LIBERTY
[p. 89] LIBERTY
I desire to carry out the purpose which I mentioned last time, viz., to bring before you the leading features of Christianity in its true power — I do not mean doctrinally, though of course you could not have it without doctrine, but morally. It is a very great thing to ascertain the true nature of Christianity, what the great moral characteristics of it are. I referred last week to the first thing, which is light, and explained that light was the revelation of God. Light makes everything manifest, but that is a consequence of light; you do not get things made manifest until you get the light, and the light, as I said, is the revelation of God; that is, the revelation of God makes everything manifest. “Whatsoever doth make manifest is light”. That is the first great feature of Christianity.
The second, on which I purpose dwelling tonight, is liberty. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”. In the passage I have read, most of you will remember two expressions; the Lord first says, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”, and then afterwards He says, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be truly tree”. The servant is brought forward in contrast to the son; “the servant”, the slave, for that is the real meaning of the word, “does not continue in the house for ever”, he has no title to permanence, “but the son continues ever” — He has a proper title to a permanent place in the house. The first point is the power of deliverance from sin, the second is the liberty and privilege of the house. The last is a common idea even in human things;
[p. 90] we talk about a man having the liberty of a city. Here it is the liberty of the house.
Before I speak on this question of liberty, I refer shortly to what came before us last week. I said that God’s purpose in the gospel was that He might be known in the heart of man. Therefore when the great truth of the gospel has come home to me, that God is love, and I know His love, then I am in light; I am no longer in darkness, I was once darkness, but now I am light in the Lord, my heart is really in the light as God is in the light. That, and nothing short of it, is the proper state of the Christian. Every Christian walks in the light as God is in the light; but the point is that his heart should be full of light, because otherwise he has not got the full enjoyment of what God is as He has revealed Himself. The first great characteristic of Christianity, is light for the heart of man; man’s heart was by the fall in darkness, and in ignorance of God, and God having revealed Himself it was His pleasure to be known in the heart of man. You cannot conceive anything more gracious on the part of God.
One point to which I alluded last time was not, I think, generally understood, and that was as to the groundwork of all, namely, the putting away of sin. I was laying stress on the importance of propitiation. Many people, in their thoughts of the sacrifice of Christ, begin at substitution. But substitution is not the first aspect of the offering of Christ; the first aspect of it is that which was God-ward, namely propitiation. The great point in the offering of Christ was that sin should be removed from under the eye of God, so that God might be free to accomplish His will. “Once in the end of the world hath he [Christ] appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself”. I understand by “sacrifice” in that passage that Christ gave Himself up wholly to it; that cost what it might, whatever it might mean to [p. 91] Him in the way of suffering, He would remove sin from before God; that is what He came to effect, and to effect it for God.
Sin stood in the way of the accomplishment of God’s purposes of grace. Those purposes had to be carried into effect; but it was impossible for God to come out to man till sin had been removed, and Christ came to this end for God’s will. But that is not substitution, or Christ suffering in the place of others; it was a question of propitiation, of removing sin from under the eye of God. It was the exigency of God’s will. I do not think any one will find any difficulty so far; but the point of difficulty was in this, which I suppose I failed to make clear, that when Christ died, sin was no longer under the eye of God. All that was due in regard of it had been borne. Christ was on the cross made sin, and it was thus completely removed. He, by divine appointment, represented sin on the cross in the presence of the holiness of God; but in the act of death the eye of God rested only upon absolute obedience and righteousness, and in the sufferer God was completely glorified; sin was removed in order that God might be glorified in man in death. Death was upon man, it was the governmental penalty, to which we are all subject, which God has attached to sin in connection with man’s life in this world; Christ really died, but His death, instead of being the mark and fruit of disobedience, was in perfect obedience, entirely to the glory of God. Thus what came under the eye of God in Christ’s death was perfect obedience and righteousness when sin had been removed. Of course all was effected upon the cross; it is only there that we find the Lord Jesus addressing God otherwise than as Father. He says, “My God, my God”. But at the moment of His death it is, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit”. And the blessed [p. 92] answer to it comes out in resurrection, even that death was annulled, and man placed, in the Person of Christ, at God’s right hand in the heavenly places.
I only refer to this subject again on account of the importance of the truth of propitiation, since in virtue of it God can address Himself to man; He has set forth Jesus to be a mercy-seat through faith in His blood. I quite admit that without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins, but I warn all that death is not the final dealing with sin: “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment”; it is the lake of fire which is the final dealing with sin. And if Christ removed sin from before God, you may depend upon it He suffered at the hand of God what sin demanded from the holiness of God.
I pass on now to the great and important question of liberty. Many a person has light that has not got yet into the enjoyment of liberty. But it is not according to God that you should be in bondage; that would not suit the grace of God at all. I would not like my children to be in bondage; it would be a painful thought to a parent. If God makes known His love to our hearts, He does not want us to be in bondage, it is not of him. But it very often takes people a long time to get practically into liberty, because, if you are going to be delivered from the power of a thing, you must first judge the thing from which you are to be delivered. And this is the practical difficulty with every one of us, to learn what we have to be delivered from. But it is no pleasure to God that a man should be in bondage. From habit of soul, and experience, it may take us a long time to come into liberty; but the word is, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”.
I will speak of liberty in respect of three things (you can follow them up at your leisure), which are [p. 93] brought out successively in the Gospel of John, and thereby the question of liberty is made more intelligible to us. The first is sin (what the Lord speaks of here), the second is legality, and the third is the world. They are three things which hamper every one of us grievously, and it is a long time before we break free from them. I can speak feelingly in that way, for I think that I know the power of all three. But it is a blessed thing to see that the grace of God is such that He would have a Christian here in this world to be free of all; and his soul to be in the enjoyment of liberty from all that to which he is naturally in bondage. I will take up the three points in detail in connection with John 4, John 5 and John 6. I cannot speak beyond myself, for no man can help others beyond where he is himself; it is not God’s way that he should, for it would not be honest, but I think I can give you the thought that comes out in those chapters as to the liberty that God would have the Christian to enjoy.
The first point is sin. In Romans 6 we get, “How shall we that have died to sin live any longer therein?” The question is raised immediately grace is known, “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” Sin, I understand to be insubjection to God; it is will without goodness, for God alone is good. Man’s will is sin, and “sin is lawlessness”, that is, defiance of restraint, a man will do his own will; that is the principle of sin. It may come out in a variety of detail, but I only deal with the principle. Immediately a person comes into the light, to know the grace of God, and has received the Holy Ghost, the question comes up, “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” Then in Romans 6 the apostle takes up the principle of deliverance from sin. The same thing is seen in principle in John 4, in which the woman of Samaria represents a soul under the power of sin. It has [p. 94] been said that if we had had the writing of John 3 and 4, or the dealing with the persons spoken of, we should have reversed the teaching — what the Lord said to the woman of Samaria we should have said to Nicodemus, and what the Lord said to Nicodemus we should have said to the woman of Samaria. There is no doubt truth in this, but it only shows how much greater God is than our thoughts. The Lord spoke to Nicodemus the very thing that Nicodemus needed, for I do not doubt there was a work of God in him which drew him by night to Christ; and describes, it may be, what had taken place in him. But in chapter 4 the Lord has before Him a woman under the control of sin (the same was true in a certain sense of Nicodemus, but not in the same manifest way); and He brings before her in the chapter that His grace would communicate to such a person as herself a gift that would be in her the power of complete deliverance from sin. “Whosoever drinketh of this water” — that is, the springs and streams of earth, for I think the Lord spoke morally, and referred really to that which was connected with this world — “shall thirst again, but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water, springing up unto eternal life” — that is, springing up to emancipate the soul from the law of sin and death, which is so natural to it.
All the “water” of this world is sin; excitement, and that with which people seek to satisfy themselves in this world, is all sin; it is men doing their own will. A man thinks himself perfectly entitled to do his own will in this world, but it is “lawlessness”; man virtually makes a god of himself, he will not have the control of God, but says, I am entitled to take my own course. The pride of man practically says, and says continually, “There is no [p. 95] one greater than myself, I do not want control, I want liberty for my own will, and I do not care to be thwarted or opposed”. The woman of Samaria had done her own will, she had lived in sin, and the Lord reveals to her what it came to. “He that drinketh of this water shall thirst again”, man is never content. Take a proud man, he is never satisfied, his pride is his bane, and it always exposes him to suffering, for he never can be certain that his pride will not be wounded; the pride of the greatest person in the country is liable to be wounded. Content does not belong to this world. Now the Lord adds, “The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water, springing up unto eternal life”. The great end to which it springs up is eternal life; but in the meantime its effect is that it delivers a man from the bondage of sin, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”. Jesus says here, “Whosoever practises sin is the servant of sin”, because a man’s practice proves to what he is in bondage. If a man practises righteousness, it proves that he is the servant of righteousness. If a man practises sin, he is in bondage to the principle of sin. But the Spirit in the believer, which Christ gives, sets a man free from the law of sin and death. The first great thing which God would do for a believer, is to deliver his soul from bondage to sin. Not that I have not sin still in me, but I am no longer the servant of sin. I have sometimes contended against the idea of two natures in the Christian on the ground that I do not allow that one person can be characterised by two natures. A Christian is characterised by one nature, and an unbeliever is characterised by another nature; an unbeliever is characterised by sin, and a believer is characterised by righteousness. The thought of God in grace is to set man’s soul free from the dominion of sin, and it is that which is effected by the [p. 96] Spirit of life in the believer. How is it effected? I believe it is by the revelation to him of what is true in Christ; the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus introduces the soul of the believer into the presence of another scene where Christ is. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” refers evidently to life in another scene; Christ lives unto God, and the soul is attracted to Christ, is held, as it were, to Christ by the Spirit of Christ, and in that way the believer is emancipated by the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
John 4 is a great study. The Lord comes out in the chapter as the Christ; He came here to accomplish all God’s will in suffering, and being raised again He communicates the Spirit. I think He anticipates in John 4 the gift which He would give, since He gives the Spirit because He has accomplished all the will of God down here; He has glorified God on the earth, and finished the work which the Father gave Him to do, and now He communicates the Spirit, to be in the believer a well of water, springing up unto eternal life. The first element of liberty for the Christian is, that down here in the world where once he was the complete slave of sin, like the woman of Samaria, his soul is set free from the dominion of sin; he no longer practises sin, although sin is in him, because he is no longer the servant of sin. He is here for the will of God; as the apostle says in Romans 12: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God”. The Christian says, ‘I have been long enough here for my own will, and to please myself; now I am going to be here for God’s will, that is God’s pleasure’. The will of God is “good, and acceptable, and perfect” to the believer, as it was to Christ. The will of God has been set in presence here by Christ, and the believer says, That is what I am here for.
Now I come to the next point, and that is legality. I think many people are set free, in a way, from sin, who yet are not set free from legality. We think we are going to make ourselves acceptable to God; many a one is hampered and hindered in that way. I have had that kind of thought passing through my own mind that I was going to make myself in some way acceptable to God, that I was going to be something super-spiritual. Now I want to show you that the work is all on God’s side; it is not for man to work. If you remember, in John 5 the Jews accused the Lord of breaking the sabbath. The answer of the Lord to them was, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work”. Legality is that man works. What the Lord reveals in the chapter is that God works, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work”. And to what end? To deliver man from the condition in which sin had placed him. What for? That he might pass out of death into life; that is where the Father reveals himself. When scripture says that “God is love”, that is God’s nature; but when it says, “My Father worketh hitherto”, that is not simply that God is love, but that God is active in love. There is a deal of difference between God’s nature and His activity. I quite admit that what God is goes forth in activity; but the moment that God is in activity then it is the Father, and that is what the Lord brings out in John 5, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work”.
Then He gives you the character of the work, “As the Father raises up the dead and quickens them”. What does He do that for? His blessed name is revealed as Father in the sending of the [p. 98] Son, and He raises up the dead and quickens, in order that those who are quickened may enter into relation with the Father, that they may not only know that God is love, but may know the activity of God in love — that is what we as Christians have all tasted.
There is one verse in this chapter which is very often quoted; the Lord says, “He that heareth my word” — what do you think that word was? It was His testimony revealing the Father. The next clause is, “and believeth on him that sent me”; the first thing is that you hear the word of the Son revealing the Father, and then you believe on Him that sent the Son. Then what follows is, “has eternal life, and shall not come into judgment”, the Lord assures that, for all judgment is committed to Him, “but is passed out of death into life”. How? In that the activity of the Father has been revealed to him, and now he stands in relation to the Father, he is brought into sonship; the Father raises up the dead and quickens, in order that the one who is quickened may know God, not simply in His nature, but relatively, because “Father” is a relative term, there is no meaning in the term “Father” except in connection with relation. The great truth in John 5 is the Father and the Son; the Father reveals Himself in the sending of the Son.
Now that is the end of legality, because what I apprehend is that it has been the Father’s pleasure to reveal Himself to me actively in grace, to take me out of the condition in which I was, in order that I may enter into relationship with Himself, that I may know Him as Father, that I may know His love resting upon me as it rests upon His Son, as the Lord prays in the last verse of John 17, “that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them”. Where this wonderful chapter, John 5, is entered into, it means complete [p. 99] deliverance of mind and soul from legality. You will never get deliverance from legality until you know what it is to rest in the Father’s love. The Father’s love resting upon us as it rests upon Christ forbids the very idea of legality. I cannot improve myself for Him, and His great point is that I may be for His pleasure, He has made me for His pleasure, quickened me out of the state of death in which I was, that I may be for His pleasure. I fully believe the truth of what I say, that it is the knowledge of the Father in our souls as Christ has made Him known to us, God active in grace, which is the complete end of legality. It is not only that you have eternal life and will not come into judgment, but you know that the love of the Father rests upon you as it rests upon Christ. And what is the outcome of it? You love the brethren; that is what we read in the first Epistle of John, “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren”. And why do we love the brethren? Because we know the love with which the Father loves us, “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God”; we know the Father’s love, and we pass out of death into life in the knowledge of the Father’s love; but “we know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren”; we come into the christian circle, and the christian circle is everything to us.
There is the third point, which I think you get in John 6, namely, deliverance from the world. I have tried to show you the secret of deliverance from sin and from legality; now I will try to show you the secret of deliverance from the world (John 6: 53 - 58): “Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh [p. 100] my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is the bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever”.
There is one thing that must be true to all of us — you must be in the communion of the death of Christ. You cannot shut your eyes to the great fact that Christ has died. You cannot allow that Christ has died to the world, and we are to live in the world; and therefore of necessity you must appropriate His death. If there had been anything here for God, Christ would not have died, and it was because in all that is here, “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life”, there is nothing for God, that Christ has died to it; and therefore you cannot live in it. You cannot righteously shut your eyes to the death of Christ. It is the great sin of Christendom that they ignore the death of Christ, that Christ has died to the whole course of things here. I quite admit that He died for us; but the great fact remains that He died to sin, He died to the whole course of things here, and it is not right on the part of the Christian to ignore the death of Christ. The Lord’s table has this character, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? the bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?” And you get the same in principle here — you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you are in the communion of His death. Christendom is all built up as though Christ were living in relation to the world, as if the present time [p. 101] were a kind of millennium. And therefore I refuse the thought that the sects and systems in Christendom know anything about the Lord’s table, they are not in the communion of the death of Christ. But the Christian who really knows what the death of Christ means, “Now is the judgment of this world” — that the whole system is judged, that Christ has died to the whole course of things here, because there was nothing here for God — is in communion with that death. But that is not in itself deliverance. This is realised in having an object outside of it. The Lord said, “As the living Father hath sent me, and I live because of the Father”. When the Lord Jesus was down here upon earth as a Man, He wanted no object here, and He had none. I quite admit that the saints, the excellent of the earth, were His delight; but they were not His objects, He did not live because of the world. A man of the world lives because of the world, and if you shut such a man up out of the world, it is to him a living death. Man cannot live without an object, and man’s object naturally is the world. Christ lived because of the Father, He was perfectly independent of every object here in the world, He found His entire portion in the Father: “I live because of the Father”. Now mark the rest of the sentence, “So he that eateth me” — appropriates Him as the necessity of our souls — for that is what it is to eat Him, to appropriate Him, the One who came down from heaven, the blessed One who became incarnate, to come within the reach of our appropriation — “He that eateth me, even he shall live because of me”.
What a thing to be able to say, I am no longer dependent on the world for joy, and the sorrows of the world do not in a sense affect me, though I feel them; I am independent of the world, it does not minister to me, I do not live because of it,
[p. 102] but I eat Christ, the living bread which came down from heaven, and live because of Him. Just as He, a Man down here upon earth, lived because of the Father, so I live because of the living bread that came down from heaven to bring my soul into the knowledge of all the good of heaven.
I think these three chapters bring to us in a remarkable way the completeness of the liberty into which the believer is brought, not left down here in bondage, but brought now into the most blessed liberty; the power of the Spirit of life emancipating his soul from the control of sin; the revelation of the Father’s name liberating him from legality; and his satisfying portion found in the living bread which came down from heaven. As the Lord says, “If the Son shall set you free, ye shall be free indeed”. He gives you the knowledge of the Father, the privilege of the house, revealing the Father to you. But when you get into the house, and have got the liberty of the house, do you suppose you are going to lose sight of the Son? The Son is the living bread, and that is what you get in John 6. It could not be, if the Father has been made known to us and we have the consciousness of the Father’s love, that we should lose sight of the Son. He is the light of our souls, and a portion to us, as bread is; He lives unto God and we live with Him; we are as independent, in that sense, of the world as Christ was when He was here, living because of the Father.
May God give to us to know something about the reality of these things, not only that He has come out as light to make Himself known to us according to the truth of His own blessed nature, but in the divine thought that in the very place where we have been under complete bondage we should be in complete liberty in the power of the Holy Ghost who dwells in us, liberty from sin, liberty from legality,
[p. 103] and liberty, too, from the world. If you study those chapters attentively, you will see how the whole thing is worked out, what wonderful chapters they are, and what liberty they reveal for the Christian to be brought into in the very place where he was once in bondage.