter, we can still be restful because every issue is met, and God has opened out His own purposes of grace, and the Godhead is equal to effecting them.
WSS Would you say a word about the last part of verse 32? The Lord says, “God also shall glorify him in himself, and shall glorify him immediately.”
AJG I think it refers to God not having delayed to raise up Christ and place Him in the greatest exaltation in heaven.
WSS I was wondering whether “Glorify him immediately” would connect with the coming of the Spirit.
AJG It might connect with that also.
GAL The end of Ephesians 1 would set out the position fully.
AJG It does, quite so.
EWC “Raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father,” Romans 6: 4.
AJG Yes, and not only raised from the dead but seated in the highest place of glory.
EWC God’s answer to it.
HFN Would the answer, too, be seen in what is established in the circle of love, and then it says,
“A new commandment I give to you, that ye love one another.”
AJG The Lord is, I think, stressing that this is imperative, do you not think? He was to depart, they were to be left here, and the first thing that was imperative was that they should establish love amongst themselves.
HFN I was thinking of what Mr. Raven pointed out, that wherever you get the presentation of the glory of the Lord in this way, it is always followed by a circle down here. For instance in Philippians 2, where you get the Lord’s glory, the saints come out as those who shine as lights in the world, and “children of God in the midst of a crooked and perverted generation.” Every scripture that presents His glory in this way gives a present answer.
AJG That is very interesting, I am sure.
WS Does not the use of the term “Son of man” suggest the whole universe of bliss, the centre of which is Christ?
AJG Well, the title, I suppose, may perhaps include that. I thought the point was that God was doing it in a Man. He is taking up the issues in Man. The angels who fell are reserved for judgment, and God is taking up the issues raised by the intervention of sin, and He has solved them in Man, and He is going to bring man into blessing.
GCS Is that seen in Hebrews 2, “We see Jesus, who was made some little inferior to angels on account of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour”?
AJG Quite so, that is the Son of man.
HFN Is that not of supreme importance, as to what you are stressing? We cannot touch that world - a realm of privilege - until moral questions have been settled, can we?
AJG No, it is most important, and in the settlement of that we find that love has triumphed. Love is supreme, and therefore we can have a circle of love down here.
WSS I was thinking of Mr. N.’s remark about the circle of love in connection with the glorifying immediately. The circle of love seems to be formed in chapter 14 particularly. The Lord says of the coming of the Spirit in chapter 16, “He shall glorify me.”
AJG Quite so. Now in regard to chapter 14 we can only touch things lightly, but they can be filled out some other time. In chapter 14 we have the opening out of the Father’s house, the Father’s counsels, and the special place that the assembly has, the unique place in those counsels as peculiarly loved by Christ, so that our place is “that where I am ye also may be.” But then the Lord stresses believing on Him. He says, “Believe also on me,” and then again “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me.” He is stressing believing on Him, as though He would emphasise the importance of our having the eyes of our hearts centred in Himself, a Man, in the glory of His Person, but truly Man, now in the presence of the Father, and all that is involved in that wonderful position.
EuR We can in no way be in the gain of the revelation of the Father, in the making known of God, apart from the mediatorial position that the Son and the Spirit have taken.
AJG That is right. Christ is the only one spoken of as the Mediator. There is no doubt that the Spirit’s service is also mediatorial in character, but the Lord first of all is presenting Himself as the Mediator. So it is, “Believe also on me.” Then He says, “No one comes to the Father unless by me,” and then again, “Believe me that I am in the Father.”
GAL Is that not all to stress the glory of Christ as the vessel of divine revelation? Here was all the truth of God presented in a Person, was it not?
AJG And is it not important that that should be held in our souls? We may tend to think that God has been pleased to bless us in sonship, but if we divorce it from Christ Himself, we lose its blessedness.
HDT So that the fact of Christ’s manhood is not a mere doctrine to us - it is something upon which eternity hangs for us.
AJG It is, and it is the place we have in the love of Christ, “That where I am ye also may be.” We are only creatures, and yet we are to be in that place, and the more we become conscious of it, the more God will stand out in His wonderful blessedness.
EBL Is chapter 14 the great comfort chapter?
AJG Oh, this is the great comfort chapter, but this is far more than that. The more we begin to get an understanding of how blessed God is, and what He has conceived, and His ability to bring it to pass - it is God who brings it to pass, the Father, the Son and the Spirit - the more we become satisfied with God and our portion with God, you might say.
MPS Would you open up for us the difference between verses 10 and 11, and verse 20?
AJG I am glad you mentioned that, because it seems to me that the Lord is first of all seeking to establish us in the appreciation of Himself in relation to His Father. He would have that before us first, and then He goes further. When it comes to the day of the Spirit, we are to be fully established in that, and to learn another thing, and that is that we are in Him and He in us, and we are brought in because obviously the economy necessitates our being in it. The economy is not complete, indeed it is not necessary, apart from us. It is because God has in view to bless man that He has conceived the economy, and the economy is not complete without us, we are needed to fill it out.
HDT And yet the fulness of divine thoughts is seen in Christ personally.
AJG Exactly, and then the Spirit comes in to make it good to us, so that it is the Father and the Son and the Spirit. It says in Hebrews, “For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things” (Hebrews 2: 10), as though there it is presented that God Himself does everything. I mean it is not distinguished between the Persons of the Godhead, as in Corinthians, where it says, “Yet to us there is one God, the Father, of whom all things, and we for him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.” In Hebrews it says, “It became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things,” that is God Himself effects everything.
GAL In the first instance which Mr. S. referred to, the Lord Jesus has to fall back upon the testimony of His works, to emphasise in their minds who He was; but in the second it seems that it is the testimony of the Spirit in the soul, leading us into the fulness of the relationship of which you are speaking.
AJG Yes, quite so.
JSE Do we not need to pay some definite attention to this statement, that it can only obtain in relation to Christ, as Himself in the final circumstances?
AJG Exactly, and in relation to Christ in manhood. We have no part in Deity obviously, and yet we are united to One who is in Himself God. That is the marvel of what has come in, as a result of the incarnation and the coming of the Spirit.
EuR Will you say something as to “I in you”?
AJG It is not only that Christ is in our affections, but He is in us by the Spirit, and He takes His place in the midst of the assembly too. He is absolutely committed to us, if one may say so reverently.
AB Would it imply that He is actively in the affections of the saints? I was thinking of the last clause of John 17.
AJG I think it does. It says in Romans 8, where it is presenting the truth individually, “If Christ be in you,” and it is wonderful to think how absolutely Christ is dwelling in us by the Spirit.
CEJ Would it be suggested in the Lord breathing into them and saying “Receive ye Holy Spirit”?
AJG The Lord breathing into them His own life, you might say, by the Spirit.
HFR Does it not emphasise what has been said as to the personnel of the assembly having the nearest place to Him?
AJG That is what I had in mind. We have to be very careful to see that our thoughts are holy in dealing with these great matters, but I believe the more we weigh over this verse, the more wonderful it becomes.
SEE Would you connect “I in you” with what the apostle says in Colossians 1:27, “God would make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the nations, which is Christ in you the hope of glory”?
AJG I think so. I am not sure whether that goes quite as far as this, but I think it links on with it.
HDT Would you think that “Ye in me” must necessarily precede, in one sense, “I in you”?
AJG I think so, but say what you have in mind.
HDT I was thinking of everything working out, the place that Christ has as Man as the centre of the Father’s thoughts and the place we have as connected with Him - but then this is all to result in the formation by the Spirit of Him in us; it is a moral order that could not be reversed.
AJG Quite so, but then the Lord has His place personally in the assembly, “In the midst of the assembly will I sing thy praises.” The assembly is His body, these are marvellous and abiding conditions that have come to pass.
EuR Is it not important what Mr. E, is insisting upon, Christ in final conditions? It was as the ascending Man that He breathed into them, was it not?
AJG Yes. Another thing we might mention is that I suppose at least three quarters of John’s gospel is the words of Jesus. It differs from the synoptic gospels in that way, in that it is largely made up of the actual words of Jesus; this applies, of course, to chapters 14, 15, 16 and 17, as well as much of the earlier part of the gospel, the words of Jesus. It is well that we should get them into our minds. Read them over and over again so that they get a place in your memory, and they enlarge to you as you dwell on them.
AED Is that what He means when He says that His words are Spirit and are life?
AJG Yes, exactly, His words, and Peter said “Thou hast words of life eternal,” John 6: 68. The Lord had not been speaking to them about current happenings in the world. He had spoken to them about His Father’s things, and Peter said that they were words of life eternal.
HFN Would there be anything in the thought of connecting Ephesians with “ye in me,” and Philippians with “I in you”?
AJG Well, I should think there is, though “I in you” goes beyond what is characteristic. I have no doubt that what we get in this chapter really answers to the top-stone of Paul’s ministry.
HDT Is it not remarkable that it must have had a foremost place in the Lord’s mind as being one of the first-fruits of the Spirit’s day?
AJG It is, quite so.
HDT Is that not seen in the words “In that day ye shall know,” as though it was one of the first things the Lord had in mind.
AJG Exactly.
AB Would it be a foretaste of eternal conditions?
AJG That is exactly what it is.
PW Would it be out of place to ask what Peter means when, in the second epistle, he says, “That through these ye may become partakers of the divine nature”?
AJG Through these, that is the exceeding great and precious promises, “ye may become partakers of the divine nature.”
PW How may we become partakers of the divine nature?
AJG As far as I understand, we become partakers of the divine nature as born of God.
GAL I think our brother had in mind the distinction between deity and divine nature.
PW That is what I had in mind.
AJG Of course there is no suggestion of having part in deity. The divine nature is love, and we are born of God; but just as children take on the characteristics of their parents, so, as born of God, we love.