HIS LOVE FOR HIS OWN
In these scriptures we have the language of the Lord, His own utterances. In chapter 14 the Lord speaks to His disciples, but in chapter 17 He speaks to His Father. “These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven”, &c. There is a point of agreement in the two chapters, for in both utterances the Lord speaks from the standpoint of His own love for us. We must take the standpoint of His love to us, and what He says is only understood as we occupy that standpoint. I apprehend that it is a great difficulty to take the standpoint of the Lord’s love to us, as it is more natural to think of ourselves, our light and our experience, and thus try to reach the height of Christ’s love to us. Elsewhere the Lord does take the standpoint of our affection for Himself—“If ye love me”, John 14: 15. But to come back to the two scriptures before us He speaks unquestionably from the standpoint of His own love for us. It is remarkable that the Lord can speak positively, so unconditionally, so unreservedly from the standpoint of His own love. In the verses I have read there are no “ifs”, no room for questioning of anything on our side. It is absolute, for He speaks from the standpoint of His love. If we were more occupied with things from that standpoint we would find things more positive, more clear, more unmistakable. Doubt and uncertainty would vanish from our minds. The point in both chapters is the future. So far as we are concerned now it is not so much a question of faith—“Let not your heart be troubled”. Confidence in Him is of the greatest importance. It is not in a sense a question of faith, nor of love, on our part. He speaks from the standpoint of His love to us, and in regard of the future. If not speaking of faith and love we must speak of hope. Everything becomes a test to us. We read these portions, but what do we get out of them? I think we are not free of ourselves, and so the condition spiritually operates at times and hinders our getting all out of these utterances of the Lord which His love intended. In a general way our inability to enter into these things makes us feel our weakness. How little sustained communion there is in regard of the things the Lord speaks to us about, how little we enter into them. Oh! if we could enter into them more fully and they become the subject-matter of sustained communion in our souls. “In my Father’s house there are many abodes ... I go to prepare you a place”. What an expression of His love to have gone in our interest to prepare a place—and then “I am coming again”—then He speaks from the standpoint of His own love, not from our desire. Paul in Philippians says, “having the desire for departure and being with Christ”, Phil 2: 23. Wonderful expression on Paul’s part—a man who was an apostle, but this was not apostolic. He associates Timotheus with himself. But the expression of Christ’s desires in John 14 overshadows Paul’s. Not our desires but His own love, and such love! No thought of going to the Father’s house to fit Himself, but He thinks of us. I was struck by an old tract of JND’s on the Melchisedec priesthood of Christ20. After speaking as to it, at the very end of the book he says, ‘We have a better portion than reigning, our calling to be with Him’. It is as though the Lord said, ‘I love you so much I am not content to remain there without you: where I am, there ye may be also’. What place has this in your heart and mine now? Whatever is presented in the New Testament is to affect us here and now. Let us challenge ourselves: how am I affected by this? If so, how simple it would be to put our hearts in the attitude of waiting for Himself. When the Lord Himself says “I am coming again”, He has not the transformation of our bodies in view, but simply “where I am”. He has lavished all His love on us without stint or measure. Has He any ground to count upon your affection and appreciation of His love? Then there should be an answer in our hearts to it. He looks in and takes account of our hearts, as to what place He has there, He is at pains to secure a response to His affection. At the supper the Lord is after our hearts and seeks to secure affection there. The Lord counts upon our hearts leaping up in response to His love and the great point is He is coming again. You say, ‘Transferred and taken out of all things here’. The Lord says, “where I am, there ye may be also”. Paul says the beauty of it is “present with the Lord”—to be with Christ. When J George Bellatt was dying he said, ‘They come to me and talk of crowns and kingdoms, but I only want to see the Man of Sychar’. It was Himself that He was looking for. Does the thought of being with Him fill the heart with delight? Close to Himself! How it overtops everything else!
In His utterance to the Father the same point comes out—“I desire that where I am, they also may be”. What desires of His heart about those given to Him! And then our part comes in there in verse 20. Then in chapter 17: “That they may be with me, that they may behold my glory”. He speaks in this wonderful way: “my glory”. Everything belongs to Him given by the Father, and then the words follow, “for thou lovedst me”. The “Word became flesh”, John 1: 14. A divine Person, eternal existence, and distinct personality. The Word was God—He, that Person, was with God from the beginning, and all received being from Him. Thomas says, “my Lord and my God”. He was never less than that. He became flesh, He took human condition—the Word became flesh. Distinct personality, and yet He became flesh. But He says, “my glory which thou hast given me, for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world”. “That they may behold my glory”—not a glory shared by any, but the crowning satisfaction of being with Himself, “where I am”. We shall be able to behold, to contemplate the glory given Him—the eternal witness of the Father’s love to Him, before the world was, and He will have a place in our hearts before, and above, and beyond anything else, and He has that even now. The glory of this world, even according to flesh, passes away—“the grass withereth, the flower fadeth”, Isa 40: 7, 8. But this is made good in our souls now. The Lord intends to effect in our hearts the desire to be with Himself beholding His glory. He will not give it to any one, He will not share what He calls “my glory”. We shall ever be in that place with Him, forever contemplate the Father’s glory in Him. We see here the Lord has finished His public ministry in chapter 12, and then in chapter 16 He finishes with His own, and then here “he lifted up his eyes to heaven”, and opens up the desires of His heart—two for the present, and two for the future—two in testimony, and two do not belong to testimony. We are poorly up to it to be in the present good and consciousness of eternal life. Then there is something beyond, and that is sonship. Then in the last verse of John 17 it is what is inside. The new covenant is the Father’s distinct love for you, that that love may be in you. In verse 23 it is future, but there is something beyond that. Outside that prepared place no ray of the glory given Him by the Father is known. “My glory”. I scarcely need say we have come to more than the habitable world to come. May that blessed One have His place in our hearts, and an answer to all the expressions of love in opening out His desires to the Father’s heart.
If we were in the good of all this we should be so lifted above the small and insignificant things here and the thought of “being with him where he is” would fill our souls. By the light and the power of these things the Spirit in a wonderful way would draw us away from things here.
In John’s gospel we get what is inward, vital and eternal.
Date and place not given
From The Believer’s Friend 1914