LECTURE 5
LECTURE 5
I desire to make clear, if I can, the bearing of this chapter, and in order to do so it is necessary to bring before you what marks the testimony of the twelve and distinguishes it from that of Paul. Paul’s witness is distinctive in that he began from Christ in glory. He knew the Lord only in glory; the Lord appeared to him from glory; and it is that which gives a character to the whole of Paul’s testimony. He could not take the ground that the twelve did. Peter could say, “We are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost”; so that they put themselves in a sense as witnesses distinct from the Holy Spirit. They could do this on the ground of what Jesus had said to them; after speaking of the coming of the Comforter to bear witness, He added, “Ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning”; that is, He gives a distinct reason why they should bear witness, which had no application to Paul. He had not been with Christ from the outset. But there was to be also the continuous testimony of the Holy Spirit, come down to bear witness to Christ in glory. You will see in a few moments how what I have said connects itself with this epistle.
[p. 207] Now in the writings of Peter and John you find the distinction I have alluded to maintained. I refer, for a moment, to illustrate it, to the writings of Peter. In both his epistles, Peter recalls that of which he had been a witness when Christ was here upon earth. In the first epistle the leading point is that the saints had come as living stones to a living stone; and Christ had been revealed to Peter as the living stone when here upon earth. The “living stone” was Christ as made known to Peter by the Father as the Son of the living God. Peter confesses Him thus, and the Lord says to him, “Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven”; which means, I judge, that the flesh and blood condition even in Christ had not in itself revealed it. It was a revelation of the Father to Peter when Christ was here upon earth; and hence Christ was to him a living stone, and the saints had come to Him as a living stone, and were being “built up a spiritual house”, and so on. It is not the truth of the body, nor the thought of union with Christ in glory, but Peter’s own peculiar line of truth — Christ’s assembly here.
In the second epistle Peter recalls the vision which he, with James and John, had seen on the mount of Transfiguration; so that both his epistles bring before us what had been made known to him when Christ was here upon earth. It was the effect of the Holy Spirit bringing all things to his remembrance.
That proves the point sufficiently with regard to Peter; and when I come to the apostle John, I find there the same principle. What John sets to work, in the greater part of his first epistle, to declare is what they had seen and heard and contemplated from the outset; as he says, “that which was from the beginning”, what had been manifested in Christ seen and known when here. And that, I judge, is the reason why he speaks of eternal life in the abstract way that he does in chapter 1 of his epistle, for eternal life was [p. 208] not what was outwardly expressed in the flesh and blood condition, for that condition was for God’s will to come to an end in death; but still eternal life was there, and hence John has to speak about it in an abstract way as “that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us”. It was really the Person of Christ, but in a sense apart from what He took in partaking of blood and flesh; for it was what He brought into manhood as the living bread come down from heaven; as the Lord brings out in John 6, “He that eateth me, even he shall live by me”, for He was the living bread come down from heaven for a man to eat. What I have said explains why the apostle says, “was manifested unto us”. Let the sun shine as brightly as it may, if all the people in the world were blind the sun would not be manifested; but if these blind people felt the heat of the sun, the sun would be manifested to them. It was not what the Lord was as seen on the surface; that was not the point at all; but what He was with the Father and was manifested to be to the apostles; by the grace of God, this was made manifest to them in Christ. They knew Christ distinct from what He was as Man here after the flesh. They saw “that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us”.
I refer to that in connection with John’s testimony; and I believe what I have said is important to bear in mind if you want rightly to apprehend the epistle. John is calling, by the Spirit of God, to remembrance what they had seen and witnessed and heard in Christ down here; as the Lord said to them in John 14, “The Holy Ghost ... shall ... bring all things to your remembrance”. Now I do not think that what comes out as to eternal life in the chapters we have had before us goes beyond what had been manifested in Christ when He was here. It is not, as yet, shown to us where it is. Take for instance what is found in chapter 3. There we get the principle of righteousness.
“[p. 209] He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous”. Righteousness first came out in Christ on earth. Innocence was in Adam; lawlessness came in with the fall, but Christ comes in, the righteous One, and He meets all in righteousness. And another principle comes out in connection with it, that is, perfect love, as displayed in laying down His life. Righteousness is first shown, because lawlessness was here, and was met by righteousness; and then in contrast to hatred as shown in Cain, perfect love comes out; “He laid down his life for us”. So John recalls by the Spirit of God what had been manifested in Christ upon earth, righteousness and perfect love. Then the way in which he works it out as to us is this, that we are put in the relationship of children; and that every one doing righteousness is righteous as He is righteous, and hence the obligation to love according as Christ loved.
Then in chapter 4 we have seen how completely the believer is viewed as separate from the world, he is abiding in God, and God in him. This is a remarkable expression, and how perfectly true it was in principle in the Lord down here; I mean how perfectly separate Christ was morally from all that was here. He says, “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?” That was the height of it. He was in the Father the object of the Father’s affection and delight, and the Father was in Him. It was that which gave character to Christ here, for His object was not to display Himself, but to reveal the Father, and therefore He could say to Philip, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father”; the moral characteristics of the Father came out in Christ here. I think anyone can understand how perfectly distinct in that way Christ was from the world even when down here upon earth. He had His links after the flesh, but they did not interfere with that. In Christ faith was perfect, so that the communion proper to [p. 210] what He was was perfectly unhindered. Now the same principle comes out in chapter 4 in regard of us; “Hereby we know that we dwell in him and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit”. The Spirit comes perfectly in accord with what we have and are in Christ, what the Father has given to us, and hence we are conscious of our place because the Spirit is in accord with all; He witnesses of all.
To return to what I was saying at the beginning. The apostle, in order to bring to light what I have spoken of, recalls by the Spirit of God what had been manifested in Christ down here. He says, “We .bear witness”; he was bearing witness of what had been from the outset; and hence says, “If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father. And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life”.
Now I have referred to that to enable me to show the distinctiveness of chapter 5, in which the point is not that the apostle is witness, but that the Spirit is witness. What you find in chapter 5 is Christ as last Adam in glory; and hence it is not the recalling of what Christ was on earth, or what was manifested in Christ on earth, but of showing the true scene and present connection of eternal life. And hence we find, as I said, that the Spirit is the witness, that is, as I understand it, as come from Christ in glory. Chapter 5, in a certain sense, puts all on different ground; it speaks about the same person and the same thing; but it speaks of it in its connection, rather than in its characteristics, and therefore I get in chapter 5 a statement beyond chapter 1, and that is, “He [Jesus Christ] is the true God and eternal life”. Eternal life was manifested in Him when here upon earth; now it goes further and says, “He is the true God and eternal life”. All is now declared. That is, when I look at Christ in glory I have in Him the full revelation,
[p. 211] not only of the true God, but of eternal life in its proper scene. And yet it had been manifested in Him when here upon earth, because it was of Himself, and it was bound to come out, though His glory was veiled.
I do not think anybody can understand chapter 5 if they do not apprehend that the apostle leaves the ground he had been upon in the previous part of the epistle, namely, his own witness by the Holy Spirit calling to remembrance, and takes other ground, in which, as I have said, the Spirit is the witness, not exactly the apostle, but the Spirit by the apostle. The Spirit alone can be witness of Christ in glory. That is what I suppose the Lord meant at the close of John 15, “When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father ... he shall testify of me”. The apostles lost sight of Christ in the cloud; that is the last they saw of Him. And who can testify to the truth of a Man in glory with the Father except the Holy Spirit? And this is, I judge, the point in this chapter.
Look now at chapter 5: 6. “This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth ... and there are three that bear witness” — the Spirit, and the water, and the blood; and these three agree in one. “If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son”. Here we have not the apostle’s remembrance by the Spirit, but the witness of God which He has testified of His Son. “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: be that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of [p. 212] God hath not life. These things have I written unto you ... that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God”. The apostle begins here, if I may so say, a new epoch as connected with Christ. It has been thought that in chapter 1: 1 reference is made to Christ only after resurrection. I do not think that is so; it seems to me to make too great a distinction between Christ before and after resurrection, which I am sure John will not allow; because as to what Christ was as come from heaven, there could be no difference in Him before or after resurrection. In my own mind I am convinced that the apostle goes back to what was from the outset, that is from the beginning of Christ. This is what the expression “from the beginning” must mean, because there was a point when the apostles had to say to Christ, and were associated with Him, and to that point, the beginning, John refers, and it is here called back to remembrance by the Holy Spirit. But in chapter 5 it appears to me that new ground is taken with regard to Christ, and we begin here from death. “This is he that came by water and blood”. It is not the recalling what Christ was from the outset; but Christ coming in cleansing and expiation. And this is sealed by the Spirit, “It is the Spirit that beareth witness”. Bears witness to what? To Christ in glory, as I understand it. The Spirit has come down here thus to bear witness to the efficacy and effect of what Christ has done, that man is in the value of it in the presence of the Father in righteousness. I suppose the reference in the water and the blood is to what flowed out of the side of Christ when death was accomplished. They were typical of cleansing and expiation; Christ has come in the power of these things, or of what they signify, and the Spirit bears witness, because the Spirit is truth. Do you understand the force of the expression, “The Spirit is the truth”? Christ is the truth in the sense that in Him everything is [p. 213] revealed objectively, but the Spirit is the truth of all subjectively in the believer. The Spirit is come down as the Spirit of Christ, in the testimony of what is to form us according to what is true in glory; hence the Spirit is the truth, and this in the believer. “He that believeth on the Son hath the witness in himself”. All truth is expressed objectively in Christ; therefore it is a question of faith; but the Spirit bears witness in the believer, as the Lord says, speaking of the Holy Spirit, “He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you”; that is, the Spirit of truth when He came would be in them; He is the truth as to these things, that is, of what has come to pass in Christ in glory.
Christ is presented to us, to use the language of another part of Scripture, as the last Adam, and eternal life is really in the last Adam, who is the full and perfect revelation and expression of it. Therefore we get in this chapter the advance on chapter 1: “He is the true God and eternal life”, because in Christ both are fully revealed.
And now I desire to refer especially to the passage, “There are three that bear witness ... the spirit, and the water, and the blood”. It had been said previously this is the One that came by water and blood, for in order to bring in blessing Christ has come by cleansing and expiation, by water and blood; that is the order of things in His coming. Then the Spirit follows as the witness of what is accomplished, and that Man is in glory. When, however, we come to the order in the believer, the Spirit is put first, “the Spirit, and the water, and the blood”. For it is not here a question of application, but of the apprehension of the value of the witnesses, and therefore the Spirit stands at the head; for the witness is “that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son”. How is this verified? The Spirit is in the believer, and the Spirit is the truth, and what the Spirit witnesses is that the believer answers before God to Christ in glory. I am [p. 214] according to Christ, because the Spirit is the Spirit of Christ; and if the Spirit of Christ is in me it is proof that before God I correspond to Christ, I am constituted according to Christ in glory; to put it in the language of the apostle Paul, “As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly”; or, to quote another expression, “He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing” — (to be clothed in a glorified body) — “is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit”.
But we have the other witnesses. Having the Spirit, we can appreciate the value of the water and the blood — and this raises the question, How came the water and the blood from Christ? Only through death. We all know that Christ was here after the flesh, and in that way having part in human life down here; yet morally apart from all here, “that holy thing” from the womb even as “made of a woman, made under the law”. But the water and the blood witness to me, that in order to provide cleansing and expiation for us, Christ has died to the whole course of things down here. And hence I apprehend that if on the one hand, I am placed by the Spirit in correspondence with Christ in glory, on the other hand, I accept the place of death to the world here. And this is really what the water signifies. I have put off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, and in that sense am cleansed from the world. Christ has died to it all. Do you suppose Christ would have died to it all had there been any good in it for God? I have no doubt that it was needful for the glory of God that He should die; but it was the witness that there was nothing in man which was suitable to God. And we as Christians, having the Holy Spirit, as witness of Christ in glory, have also the witness of the water and blood testifying that we are cleansed by Christ’s death from all contrary here to God, and are free from imputation of sin.
[p. 215] We have to accept all three witnesses. And to what does their testimony converge? Why that “God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son”. I have that link now, “He that hath the Son hath life”. Eternal life is in the Son; and I have the Son, and having the Son I have what is in the Son, I have the eternal life in Him. The connection is now seen. But then on the other hand I have His place of death to the scene and course of things here. If you were to ask me why I do not take part in the interests and politics of the world, I reply, I have morally no life for the world. The reason why, in Colossians, we are said to be dead to the world is because we have put off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. Christ was actually cut off in the cross; this was circumcision in His case; and we have put off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, “buried with him in baptism”. Complete in Christ, and circumcised in Him, are bound to go together. If Christ had not died to the world I never could have been free from it while here; the link could not have been broken. It might be broken by my own death, but then judgment would be before me; but being broken by the death of Christ there is no judgment before me, for His death has provided expiation; there is no imputation to the believer, the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses from every sin.
Now I pass on to a further word. “And this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us: and if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him. If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death”. There are only two points in connection with this passage which [p. 216] I will refer to; one is confidence with God, and the other is discernment. Those are two things which accompany the blessing and position into which we are brought with God: confidence with God and discernment; for it says, “This is the confidence that we have in him”, that is one thing; and then “there is a sin unto death: I do not say he shall pray for it”. If we really were, by the power of the Holy Spirit, in the consciousness of what we are with the Father in the Son, I do not doubt those things would mark us. We should know when not to ask; “I do not say that he shall pray for it”. But I dare not say very much about the passage, because I know so little about it experimentally.
We come now to the closing verses. “We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not. And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness. And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life”. Now I believe we have the climax, in the apprehension of the soul, of the truth unfolded: “We know” is three times repeated. It is an expression which indicates Christian knowledge, the knowledge which is proper to Christians. There is a sort of progress in the three verses. The first is what I may call abstract; it is not definitely applied, but is a sort of general principle, “We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not” — that is what marks a person who owes his beginning morally to God — “but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not”, thus far, in regard of sin. The one begotten of God does not sin, because his moral being is derived from God; and what is of God, as born of God, is looked at in itself abstractedly.
[p. 217] He does not sin, and the wicked one toucheth him not.
The next expression is no longer abstract, for the apostle says: “We know that we are of God”, that is, we Christians. It is not here what marks a person who is born of God spoken of as a principle, but the expression is more definite: “We are of God”; and everything is resolved to us now, “and the whole world lieth in wickedness”, that is the effect in the soul of the teaching of the apostle. It is the result of what comes out in chapter 3. On the one hand, “He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous”, on the other, in the world is lawlessness and hatred. “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren”. Now the soul has come to a conclusion. We are of God because righteousness is of God, and the whole world lieth in the wicked one; that is where the world is morally. Thus you see what the teaching of the epistle has brought us to, and it is what was true in Christ when He was here upon earth; He was of God, and the whole world was in the wicked one then. The Lord says to the Jews, “Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world”. He might have said, “and the whole world lies in the wicked one”, only it was not then demonstrated so clearly as it is now, and the Christian has now to come to this conclusion, he is “of God, and the whole world lies in the wicked one”.
But when we come to the next verse we get the statement of our portion and blessing. So far we have had sin, and the wicked one, and the world, and wickedness. In the closing verse we find, “We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life”. The position of the Christian is more distinctly marked here than anywhere else, as far as I know, in the epistle, and we get [p. 218] the positive statement here, not simply that we abide in Him and He in us, but we are “in him that is true, in his Son Jesus Christ” — in Christ in glory; that is the proper recognised position of the Christian before God. But I want to dwell a little upon the first part of it, “We know that the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true”. Suppose a totally unlettered man to be placed in the midst of a scientific and cultivated company, what that man would need in order to be at home in the midst of such a company would be an understanding, otherwise he could not understand or apprehend anything that passed; he would want kindred understanding. Now that is what Christ has given to us; without it, if we were put into divine associations, we could not understand one single thing. Suppose you were to put an unconverted man in heaven, he would understand nothing of the thoughts or language of heaven; but I do not think that will be the case with us when we get to heaven; I do not believe it was the case with Paul when he was caught up to the third heaven; he heard unspeakable words, but it does not say he did not enjoy the things he heard; he heard things he could not utter in this scene of sinful existence, but it does not tell us he did not understand them. But what I get here is this: I am in wonderful company; not in the company of the scientific or the cultivated of this world, but in divine associations; and the Son of God has given to us an understanding that we may know Him that is true. He has given us the capability, the understanding, by which we can be at home in the company and fellowship in which He has placed us, according to John 17: 3: “This is the eternal life, that they should know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent”. Eternal life is there looked at objectively; here it is more the understanding which enables us to be at home, and in enjoyment, in such blessed company;
He has “given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true”. Him that is true is, in my judgment, Him that is revealed, and I think that is the idea in the word ‘true’ all through the verse. God is proved to be true, in that He has revealed Himself. If a devil were revealed he would be seen to be a devil, below natural conscience. God reveals Himself, and thereby proves Himself to be the true and blessed God. That is what I understand by the word ‘true’, “that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true”, that is the One that has revealed Himself; “in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God” — that is, God revealed — “and eternal life”, as the full revelation and expression of it. That is what Christ is in glory, and we are in Him. This is what the verse brings us to. There must be the two sides, revelation and understanding: without the revelation of God we never could have enjoyed God; but the Son has revealed the Father perfectly and manifested the Father’s name, and now He has “given to us an understanding that we may know him that is true; and we are in him that is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life”.
It is on the same platform as the rest of the chapter. This chapter brings before us Christ, who came through water and blood; and the Spirit, that blessed witness sent down from glory to testify to us that Christ is in the Father’s presence as Man. I can understand a person saying, Was not He always in the Father’s presence? Yes, He was. Faith was perfect when Christ was down here, and thus He was ever in spirit with the Father. But as Man He talks about going to the Father: He says, “I leave the world, and go to the Father”. In this last chapter He is with the Father. Other parts of the epistle recognise the same thing, such as “We have an advocate with the Father”.
The burden of all the first part of the epistle is the calling to mind by the apostle of what had been [p. 220] manifested in Christ as a man here upon earth: verified, I doubt not, in the resurrection. But when we come to the last chapter it is the One that has come through water and blood, the Man in glory; and the Spirit witnessing, and that, too, in the believer, and we have an understanding that we may know Him that is true; we are of another order of understanding, “as is the heavenly, such they also that are heavenly”. You are in His Son Jesus Christ, “the true God and eternal life”. It is in this chapter that the apostle appears to me to touch on the line of the apostle Paul. Everybody knows that in Paul’s teaching eternal life is connected with Christ in glory; and it is that to which John leads, as I judge, in this last chapter.
Now, beloved friends, may God help us in His great grace to get a right idea of the word, and to know how to handle it rightly. If anything has come home to me of late it is this — the great importance of taking up things as they are set in Scripture, not being content merely with generalities, or with what is conventional amongst us; but getting hold of things in their Scripture connection. It may need a great deal of patience and attention to the word, but the patience and attention will be amply rewarded, and I believe this to be the great lesson that God has been bringing home to us of late.