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LECTURE 2

It is a great help to the understanding of the epistle to see the contrast it presents to the gospel. The gospel presents the Son in His rights as a divine Person; though become flesh, He is seen as the Giver, and as such greater than the gift He gives. In John 4: 10 we read, “Thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water”. If she had known the character of God as giving, and who it was that said unto her, “Give me to drink”, she would have had both courage and confidence to ask Him, and He would have given her living water; and in John 6: 51, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world”. He gives to His sheep eternal life. The gospel takes the gift side, and hence there are no gradations in saints, for the question of apprehension or progress is not brought in. Gift is to all alike, and is the link with God. If one has not now the gift he has not properly any link with God. There may be a work of God’s Spirit preparatory in a person, but it is as receiving a gift that my soul is linked through grace with the giver. I am a sheep. I have received a gift and He is the Giver. The epistle,

^[p. 166] on the other hand, treats of the apprehension and experience of the soul which has received the gift, and so in the epistle there are gradations, for in the matter of realisation there is progress — “little children”, “young men”, and “fathers”.

It is no reproach to be a babe, because all must begin as such and make progress: the reproach is in continuing as babes (see 1 Corinthians 3). The mark of a babe is instability, liability to be affected by every wind of doctrine; Ephesians 4: 14. Hence the apostle exhorts them to continuance in what they had received: “Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son and in the Father” (verse 24). He fears their being moved away, as does Paul (see Ephesians 4: 14). In natural life we recognise the instability of a babe, easily blown over by a wind. We have to grow up into Christ in all things. So here we have grades, but not used as implying any reproach to either class. What is wanted is that they may make spiritual advance. The object of the epistle is the realisation of what is given, so that it may be vital in the soul. The three classes are taken up twice over: first, as to what characterises each; then as to the dangers to which each class is exposed.

There are two things which are common to all, namely, forgiveness of sins and the anointing, and in these all is really involved. There is no difference whatever in what God confers in grace. In verse 12 the word ‘little’ should be left out. “I write to you, children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake”. All were children to the apostle, therefore this is inclusive of all classes. The little children are spoken of as having the anointing (verses 20 and 27), and if the little children have it we may fairly conclude all have it. These two things God has given to us; they are all that we can say we possess in ^[p. 167] actuality down here, though they really involve everything. The gift of the Holy Spirit involves the relationship of sons. The idea of anointing is that we are to be characterised by that with which we are anointed, as the oil on the head of Aaron, which ran down on his beard and to the skirts of his garments; Psalm 133. The Spirit is given to the Christian and he is to be characterised by it. As to this all have received alike: the fathers no more, and the little children no less. One who has not these two things cannot be looked at as having any link with God, “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his”, Romans 8: 9. If we have the Holy Spirit we are united to Christ, and we have everything. The anointing is to characterise us, and by it we know all things. There ought to be about us a savour of divine truth and grace, that we might not only do the right thing, but do the right thing in the right way: what Romans 12 puts before us; not only to show mercy, but to show it with cheerfulness, doing all with divine unction.

In verse 13 what is characteristic of each class is stated. The fathers “have known him that is from the beginning”. This is what is peculiar to them, but not in the sense that they have nothing else; they, too, have overcome the wicked one, and have known the Father. If we take the sum total of what marks the three classes, it presents a perfect Christian. The little children know the Father, they would not be on the true basis of Christianity if they did not.

The revelation of the Father is the great characteristic of Christianity. “The Father seeketh such to worship him”. Naturally we should think that we know Christ before we know the Father: it is only by the revelation of the Son we know the Father; but here the knowledge of the Father is spoken of as the beginning of Christian experience: the “little children” have known the Father — the young men have “overcome the wicked one”. The peculiar effort of ^[p. 168] the wicked one is to upset the babes, it is the character which he assumes at the present time. In the parable of the tares, the sower sows “good seed”, sound doctrine; the evil one “tares”, heresies, which are not a misconstruction of the truth, but something beside the truth, to turn away the unestablished from the simplicity of the truth. The young men are marked by this, that they have seen through the wicked one; have detected his wiles. The fathers had “known him that is from the beginning”: they had turned away from everything else, and saw in the Son the outset of what was wholly new — a new departure. Beginning means outset; the same word is used in other connections: the devil sinneth from the outset, that is, the outset of sin. Christians are to continue in that which they have heard from the “outset”. Outset of what? The revelation of life, the “word of life”. The fathers had judged all else and turned to the One in whom alone life is revealed; turned from everything natural to man down here to be shut up to Christ, as seeing that all now is from Him. There is no blessing for man outside the Son. “God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son”. It is in Him that “life and incorruptibility” are brought to light. What is from the outset here is the revelation of life in Him who has abolished death, and this is really the ground on which life is spoken of in the gospel by Jesus: He has introduced life through death. We cannot talk about having life till we are free of death; death can never touch what we have in the Son. We “have passed from death unto life”. Thus in verse 13 we get, as we may say, the sum total; John 17: 3.

The apostle addresses the several classes again with reference to the dangers to which each is exposed (see verses 14-17). There is, I think, an implied contrast between the “world” and “him that is from the beginning”. I am not speaking now doctrinally, but ^[p. 169] in a moral sense. He is not known experimentally till one is free of the world. We get free of it by judging it: that is, free of the power of it. One not free of the power of it has never judged it. We have to go through it, and are exposed to the dangers in it; but in judging it we are free of its power. The “young men” had not judged it, for here they are given the means of doing so. It was hardly a reproach to them, because they could not judge that of which they did not know the character. They are shown its moral characteristics before God that they might form an estimate of it. All that which goes to make up the world in its moral aspect, “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life”, could never be connected with life or the expression of life: it is the expression of death, and in principle came from the devil, the source of evil. It is what suits fallen man. It is a great thing to accept the judgment of the world; Scripture gives it. I accept it, and my experience verifies what Scripture says: “The world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever” (verse 17). We see in Him who came here to do God’s will the very opposite to will and lust, for He was characterised by righteousness and love: love is the opposite to lust. The principle of lust is, that I use all I find to gratify myself, without regard of others. Love sacrifices all to benefit its object — love is what we have the full expression of in Jesus. And He was the One who “came down”. Blessed to turn from the pride of man to the One who in grace came down from heaven. John 6 is a great study. “Bread” is a symbol of grace, and Christ was living bread come down from heaven. This is the revelation to which the Spirit of God would lead us.

In verses 18-27 we have the danger which besets the little children. In those early days the going out made manifest the spirit of antichrist, those who were ^[p. 170] not of the Christian company at all. And in these days those who go out manifest that they were not of us. Real alienation existed before ever it came to schism. Not content with going out they seek to seduce those within. Two forms of falsehood existed in early days: the denial that Jesus was the Christ, and the denial of the Father and the Son; two truths which are bound together in the Person of Jesus. In Jesus as the Christ I see the accomplishment of the Old Testament scriptures: though not the whole of the truth as to Jesus. The basis of Christianity is not found in the Old Testament. There it was the revelation of one God: now it is the revelation of the Father and the Son, and the gift of the Spirit. The liar and antichrist sought to get rid both of the Old Testament revelation and of that which is the basis of Christianity. The apostle’s object was to keep the little children from being shaken in faith and overcome by the wicked one, to keep them clear of those who had gone out. The babes were in danger of listening to them. If people go out on principle they ought to keep clear of those they have left; but if they try to affect those who remain, do not listen to them, they seek to seduce you by wrong thoughts as to Scripture and the Person of Christ.

The antidote is found in verses 24, 25: “Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the outset”, etc. The apostles had brought to them the revelation of God and of life in the Son, the living Bread which came down from heaven. It was the blessed will of God that He should come down, and bring to an end in Himself the moral condition of man, being made “a sacrifice for sin”, so that in eating Him we might live by Him. He became incarnate that we might feed upon the heavenly grace expressed in Him, as thus come down, and might live because of Him. The principle on which a believer lives here is that he feeds upon Him and lives by Him. The ^[p. 171] heavenly Bread is digested by faith into the life of our moral being, and there is thus a change in the order of our moral being. The earthly is changed for the heavenly, because I live by appropriating the One who is heavenly. “As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly”. “He that hath the Son hath life”. Life is not said to be in myself, but in having appropriated the Son, the living Bread which came down from heaven. An unconverted man thinks that he lives, but morally he is in death. When Christ is received I live before the Father in Him. If I live at all it is in the appropriation of Him. If the truth does not remain in one, it is because there is no divine work there. The fact of the truth abiding proves that there is vitality.

We have to do with the world in passing through it; but as to our place with God, we are in the Son and in the Father, because the Son is in the Father. It is this which is spoken of in verse 24: “Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son and in the Father”. In John 5 we see the power of the Son in quickening. In chapter 6 we see the side of appropriation, and here comes in faith in what is revealed — if what you have heard continue in you, you also shall “continue in the Son and in the Father”. Eternal life is in the continuance in the Father and in the Son, as we see in verse 25: “And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life”. It was this the fathers had gone on to, they had judged the great world system. We have not got into the enjoyment of the blessing unless we have judged it, for life is not there, the world is convicted as to judgment. The fathers had learnt in the realisation of their souls that life is in the Son — that he that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of ^[p. 172] God hath not life. Christianity is not a system of promises, but the enjoyment of the things promised. Eternal life is “promised”, but not to remain to us simply a promise, but to be the present enjoyment of the soul by faith. We have passed from death into life (see John 17: 3).

One may have come to see through the seducers; but the world is the great temptation: and for this reason are we given by the Spirit the means of forming God’s judgment of it. We may have to travel through the scene of death around us, but as set free from the power of it, and in faith of the blessed One in Whom is life, Who has revealed the Father, and is the life of our souls, on Whom we have to feed as long as we are down here. Feeding has to be maintained. It is not only that having accepted Christ by faith He is the life of the soul; but we need always to be in touch with Him who is life. It has been said we learn the alphabet but once, but we are always using it. The condition on which the believer lives is in feeding on Christ by faith, at the same time in communion with this death.

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