SPIRITUALITY
[p. 99] SPIRITUALITY
John 3:6; John 4:24 - 29; John 6:66 - 69: John 12:3
I have before me to speak of the features of spirituality, bearing in mind that “the spiritual discerns all things, and he is discerned of no one”. 1 Corinthians 2:15. That statement shows what a spiritual person is, what his value is as in this world, where sin and its workings have rendered everything complex. Now John aims at building up the believer in what is spiritual, and he has particularly in view that it should work out in family relationships; and he would indicate in what he has to say that natural family relationships interfere more than anything else with the working out of spiritual family relationships. It is said that that which was first was not spiritual. Adam was not created in that connection, that is as spiritual, although he had a spirit, but in the thought of God he was contemplated as natural. It is further said that he was earthy, as of the earth, and it is definitely stated that that which was first was not spiritual, but natural, and afterward that which was spiritual.
Now John is occupied with what is “afterward” — that which is spiritual, and so in the chapter preceding this, when the Lord is addressed by His mother after the flesh, who evidently assumed a right to address Him, saying, “They have no wine”, He repudiated her claim, saying, “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” John 2:3,4. He was reminding her that that which was ‘first’, which was natural, was being superseded, that He was on the line of the spiritual. And the effect of His word shows itself immediately in her, for she submits. She gives us a lead in that way, saying to the servants, “Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it”. John 2:5. She thus extricated [p. 100] herself, as you might say, from the position of the first, the natural, and took her place in the second. So that it says after this, He went down with her and abode with her. It is only as we submit to what He says that we can hope to have any such privilege, for He will not be with us on the line of the natural, but on the line of the spiritual.
Now John has in mind, as I said, to develop this spiritual line in connection with family relationships; these are seen in chapter 20, so well known to us, “Go to my brethren”. John 20:17. These are not His brethren after the flesh, nor are they even His brethren on moral lines (although the moral must underlie it) but they are His brethren from the standpoint of divine counsel — the highest possible standpoint or platform upon which a family can be regarded. There can be nothing higher, dear brethren, than that we should be the subjects of divine counsels, which means that before the world was, it was designed in the heart of God that there should be brethren for Christ. The standpoint is so exalted, and the relationship so great for it is relationship to the One who ascends in personal right into heaven — that it is obvious we must be formed for it, and to be formed for it we have to begin, as it were, at the bottom, and that we get in this chapter, “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit”.
There was nothing born in Adam of the Spirit. He received his spirit from God, but the new thing begins with the idea of birth — not creation, but birth, and so the family idea enters into the mind at the outset. The thing born (for it is neuter) is spirit.
Now before proceeding on this line, I just wish to remind you of the corresponding passage in the Old Testament, and I may say in passing, that generally you will find a corresponding passage in the Old Testament to any passage in the New. The corresponding passage to this — Ezekiel 36 — is preceded by [p. 101] a divine denunciation of false brethren. God had in His mind brethren according to His eternal counsels, and these begin with the idea of being born throughout from top to bottom; and so in order to clear the ground for the great subject on hand in Ezekiel, a whole chapter is devoted to the fiercest denunciation of false brethren — of Edom. He was a brother, but a brother marked by the flesh; a brother who throughout his career was opposed to him that was on the line of the Spirit. So Esau is to be desolate, his mountains are to be filled with his slain, he is not to continue with the brother born after the Spirit, any more than Ishmael was to occupy the house with Isaac. It is important, dear brethren, to bear this in mind, because the Old Testament helps us in understanding the mind of God in the New. And so before the thirty-sixth chapter of Ezekiel you have the thirty-fifth, which foretells, as I said, God’s denunciation and judgment on Esau; as He says later, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated”. Romans 9:13. If we are to understand what that means, that God should love Jacob, we have to understand these chapters in John, for God loved, dear brethren, what was lovable. Are we to deny Him that? Certainly I could not deny God that; He asserts His right to love what is lovable, and to hate what is hateful.
Well now, we have the foundation in this chapter — born of the Spirit. One is always (especially of late) impelled to address oneself to young people. As has been remarked today, they scarcely take to themselves the idea of spirituality, whereas it should appear at the very outset of their history as believers; hence the Lord brings it in here in this setting. We have a great deal said, too, in this passage about the Lord’s knowledge. It is well that someone knows. You may say, I do not know, but it is well that someone knows. So we find men affected by externals — many believed on Him because of the miracles. Now [p. 102] We are living in times in which there are not only many, but millions of people who are affected by externals. They are nominally Christians, and hence Christendom presents the most complex area in the whole world, and for that reason young believers, and even unspiritual persons who may be more advanced, are greatly exposed to deception by what they see around. Myriads of genuine believers are deceived by what they see. Hence, beloved, the importance of taking into account that someone knows — and you want to find the Person who knows. Therefore it says in the end of the second chapter that “He knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man, for he knew what was in man”. John 2:24,25. I know tonight One who knows all men. He knows the Chinese, the Hindu, the African, the inhabitants of the islands of the sea innumerable, and He knows the Europeans — He knows them all. He is not deceived by the veneer of mere religion; He is not occupied with externals, He knows the root of things, He knows the inner motives and springs that govern men. I know that One. He further says to Nicodemus, “If I have told you earthly things and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?” John 3:12 “We speak”, He says, “that we do know, and testify that we have seen, and ye receive not our witness”. John 3:11. That is where the difficulty lies. We have One who knows, and He testifies accordingly, but men do not receive His testimony. They turn to all sorts of people for testimony, and we have all sorts of investigations going on in regard of man, whereas the truth is that it is all out; there is One who knows, but He says, no one receives our testimony. Men turn aside to listen to mortal man, and his wretched investigations as to what he finds on the earth, whereas the “Son of man who is in heaven” John 3:13 knows all and He testifies of all. Wonderful, beloved, that we have a testimony from His lips to all!
[p. 103] Indeed it was said of old in Ecclesiastes, “What man is, is known”. Ecclesiastes 6:10.
And so in connection with this truth that I am dealing with, we have much in regard of One who knows, and He is occupied with men to build them up in what is spiritual. He knows whether there is that in you which He speaks of here, “that which is born of the Spirit”. If it be not there, beloved friends, you may depend upon it, you will never progress spiritually, however much you may pretend to know; you may even be breaking bread. But God knows just what is there; if there is that which He speaks of as “born of the Spirit”, it remains. The Lord, I believe, would raise that question with every one of us, whether we have begun aright, whether the ground is clear.
Well now, I want to go on to the next chapter, because we get development in this gospel. But one might refer to verse 16 for a moment, for alongside this question of One who knows, we have things dealt with at the source. Sin is dealt with at its source, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up”. John 3:14 God says, I intend to show you the source of all good — that is in my own heart; but in order that there may be room for that, everything else must be dealt with, root and branch. At the moment it is in men’s souls that God is operating; but presently He is going to operate on a wider scale. In Luke we have it stated that the Lord was casting out a demon. What becomes of the demon when he goes out? It is not my concern what becomes of the demon, but it is one of the most sorrowful considerations we can think of. The demon will be dealt with later, but how terrible it is to think that the demons go out and nothing more is said about them. What has become of them? The world and its history testify to what has become of them. They have their part [p. 104] in the building up of this awful world; that is what has become of the demons. Legislators cannot hope to control these demons; they may do their utmost, but they cannot control them. What an awful world it is, demons unrestricted having their part in it! But the Lord wants the vessel out of whom the demon is cast, and He intends to fill that vessel with divine things, with heavenly things; He intends to fill it with the Spirit of God come down from heaven. That is Christianity; a number of persons out of whom the demon is ejected, and themselves filled with the Holy Spirit. That is the divine thought. And let me tell you, beloved, it is a most serious thing to be empty, to be unoccupied. The Lord pictures the man out of whom the demon is cast, who remains unoccupied, as “swept and garnished”. Luke 11:25. He may pride himself and say, I am not a heathen, I am not a Jew, I am a Christian. Nevertheless, he is unoccupied by the Spirit of God; he is unoccupied by heavenly things, and what happens to him? The demon comes back again with seven other spirits worse than himself. What about your sweeping, what about your adornment, if the demon comes back with seven others worse than himself? It is a terrible contemplation, beloved friends, but it is a solemn warning to every one to be sure that he is a vessel of the Spirit, that he is not unoccupied.
Now when I come to chapter 4 I come to the vessel. In chapter 3 God has come out in grace, and dealt with sin at its root, so that we might know the love of God, and that we might have everlasting life. But now, what about the vessel? This woman had a body, and in that body she had been sinning; the demon, so to say, had controlled her. We read of one woman out of whom were cast seven demons — Mary Magdalene — that wonderful woman of whom the Holy Spirit delights to tell us, and who was made the bearer of the message of which I have been speaking: “Go to my brethren”. John 20:17. He cast out of her seven demons. She did not remain unoccupied; she loved the Lord Jesus, she must have Him. The Holy Spirit brings Him into the soul. As it says, “If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin”. Romans 8:10. It is occupied livingly, and is dead in regard to sin, never again to be employed in the ways of sin. Well, this is what I think we get in chapter 4, and I dwell on it for a little because of the value of our bodies. Our bodies are said to be members of Christ. Romans develops the truth governing our bodies; in chapter 6 the members are to be used as instruments of righteousness unto God, and in chapter 12 they are to be presented a living sacrifice unto God. You see thus, dear brethren, the value of our bodies; but they are only valuable as occupied by the Holy Spirit. Unless occupied by the Holy Spirit they are sure at some time or another to come under the influence of the devil, and to be turned against God and against Christ. It were better that one should have, as it says, a millstone tied about his neck and be cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of the little ones. Hence, if one’s hand offend him, cut it off; if his eye offend, pluck it out. The object is to be occupied by the Spirit. And beloved, that is not an irksome thing, for the Lord immediately spoke to the woman of what should be in a person — “a well of water springing up into everlasting life”. John 4:14. What a delightful way to be occupied inwardly — to have a living spring in you! meaning that the body is no longer a vessel of corruption, but having in itself the power of cleansing — for it is water, but more than that living water springing up.
I want to show how this woman indicated that she was spiritual. You are spiritual in taking account of the Lord Jesus as the One who knows; as taking account of how God has dealt with things at their source, and how He has shown the love of His heart.
[p. 106] Your taking account of these things is the beginning of the evidence of spirituality. In chapter 4 we have the formal statement that “God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth”. Now the woman indicated that she was spiritual in this connection. John says, “The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city and saith to the men, Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did; is not this the Christ?” Now I take that to mean that the Holy Spirit wishes to convey to us that that woman was spiritual in regard of her body. Many of you young people have little conception of the value of your bodies (perhaps some of us older ones, too). This woman had brought out her waterpot to draw water with it. She might have filled it, carried it back into the city and used it for whatever purpose she had intended. That might have been done, and the Holy Spirit said nothing at all about it, but the Holy Spirit says that she left it. She had discovered by what the Lord said to her that her body was to be a vessel of the Spirit. A wonderful discovery! My body is henceforth to be regarded in a new light. “Know ye not”, says the apostle, “that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body”. 1 Corinthians 6:19,20. And this is what she would do. She had been dishonouring God, she had been violating every right principle governing marriage, now she is glorifying God in her body. She says, This body of mine belongs to God; I am going to use it for Him. I am not going to wait, I am going to use it now. I do not say she understood all that I am saying now, but that was at the bottom of it. She began to use it at once, and how? To speak about the Lord Jesus. Persons who knew her well before might point the finger of scorn at her, but nevertheless there was [p. 107] power with her testimony, as there will be with every one who uses his body in a spiritual way. I venture to say she corresponds with the passage in Romans 8:10, “If Christ be in you the body is dead because of sin”. She is no longer exposed to the temptations of the city; the body is dead so far as sin is concerned; Christ is in her. You say, How do I know that? Because she spake of Him. She says, “Is not this the Christ?” She spoke about the Christ before the Lord announced Himself to her as such: “I that speak unto thee am he”. And He was in her. Do you believe it? That Christ should be in us is our salvation from the temptations of the city.
Let us pass on now to Peter, chapter 6. I take him to be spiritual in regard of the Lord’s service. There are those who serve; there are the ministers. This is the one passage in John in which the disciples are alluded to in this formal way, as “the twelve”. They are marked off, therefore, from ordinary disciples, and are regarded as the ministers. John is not given to say much on this line, he usually keeps the official out of sight, but he wishes to bring in one point, which is most important for those who serve amongst the saints. At that moment there was a drift away from Christ. “From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him”. It is a serious thing for the servants, those who preach and teach amongst the saints, to be carried away when there is a drift, and people are turning away from the Lord. I heard of a brother who, in a crisis, being away from his local meeting, reserved his judgment till he returned; he wanted to know the judgment of his local brethren and he would act on that. He was going with the drift. He was not a man of God. A man of God is one who stands by principles, stands by the brethren, of course, but stands by divine principles; God will stand by the brethren and save them. And so Peter says here,
“[p. 108] Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast words of life eternal”. If I go with the crowd, where shall I get substance for ministry? Oh, you say, Go to college. Will I get it there? No, beloved, you will get no living words there. If I go with the drift I shall have no substance in my ministry, but if I stay with Christ I shall have substance. “Thou hast words of life eternal”. Life eternal is, as it were, brought home to us in intelligibility by words. Words break the thing up for us intelligibly so that we can understand it. That is what the saints need. But if I go with the drift, I shall never get anything from Him. I may speak, I may preach, but I shall have no living words. Living words are all had from Christ. Stay by Him; that is the word for the minister. The sheep will come back for the food in time; one has seen that. “Thou hast words of life eternal. And we have believed and known” Peter adds; he was an experienced man. It is not ‘We believe and know’, it was what he had believed, up to that present time, and what he continued to believe — what he knew. We need such brethren as Peter — brethren of experience with the Lord Jesus. “We have believed and known that thou art the holy one of God”. No one can serve the Lord, no one can be a true Levite, unless he understands the “holy one of God”. Alongside of Peter, among the twelve, was a devil. It does not simply say that Judas had a devil, but he was one. The word usually translated ‘devil’ in the Authorised Version is ‘demon’, but here the word is ‘devil’, it means one who is opposed to God, an adversary. Think of one of the twelve being that! How solemn that is, and how obvious that we should understand Peter’s confession of the “holy one of God”!
I refer now to the final thought I have in regard of the features of spirituality. Mary in chapter 12 is pre-eminently the spiritual representative of this [p. 109] gospel. She had the pound of ointment. She was spiritually intelligent as to what was coming, as well as to what existed around the Lord Jesus; she knew He was about to die, six days before. She had light about the future, and she acted in that light in the present; she was governed by it. Now there is a beautiful touch that I may mention in chapter 11 about this dear woman. When the Lord came to the neighbourhood of Bethany, Lazarus being dead, Martha went off immediately to meet Him, but Mary sat still in the house. Now I do not say that her action was entirely justifiable, but I do say that it indicated a certain restfulness that belongs to spirituality. Martha, as one might say, was a member of the local assembly as much as Mary, and she came to meet the Lord. The Lord did not pass her by and say, I want to see Mary. No, beloved, the Lord takes account of the most unspiritual in the company. He does not pass by the most unspiritual amongst us, so long as we are one of His. He talked with Martha. She spoke in a very unintelligent way, as those who are unspiritual are sure to do; as soon as they open their mouth, their unspirituality is disclosed. Nevertheless, she was a genuine believer and a genuine lover of Christ, and so the Lord did not pass her by nor will He pass by the weakest of us. He stood and talked with Martha, answering her questions and instructing her. But He says, as it were, ‘I am not going further’, and presently what was spiritual became active — Mary comes to Him. And that is what comes to pass in localities; what is spiritual will surely come to light. Mary knew how to be unperturbed even by the advent of so great a Person. But when Martha returns and says secretly, “The Master is come, and calleth for thee”, John 11:28 she rose up quickly and came to Jesus. She was at His bidding. He does not come to her; the Holy Spirit says that He was still in the place where Martha met Him;
[p. 110] because, as I understand, He would honour the very humblest and most unspiritual one amongst us, and He expects all that are spiritual to come to where He is, and they do. They do not sit where they are to be visited. I should not care to be in that position, to sit to be visited; I want to go to the Lord; He is the One to be visited. So He called for Mary, and she rose up hastily. She could not brook delay now that He had called for her.
And what I want to point out, dear brethren, is this, that Mary had influence. When Martha went to see the Lord, not one went after her, she was allowed to go alone. As soon as Mary moved, others go after her. They knew how genuine she was. We may be assured of this, that if we are spiritual, the brethren will know it. You need not talk much about it. As soon as Mary moved, others followed her, and those who followed wept with her. And when the Lord saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her he was deeply moved. It is a beautiful scene; a scene of spiritual influence in a sister. And the Lord Himself is moved by it. It brings out the spirituality of Mary in a most striking manner, how much she was respected. I have thought a good deal lately that sisters are not valued, either by themselves or by others, as God intends they should be valued. Spirituality is influence that is priceless, whether it be in a man or in a woman. It has its own intrinsic value, and Scripture seems to emphasise its special value in a woman.
I just close with this one thought, that she had kept the pound of ointment. Spirituality is shown in the way you can conserve things and keep them for the opportunity when they will be of most service. You may have something very excellent, but it may not fit. You must learn (and if you are spiritual you will learn) to keep that until a more suitable occasion. A fitted moment will come, if you keep it; and the [p. 111] longer you keep it (in a spiritual sense) the more valuable it will become. It was a pound — a measured amount. A spiritual person will know when to begin and he will know when to stop. I think Mary represents the spirituality of measurement, for God is a God of measure. Paul knew his measure, “A measure to reach even unto you”, 2 Corinthians 10:15 he says. Others did not have that, but he had it. It is an immense thing to know your measure; “according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith”, Romans 12:3 as it says, and particularly, to measure the thing that I have wrought myself, that I have gathered up in my experience; God would have it compact, and to know when to stop. “The house was filled with the odour of the ointment”. May God bless His word.