THE GOSPEL OF ETERNAL LIFE
John 3: 14-17; 17: 3; 1 John 5: 8-21
Although this meeting is given out as an address to believers, yet we propose to preach the gospel—to you believers—so we begin with John 3.
It is to be regretted that the question of eternal life should not only be thought difficult by many Christians, but should be a matter of controversy and discussion. Surely, we cannot think that the Son of God would have set before Nicodemus matters of difficulty or controversy! I do not forget what the Lord says in verse 12; but mark, He does not say ‘understand’, but “believe”. I want to face that verse with you, because while the Lord uses the term “believe”, it is often read as if it were ‘understand’. How could the Lord Jesus, the blessed Son of God, set difficult things before Nicodemus?
Now these words of the Lord I call the gospel of eternal life, and we all need it; this is the gospel—the good news as to eternal life, chap 3: 14-16. I say it freely—there is not another scripture like this from Genesis to Revelation, and if we take account of it, it will go far to divest our minds of false ideas.
What a moment in the world’s history when the heart of God for the world is shown out! “God so loved the world”. Did God know what the world was morally? Surely, He did! And regardless of its condition, God’s love is expressed towards the world—not the world of space, or creation, or nature, but the people in it. If a person asserted that God loves the world now, I should want the scripture for it; it is not the world now that “God so loved”. This present world is the world subsequent to the fact noted in verse 17: “God has not sent his Son into the world that he may judge the world, but that the world may be saved through him”. At that moment “God so loved the world”, and God’s love came out, and the thought, the intention, of His love came out, that man—the world—“should not perish”. “Whosoever” will not allow of any exception, or any kind of restriction: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal”. In the Old Testament God avowed He had not pleasure in the death of him who died; under no sort of circumstances has the perishing of a human being afforded pleasure to God. No, never; and now here we get the wonderful moment when the love of God for the world is expressed by the fact of God sending His beloved, only-begotten Son into the world. The gift and the sending were alike expressions of God’s wonderful love to the world. What God had before Him, without making any exception—Jew, Gentile, black, white, rich, poor—was that whosoever believes on Him may not perish. God’s love would not have any one to perish. It is not according to the purpose of His love that any should perish, but that they should have eternal life. Eternal life expresses the thought and intention of God’s love in the most world-wide character. The Psalmist said: “The entrance of thy words giveth light, giving understanding unto the simple”, Ps 119: 30. We lack simplicity. If His words are not clear to you, depend upon it you are not simple.
Read verse 17. What is eternal life in view of? Salvation. By salvation I do not mean acceptance, or salvation from judgment, but soul-salvation from what has come into the world. What is that? Sin, and in connection with sin, lawlessness. “By one man sin entered into the world”, Rom 5: 12. Sin took two distinct forms before the flood, lawlessness and hatred. Sin as hatred did not come in by Adam, but sin as lawlessness—independence of God—came in by Adam. Cain was the firstborn of the lawless man, and Cain hated his brother. Then what do you get in Genesis 6? Corruption and violence as characterising the antediluvian world, the result of lawlessness; and after the flood what is it? Idolatry. And now God wants man saved from lawlessness and idolatry. Israel was to have one God, we get that in the first two commandments, and then what follows is about lawlessness. Now how is deliverance from lawlessness and idolatry to be effected? By eternal life. What gives a man title to live? and what saves man from what sin has brought into the world? Eternal life.
Well, what is it? Let the Lord speak. “And this is the eternal life, that they should know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent”, John 17: 3. That is it; listen to the Spirit of God. Some say it is the knowledge of divine Persons. What do you mean by that? Scripture tells us there are three divine Persons—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—and all the three are God; we baptise into those names. God is fully revealed, not only as light and love, but as Father, Son and Holy Ghost; but what do you mean by the knowledge of divine Persons? Do you mean the knowledge of the Father as a divine Person, and of the Son as divine? Matthew 11: 27 tells us that the Lord Jesus Christ, speaking of Himself as a divine Person, said: “No one knows the Son but the Father”. And do you say that you know the Son as a divine Person?
The Lord Jesus Christ says: “This is the eternal life, that they should know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent”. That ought to show us that it is not a question of divine Persons in the Godhead as such. No, it is the way that God has been pleased to come out in the revelation of Himself. It is not as a divine Person in the Deity that He is presented here, but God in the revelation of Himself, and this we know came out in Christ, and thus the only true God can be known. We know too—Jesus Christ, whom He has sent; and in this knowledge of the Father as the true God and Jesus Christ the sent One there is salvation from idolatry and from lawlessness, complete salvation, and this is eternal life. How one longs to know more of the reality of it!
Now I want to set forth the gospel of eternal life. One longs that all the saints might know it, and also come into the consciousness of it—that is what God intends. Turn to 1 John 5: 6. The statements are first in historic order—Christ died, and the water and the blood came out of His side, and subsequent to that the Spirit came; but when you come to the order now (v 8), it is the Spirit, the water and the blood. Speaking of the Spirit, we should speak intelligently. He has never been sent to the world. The Lord says He shall abide with you, and be in you; the Spirit of God has no sphere of operation outside the saints, so—“He that believes on the Son of God has the witness in himself”. So, the order is now—the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree in testimony that “this life is in his Son”. God intended that this should be a divine reality in our souls. Oh, the power of the knowledge of “the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent”! The knowledge of the Father as the only true God and of Jesus Christ has not failed. People “perish” in connection with idolatry and lawlessness. In Psalm 16: 4 we read: “Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another”. That is idolatry. What shuts out idolatry? The knowledge of the Father as the only true God. Do you know Him? That knowledge is exclusive of every idol. When we speak of idolatry we are not speaking of idols of wood and stone. Covetousness is idolatry, but if you have the knowledge of the true God and of Jesus Christ His sent One you are not covetous. That knowledge is exclusive of idolatry in every form.
The possession of eternal life enables a person to “keep himself”. As John says, “he that has been begotten of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him”. “Children, keep yourselves from idols”. Eternal life involves that; it shuts out idols; that knowledge involves the abolition in your souls of all idolatry, and the abolition of all lawlessness. Christians almost say, ‘We have got to sin’; but scripture says, “whoever abides in him does not sin”. Alas! we labour to bring about the frustration of Christianity—to have some corner where we can have an idol, or where we can do our own wills; but eternal life shuts out all idolatry and all lawlessness. Let me say to you, in the name of the Lord, Christianity is not a failure; Christianity is the greatest success; it is the revelation of the Father. The Father comes out to reveal Himself as the only true God. “To us there is one God, the Father”. Outside in the world there are “lords many and gods many”, but inside, “one God … and one Lord Jesus Christ”, 1 Cor 8: 5. Eternal life involves not only the knowledge of God, but the knowledge of Jesus Christ as sent by Him, and it involves complete deliverance from lawlessness. So in Romans 8: 3 we get: “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, having sent his own Son, in likeness of flesh of sin, and for sin, has condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law should be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to flesh but according to Spirit”. What is the righteous requirement of the law? To love God with all your heart, and your neighbour as yourself. That is eternal life, and in this way God would effect salvation for us; and if by the Spirit you know the Father, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, you will be in eternal life: you will not only have a title to it. In John 20: 31 we get: “these are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life in his name”. John’s epistle picks you up where John’s gospel lands you; the epistle picks you up as believing, and tells you that you may know that you have eternal life. It is wonderful to be in the good of it; it is not only that we have the title, like having title deeds to an estate—what is the use of that if you have never been there? The first thing is the title, but you are not only to have title but consciousness. The one who believes has title. Have you been brought to believe? Do you want the consciousness of eternal life? It is your privilege. “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren”. Ah! you say, I like some and I do not like others. You are not in the good of eternal life. If you believe you have title to it, but you are not in the good of it. Wake up! Stop discussing it, and go in for the real thing!
What is the gain of believing on the Son of God? In John 7: 38 at the feast of tabernacles the Lord cries: “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He that believes on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”. How magnificently it flows! and it is they who believe on the Son of God who receive it. That is the gain. It is not only the upspringing well of John 4, but it is the out-flowing well of John 7. Flowing wells do not need pumps. If you need a religious pump, that shows you are not in the good of eternal life. In John 4 the well is to become a fountain of water—that is the spontaneity of the Spirit of God in the believer. The great gain of the Spirit is to make you know. What do you know in the consciousness of eternal life? You know the Father as the only true God, and Jesus Christ as the sent One. You get the light of the only true God in your soul and the idols are all gone. It is the spiritual reality of what will be actuality by and by; Christ, the “Sun of righteousness”, the sent One of the Father, has arisen in your heart “with healing in his wings”, Mal 4: 2! Where do we get the light of the Father? Only in the Person of the Son of God. And where do you get the knowledge of the sent One? In the Son of God. He is come, and the effect of His coming abides, and that is true Christianity. “And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us an understanding that we should know him that is true; and we are in him that is true, in his Son Jesus Christ”. Not in the eternal Son, mind you. We are not in the Godhead, but in His Son Jesus Christ; He is the true God in testimony and expression. The Father in true light has come out in revelation in the Son of God, and He has given you the light of it. One side of the incarnation is the revelation of God, the other side is the place the Son has taken as a Man God-ward; and that is where we come in, and so we come into eternal life.
I was going to speak of verse 14, but the time is up. That verse speaks about the boldness we have towards Him, that if we ask, we know that we have. Do you know what confidence is? It is the result of knowledge. If I know a person, I have confidence in him; you do not confide in people whom you do not know. What is the basis of your confidence here? You know you have eternal life, and you know the Father, the only true God, and Jesus Christ the sent One, and then you pray. May the Lord grant that our souls may be in the consciousness of eternal life.