DIVINE TEACHING
[p. 103] DIVINE TEACHING
John 6:44 - 46; Ephesians 4:20 - 24; 1 John 2:26, 27
CAC What led me to suggest these scriptures was the thought that we are in a time when the ministry of the truth is, by the grace of the Lord very abundant, and one has been impressed by the conviction that the great need of the saints is not that there should be an increase of spiritual wealth conveyed to us in ministry of the word, but that we should be more characterised by divine teaching; that is, by hearing the living voice of divine Persons. I cannot conceive of anything of more supreme importance and value than that. I suppose nothing would give greater stability than to come under divine teaching, because it is not an impression, however right or true, that man could make on us but the direct communication to our souls of something from divine Persons.
I suggested these scriptures because the first speaks of the Father’s teaching, the second of Christ’s teaching and instruction, and the third of the anointing or unction, that is, the Spirit. It is assumed in these scriptures that we know what it is to be under direct divine teaching. It is referred to in the Old Testament as a singular mark of divine favour that “all thy children shall be taught of Jehovah”.
Ques What would be the difference between this and being taught by revelation as Peter was in Matthew 16?
CAC That was a blessed favour shown to Peter and it was of the same character as what we are speaking of; but there was a speciality about that as it was a distinct revelation made to Peter which was not made to anyone else. It does illustrate that the Father can speak directly to the soul. I believe that our true quality and position as in the testimony depends upon our having heard the voice of divine [p. 104] Persons, so it is a matter that should appeal to and have the interest and attention of all our hearts.
In John 6 we see that the Father gives certain persons to the Son, and the Son does not cast out any who come to Him. He received them from the Father with a view to the Father’s will being carried out in the fullest extent right through to resurrection; it says several times over, “I will raise him up at the last day”. The last day is not a mere dispensational reference but the thought of finality is in it. The Son receives all those the Father gives Him, He does not lose a single particle of what the Father gives Him. He carries through the Father’s pleasure and sets it up in resurrection in finality. That, so to speak, is a matter between the Father and the Son. Then something else is needed; that is, those who are given by the Father to the Son need to come under divine teaching; they need to be taught of God, so that on their side they come affectionately and intelligently to the Son. The Father draws and teaches with a view to that; it is a direct action of the Father on each individual soul. This chapter indicates that the Father is the prime mover; He is the sender of the Son; He gives certain ones to the Son, and then He draws and teaches; everything has its origin in the Father. If you think of saints from this point of view there is no uncertainty, no weakness or instability about their movements. The movements of the soul in coming to Christ have nothing weak or uncertain about them. There are many instances recorded in the gospels of persons coming to Christ, and it is interesting to see the definiteness with which they come. One might wonder how they arrived at such an appreciation of Christ, such confidence in Him. They saw there was that in Him that surpassed everything that was found in the religious world. One might wonder at the definiteness of their movements if one did not know it was the Father drawing and teaching. They were drawn by irresistible force, more powerful than the force that keeps [p. 105] the sun, moon and stars moving round in their orbit. There is a stability about divine drawing, and we do well to familiarise our hearts with the certainty and blessed character of it. We can see that the Father had moved in the soul of the woman of Samaria before the Lord had anything to say to her at the well. The Father was actively moving, He was seeking worshippers. He had begun, and one can marvel at the definiteness of the position the woman took up. As soon as she discerned that the Lord was a Prophet she raised the question of worship, and then she fell back on Christ as the true resource of her soul. “I know that Messias is coming, who is called Christ; when he comes he will tell us all things”. That illustrates what I mean. If we look at that woman naturally, we see a woman outside of moral propriety; if we look at her spiritually we see a wonderful and singular example of the Father’s teaching and drawing.
Ques What about Nicodemus?
CAC There is nothing more remarkable than the precision and stability of the ground that Nicodemus takes up. He says, “Thou art come a teacher from God”: we know it, he says, “for none can do these signs that thou doest unless God be with him”. There is a man in an impregnable position; what put him there? The Father’s teaching and drawing. He got an impression from the Father before the Son had anything to say to him directly.
It is most blessed for us fully to recognize that God has introduced One into the world who is absolutely of Himself; He describes Himself here as He who is of God. We are in a world which is at a great distance from God and where there is not a trace of anything which carries divine impressions outside the circle of divine working. Into such a world God has brought a Person absolutely of Himself, a blessed Person who can look without a veil upon the face of the Father. Such is the intimacy and nearness and glory of His Person and now the Father draws to Him. The Father is putting [p. 106] forth the most powerful divine action upon souls; it is put forth upon each of us individually or we should never have come to Christ.
Ques In chapter 5 we get the voice of the Son of God; but how does that come in?
CAC The Father draws to the One who is great enough to quicken out of death, so those who hear the voice of the Son of God are made to live. But before we hear the voice of the Son of God we hear the Father’s voice. The Lord said, “Every one that has heard from the Father himself, and has learned of him, comes to me”. There is not only drawing but teaching, learning what the Father has to say about the Son.
Ques Would it be a joy to the Father to give any of us to know more of Christ?
CAC Yes. It seems to me it is what the Father does characteristically. He would speak to us of the profound delight He has in His beloved Son. If we hear it, if the Father tells us that, the inevitable result is that we come to the One in whom the Father has such profound delight. We can afford to part company with every other man because the Father has introduced to us One — His beloved Son — in whom He has found His delight. Now Peter in writing his second epistle illustrates what we are speaking about; he says, “This voice we heard”. What voice? the Father’s voice. They were with the Lord on the holy mount, and they heard the voice that came from the excellent glory. It is right that we should have a spiritual conception of ourselves; what an elevation it would give to our conception if we realised that the Father’s voice “uttered to him by the excellent glory” has been heard directly by us to give us instruction and teaching about His beloved Son in whom He found His delight. It is not a question of ministry, of what we can hear or read, but of the Father’s voice in our souls.
Everything is seen in this gospel as the fruit of divine [p. 107] operations; there is nothing whatever for God in man as fallen and lost save what is the fruit of divine operations. The greatest men of God are put in the shade in John’s gospel, and every former system set up by God is put in the background. One glorious Person is supreme and surpassing, and stands out before the soul. The Father’s teaching is to give us such an impression of that Person that we discard all the influences of the religious world. The religious world is the point in John’s gospel; it is all discarded as, the soul comes under the teaching of the gospel.
The truth of this is presented so that we may be exercised, and also that we may understand our spiritual history; this throws a flood of light on it. We may think of our spiritual history as being affected by influences which we come under, such as preaching, teaching, the company of the brethren; but there is something far greater in our history than all these influences put together; that is the fact that we have been drawn by the Father to the Son, and directly and personally taught to know what the Son is in the estimation of His heart. We have that by divine teaching directly from the Father. That is greater than subordinate influences, however precious they may be.
Ques Does the Father’s voice come to us in the form of light?
CAC I do not think that it is quite light. I cannot find a better word for it than the scriptural word “taught of God”. I do not think any man could explain how it came. Paul says to the Thessalonians, “Ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another”. I cannot explain how, but what is taught of God is certainly a blessed reality above everything else.
Rem The Lord takes a quotation from the Old Testament in regard to the world to come, “They shall be all taught of God”.
CAC Yes. In Isaiah 54 it refers to the world to come and what will be effected in the children of Zion. But the [p. 108] Lord here brings it to the present time. We see the Father as the source of all the drawing and teaching, and then we come to the Son and do not hunger. The proof whether we have come to the Son is, Do we hunger? Have we got unsatisfied hearts? If we have, we have not come to the Son, because He says, “He that cometh to me shall never hunger”. There is no unsatisfied craving and we shall have eternal life; there is to be all the preciousness of eternal life in the soul. See how great the Person is, He is great enough to do that. Some one might say, I do not know if I am satisfied like that. Well, you have an impression of that Person, that He is great enough to satisfy you; has the Father given you that impression? That is something. I can say the Father has given me the impression that Christ, His blessed Son, is great enough to satisfy me in time and through eternity. That is divine teaching as I understand it.
Now we must move on to the teaching of Christ in Ephesians 4. “Ye have not thus learnt the Christ, if ye have heard him and been instructed in him according as the truth is in Jesus”, verses 20, 21. One would call attention to the directness of it, “if ye have heard him and been instructed in him”. This is addressed to the gentiles; this does not refer to hearing Him in the days of His flesh, but to hearing Him from heaven. The question might be raised with us, Do we know what it is to have heard Christ speaking directly and personally to us as the risen and heavenly One, so that under His teaching we have been instructed in Him and have learned the truth as it is in Jesus? If these things are not known to us they should be subjects of intense desire and prayer. The Lord was the Teacher when on earth; it was one of His precious titles which perhaps we do not give Him as much as we ought. He was the Teacher and Instructor and He is still; it is a precious designation of our Lord that He is the Teacher. That is not Lordship or Headship, but something a little different from either. He takes the place of [p. 109] Instructor, He instructs us in the truth. None of us is instructed in the truth so as to walk practically in it until he comes under the parental instruction of Christ. Listening to lectures about the old man and the new will never help us to put off the old man and to put on the new; we learn how to do that under the instruction of Christ.
Ques Why does He speak of Himself as the Teacher after washing their feet in John 13?
CAC I think the reason is that whatever the Lord teaches is perfectly exemplified in Himself; The service of feet washing had been exemplified in Himself. So here it is as the truth is in Jesus; how sweet a teaching that is! The Lord would teach us to see things as perfectly delineated in Himself. The truth of putting off the old man and putting on the new is perhaps the most important practical truth that the New Testament contains, and this is not learned by reading books, or even the Scriptures, but by coming under the personal instruction of Christ. I do not think any truth has power until we learn it in Jesus.
What about the old man, the character of the man who is so corrupt and abhorrent to God, and so distressing to us if we have any spiritual sensibilities at all? We learn the character of the old man in Jesus on the cross. He came under the condemnation of it all at the cross. I believe that in learning under divine instruction the lessons of the cross we get a deeper judgment of all connected with the old man than we could get in a thousand years of humiliating personal experiences.
Ques. What about Saul?
CAC It must have been a revelation to him to find that this excellent and blameless man was the vilest wretch that ever trod the earth. Saul indeed learned the character of the old man that corrupts itself according to deceitful lusts. He has been rejected of God and must be discarded by us. How the truth as it is in Jesus appeals to us! If we sit down [p. 110] and contemplate Jesus and see where He has been in His love and power we see the condemnation of the old man who corrupts himself. He must be rejected of God and discarded; he has been, as far as we are concerned, in the cross of Jesus. We see the truth as it is in Jesus in its absoluteness; it is not a dissolving view in Him. Practically it may be in us, the old going and the new coming — a sort of mixed condition — but when you think of the truth as it is in Jesus you see it in its absoluteness. The instruction of Christ would be to give us an impression of the truth as it is in Jesus. In Jesus we see every feature of the new man, truthful righteousness and holiness; we see it nowhere but in Jesus. If I want to see what is according to God I shall see it there in Jesus. It is a precious reality to hear Him and be instructed in Him, “If ye have heard him and been instructed in him according as the truth is in Jesus”. He teaches it to us; there may be a thousand complications in my own experience but no complications in Jesus.
Ques Is it similar to Matthew 11, “Learn from me”?
CAC In Matthew 11 the Lord says, “Come to me”; that is ‘Come and stand where I am in absolute subjection to the Father’s sovereignty’. If you stand where He is and learn from Him who is meek and lowly in heart, you will get disentangled from all unrestful conditions, and you will find the Lord’s proposal holds as good today as when He first uttered the words. We want this personal instruction of Christ. We come to the meetings and hear the brethren talk and subscribe to what they say, but in many of us the practical result is not seen. The practical result is that we see there is nothing else for it but to discard the old man and put him off. We find that the coat we once wore and were so proud of is a disgrace, a mass of filthy rags. We want a new garment altogether, the new man, all the truth of the new man as seen in Jesus. We can look around and see all the universe, we can see the heavens declaring the glory of God [p. 111] and the earth the power of God. But there is a creation far greater than the physical creation, and that is the new man; he is the creation of God, he corresponds morally with God. You are to put that on. How will you do it? Who will do it? Only the man or woman who has heard Christ and been instructed in Christ and has learned the truth as it is in Jesus. Doctrine will not help us, it is divine teaching that will help us. It means that our ears are alert to the voice of divine Persons. When Christ speaks, we should say like Samuel of old, “Speak, for thy servant heareth”. May we cherish such an experience as that. I have read the Bible a good deal and many books in my 50 or 60 years, but I long exceedingly to know the personal instruction of Christ and to hear His voice, which is far better than the voice of any other teacher, however great and honoured he may be. John gives us the true measure of christianity, which thing is true in Him and in you. It is only under the personal influence of Christ that any of us will be prepared to discard the old suit of clothes and put on that new and finer attire that causes us to appear according to God, and to be renewed not only outwardly but inwardly — being renewed in the spirit of your mind. In Romans we get the mind renewed; in Ephesians we get the spirit of our minds renewed, and we need that. Many things are perfectly right in themselves but they would not do for us if the spirit of our minds were renewed. The disciples said to the Lord, “Shall we call down fire from heaven?” Their thought was quite right that the village that had rejected Christ should be judged. Their mind was right but the spirit of their mind was wrong, not in accord with Christ. We are often standing for what we think is right when the spirit of our minds is far from being in accord with Christ. I may be very strong to judge what I believe to be wrong, but is the spirit of my mind in accord with Christ about it?
Ques Why does it say the new man is created when it refers to what is [p. 112] in Christ Jesus?
CAC It refers to the saints as in Christ Jesus. You cannot say that Christ personally is the new man, though every feature of the new man is there. Creation is so put to show the substantive, concrete character of it; it is not a mystical idea somewhere up in the air. We are so mystical that these great statements mean very little to us. It says it is a creation to show us it is a concrete, substantive, spiritual idea. It requires all the children of fallen Adam to set forth the features of the old man; they do not come out in one or in one million; it takes all to express him. It takes all the saints in Christ as under divine instruction to express what the new man is.
Now a word about the third Scripture. It is very important that the aged, beloved disciple John casts us upon the unction as security in presence of all the efforts of the many anti-christs. He does not cast us upon the Scriptures but upon the unction which is of vital importance. The unction is closely akin to the thought of anointing; it signifies that Christ not only teaches us personally as we have been saying, but He gives us a divine unction to abide in us and carry on this work of divine teaching. Even babes are addressed as having the unction, and if we are babes we are to recognise the character of the unction we have received which in itself is true and no lie. It ever teaches us to abide in Christ the Son.
Ques Is there a thought that those who have the unction are thereby empowered to stand here for God?
CAC Yes, just as the king and priest were anointed of old and thus rendered competent to fill the position in which they were set. The proper designation of the king was ‘Jehovah’s anointed’ which indicated his competence to stand in the position in which God had set him. As having the unction we are rendered independent of human teaching; we do not need any man’s teaching. Think of the wonderful character of the Teacher! Remember it is a divine [p. 113] Person, the Holy Spirit of God, and this unction abides in us; we ought to be conscious of it and conscious of the teaching of the unction. There is something in every saint that is absolutely true and no he because the Spirit is there and teaches us to abide in Christ.
I should be inclined to think that in moral order the teaching comes on the line we have pursued. First the Father’s teaching to come to Christ the Son, then we come under the teaching of Christ, and finally we get the gain of the unction that Christ confers. We have to have our ears attentive to the voice of divine Persons. I think the Spirit has a teaching voice; the unction teaches us. We should be more exercised about these things. We are exercised about getting ministry, which is very good, but I should like to promote the greater exercise about hearing the voice of divine Persons. I believe it would have a very effective operation in us all and we should be more marked by spirituality. I think we should cultivate the habit of retirement so that we might hear the voice of the Father, the voice of the Christ and the voice of the Unction. These things though not easy to explain are very great spiritual realities.
Ques Is Nathaniel under the fig tree something like this?
CAC I thought so. The many instances of persons who came across the Lord’s path with evidences of divine teaching illustrate this. I have been bold enough to say sometimes that the most interesting part of the gospels is the unwritten part. Do you not look forward to getting beside the widow of Luke 21 who put her two mites in the treasury? There is the unwritten part that remains to be learnt in other scenes. We find persons coming to the Lord with evident appreciation of Him and with something of a divine estimate of His worth. We get no explanation of how they arrived at it; how they did is the most interesting part — they arrived at it under divine teaching. Every one who came to the Lord [p. 114] with any appreciation of Him came as a subject of divine teaching. Divine teaching is available; it is not like something that another has but which you cannot have. Isaiah says, “All thy children shall be taught of Jehovah”. That is in reference to divine teaching in connection with the new covenant; it is from the little ones to the greatest. There is something remarkably inclusive about it; whatever impression of Christ a brother or sister has, I can have, if I am interested and want it. I go further, I do not believe there is any appreciation of Christ that any of the apostles, even Paul or John, had that is not open to you or me. I do not say we shall have the public place in the testimony that they had, but as to the appreciation of Christ could that be excluded from the little ones? Never! We can all have it.