READINGS AND ADDRESSES ON SOME OF THE TEACHINGS OF THE GOSPEL OF JOHN (6)
[p. 368] READINGS AND ADDRESSES ON SOME OF THE TEACHINGS OF THE GOSPEL OF JOHN (6)
It is plain that we have to look at these chapters (13 and 14) in their application to the disciples. We have to carry our thoughts back to them and when the Lord was with them. And yet it is extremely important to see what the chapters mean with regard to us, the point, the bearing with regard to us; for they have a further application to us.
Nothing can be more certain than that the coming of the Comforter meant something that would be permanent here. Nothing can be much more important than to understand the bearing of this chapter with regard to us. The primary application was to the disciples, but it also applies to us. We are left here in the absence of Christ. It all depends on the absence of Christ that the Comforter is still present. It supposes the absence of Christ. He is the object of faith in heaven, but the Comforter abides here, our stronghold and stay.
We used in system to look on the Spirit as simply an influence, but we have gained light. The Comforter is present as a Person. He is present, just as truly as Christ is absent.
Chapter 14 presents a contrast to chapter 13.
Chapter 13 shows our weakness.
Chapter 14 shows the source of our strength.
Every believer is conscious of weakness. You get weakness and strength combined in the same person. We are weak, but there are great elements of strength, elements not only of strength, but also of comfort. They are all found in the Lord — various elements of strength well known for nearly two [p. 369] thousand years; as Paul said to Timothy, who was weak and timid, “My son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus”, 2 Timothy 2: 1.
In John 13 everything was being resolved, a very great change was taking place — Judas, Satan, and the chief priests coming together — a fearful combination of evil, The devil enters into Judas, and he puts himself in communication with the Pharisees.
God allows a moment to arrive in the history of things culminating in a fearful combination — treachery and the power of Satan. But another point: the Son of man was glorified. He came from God and went to God, and knew that the Father had “given all things into his hands”.
If you get the elements of evil, you also get the elements of good. Psalm 8 was to be fulfilled. There was the suffering, but He was going to be glorified. All the counsels of God are goodness. He was to be crowned with glory and honour, all things set under His feet.
The disciples were left in a defiling world. Still, at the same time their fidelity to the Lord and to one another was to be tested. Their obligation was to wash one another’s feet. This brings out our weakness. We are weak when we are affected by the influences of the world; weak also in attempting to carry out the obligation of feet-washing.
In this chapter (chapter 14) I bring before you the elements of our strength. They come out in a very distinct way, “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me”. The first element of strength is faith in Christ: “ye believe in God, believe also in me”. You must remember to whom that was spoken! To a little company gathered by Christ. They had not chosen Christ, but Christ had chosen them. You may say they were a very poor choice; but they were the company the Lord chose, and if He had chosen them they were to [p. 370] believe in Him. He knew them perfectly, and He was content with their company. Remember, they were only a few poor fishermen. The Lord could not have found anything very different in them from what He would find in us. He might have taken any dozen of us to be with Him. But He had chosen them and was content with their company; and indeed I could go further and say He had pleasure in their company.
Now He was about to leave them; but how could it possibly be that He could leave them and not think about them? He could say, as it were, If I am going to the Father in heaven I will have you in My company up there, because I have chosen you, loved you, carried you; and now I am going to “prepare a place for you ... that where I am, there ye may be also”.
The Lord has chosen us, and we have faith in Him, and know that where He is there we shall be also. We may not have much place in this world, and we should be very content to have no place here; and we are better without a place here because it tends to draw our attention from the place above, the place Christ has prepared and to which He is going to bring us.
The next element of our strength is the divinely given appreciation of Christ and all that the Father has given to Him. No man can receive anything but what is given him from above. Christ is foolishness to the natural man; and hence appreciation of Christ must be divinely given. He says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls”. That would be divinely given appreciation of Christ. The first element of strength is faith in the fidelity of Christ; now that He has gone to heaven, to have entire confidence in His fidelity; and then there is very great strength in the divinely given appreciation of Christ: “Through him we both have access ... unto the Father”. In proportion as I apprehend the Son I have access to the Father.
The gentile is just as well off as the Jew. The woman who was a sinner — her power for approaching God was her appreciation of Christ; and it is in the appreciation of Christ that we have access to the Father. The apprehension of the Son is a very great element of strength, because you have access to the Father. I am nothing in the eye of God save as I am in the appreciation of Christ: and our real measure in the sight of God is our appreciation of Christ.
The next point is in verse 16, “another Comforter”. This is another very great element of strength, the presence of the Comforter. He is come. We have the record of it in the Acts. The Comforter came and the Comforter has continued. His presence is a very great element of strength. By Him we live and do, and by Him, on the other hand, Christ has His expression in christians. Christ is brought into the view of His people, and because He lives they live.
Stephen was just about to die, but he saw Christ, and he lived because Christ lived. Stephen had no real idea of dying; he hated his life in this world, but he lived because Christ lived. Christ lived “on account of the Father”. He said when on the cross, “Into thy hands I commend my spirit”. I may be carried away by disease tonight, but I live because Christ lives, and as to my departure I am “absent from the body and present with the Lord”; and when Christ is manifested in power and glory I shall be exactly like Him. We see Him now by the Spirit, and because He lives we live also. Stephen being full of the Spirit beheld the glory of God and Jesus; he lived because Jesus lived, and he could say, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit”.
[p. 372] A point further. Now that the Lord was going away He said to His disciples, “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you”. The Lord Jesus intended to have a witness here, an expression here, to be present here in word and work. When He was upon earth He said, “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works”. In the works and words of saints Christ is manifest here. “At that day” (Pentecost) Christ is present here. He comes out in His people, as the Father came out in Christ, in His works and words. Our works and words should be a savour of Christ, so that Christ should be magnified in these poor bodies, and also manifested and expressed characteristically in word and work. Are you left here just to pursue your business or to be simply in your family life? That is not the reason for which you are left here, but as vessels here on earth in which Christ finds expression, in work and word, in the power of the Comforter.
The first element of strength is faith in Christ, “Believe also in me”. The second is divinely given appreciation of Christ, and the third is the presence of the Comforter, so that Christ finds expression in His people here. We live because He lives, and on the other hand He finds expression in us: “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you”.
Another point, another element of strength is in verse 21, that Christ manifests Himself. It is conditional. It is ridiculous to talk of loving Christ and not keeping His commandments. What is His commandment? It is really that Christ is before the soul. Christ is the great commandment; Christ Himself is the law. You cannot do right except as you have Christ before the heart — no licence to do your own will. Man’s will is in principle lawlessness. If you keep His commandments the gain is that Christ will manifest Himself to you. He came into the company of His disciples; three times He manifested Himself to His disciples. The Lord manifests Himself to us in some way that is peculiarly characteristic of Himself, “He was known of them in breaking of bread”; so too in John 20 and 21. The Lord is so capable of bringing Himself before the heart in a way that makes an indelible impression of Christ, something that is peculiarly characteristic of Himself. I speak of the capability of the Lord to manifest Himself to the one who keeps His commandments; and the manifestation of Himself will give character and direction to the one to whom He thus manifests Himself.
Another element of strength is the Father and the Son making their abode with the one who keeps the words of Christ. You are thus in separation from the world and you give no licence to the flesh. The gain is that you have the Father and the Son taking up their abode with you; you are in the Father’s love, and you have Christ for salvation. Their presence and continuance is that which is peculiarly characteristic of each. That must of necessity involve complete separation from the world, and where we abide is in the Father’s love, and we have salvation in Christ Jesus, but outside the course and order of this world. But we have the immense gain of the Father’s love and the salvation which is in Christ Jesus; He is our strength and our “strong tower”.
The apostle laboured that the saints might “obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory”, 2 Timothy 2: 10. Wonderful thing to be here in the sense of the Father’s love and in “the salvation which is in Christ Jesus”!
[p. 374] There is the love of Christ, but we are in the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, and we know the love of the Father.
There are wonderful elements of strength brought out in detail in this chapter: — (1) Faith in Christ.
(2) Divinely given appreciation of Christ.
(3) The coming of the Comforter.
(4) The manifestation of Christ to the soul.
(5) The abode of the Father and the Son with him who keeps the word of Christ.
These are all elements of our strength. We are weak in the susceptibility we have as regards this world and things down here; but these are the elements of strength and we have to know and to prove these things, and they are all available to us. The great thing we have to look to is that we do violence to the flesh and to the will and to the world! “All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world”.
May God grant that we may be in the reality of these things. “Your life is hid with Christ in God”. You can reckon the duration of your own life if you can reckon the duration of Christ’s life!