THE COMFORTER
[p. 187] THE COMFORTER
It is a very blessed thing to know that there is a divine Person here to maintain us for Christ. In the first place to maintain us in affection for Christ; then to maintain us in testimony for Him in the scene of His rejection; and thirdly, to bring our hearts consciously into the knowledge and ineffable joy of the Father’s counsels.
I am sure that if the question were put to the youngest believer here, do you desire to be in this world for Christ? a chord would be struck in his heart. I think the youngest believer would say, yes, by the grace of God I do desire to be here for Christ. Well, it is a great thing to have such a desire, because it shows that we love Him. We may feel that we are poor, weak things, and if we think of ourselves we are so indeed. But what a comfort to know that there is a divine Person here competent to maintain us for Christ in this world.
“If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will beg the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, that he may be with you for ever”. This is the first mention, I believe, in the gospel, of the disciples’ love for the Son of God. And He prays the Father for the gift of the Comforter in distinct connection with the fact that there is a company here of those who love Him. Now, I say to the youngest believer here, the very fact that you desire to be here for Christ shows that you belong to the company of those who love Him. You may be the smallest one in the company, but you belong to the company. If you know Him as the One who has brought every blessing to you, and secured it for you by His death, you cannot help loving Him. I believe the [p. 188] first awakening of love to the Son of God is when He establishes a personal link between Himself and our hearts. I trust that most here tonight know something of it. If you want it in this gospel, I would suggest the words, “He calls his own sheep by name” (John 10: 3). He establishes a personal link between Himself and hearts in this world. That is the great thing. It is not a question of how much doctrine we know, but how much are our hearts exult with great joy in the blessed fact that a divine Person, the Son of God, has made us conscious of His love! Think of Him coming into this world to bring to us all the favour, and blessing, and joy that divine love could offer, and securing it for us by an act that puts the seal of His love for ever on our hearts! He went into death that His love might be known by our hearts! “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep”. It is in the apprehension of this that we become conscious of His love. Not that we can compass the blessedness of it, but we are brought into it like tiny thimbles let down into an immeasurable ocean, and it becomes our distinction and glory — the cherished satisfaction of our hearts — that we are loved by Him. The effect of this is that we love Him; we cannot help it. When the Lord Jesus was here I have no doubt His disciples loved Him. They might not be very intelligent, as we should say. But I believe what marked them, and made them precious to the Father and to Him, was that they were conscious of His love, and they were bound to Him in affection. You may see it in Peter, when the Lord said, “Will ye also go away?” Peter answered, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of life eternal”. He was indispensable to them; He comprised everything for their hearts; outside Him there was positively nothing. Beloved brethren, in what measure is it so with ourselves? Has He so put the seal of His love on our hearts — so established His love there — that He has become everything to us, and all outside Him is a blank? We may [p. 189] see the same thing in Thomas. We speak sometimes of his unbelief, but let us not forget his devotedness. He said, “Let us also go, that we may die with him”. Do you not think he was conscious of being loved? I am sure the disciples were conscious of being loved by the Person who was in their midst. He had brought divine love to them.
In John 14 the Lord regards His disciples as a company in whom there is response to His love, and He says, “If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will beg the Father, and he will give you another Comforter”. The gift of the Comforter is in distinct connection with the fact that we love Him, and it is the blessed mission of the Comforter to maintain our hearts in affection for the absent One.
At this point I should like to say that there are three things from the influence of which we need to be delivered, in order to be here for Christ. They are brought before us in chapters 12, 13, 14. That is the world, the flesh, and the whole sphere of sight. If we are not delivered from the influence of these things they will greatly hamper us, and hinder the response of our hearts to divine love. In John 12 the world is judged, in John 13 the flesh is exposed, and in John 14 there is nothing left in the whole sphere of sight to command our hearts, because the Person who has made Himself everything to us has gone out of it. It is a very great thing for us to be in the good of this threefold deliverance — to be in heart and spirit free from the influence of the world, and the flesh, and the whole sphere of sight. It is only as thus delivered that we can be in the power and current of the Spirit here for Christ.
The world is a great system with all kinds of ramifications, and behind it is all the power of Satan, who is its god and prince. It is the whole system of things which obtains here, in which there is nothing that is of the Father or that responds to Him. It is an immense thing to know that system as a judged thing. The Lord says in John 12, “Now is the [p. 190] judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out”. I understand that to mean that every element of the world has been brought to light and shown up in its true colours. All the perfection of the Son of the Father has been here, and there was nothing in the world that answered to it. On the contrary, its hatred of the Son and of the Father came out in full display. The world may seem very attractive with its vast political machinery, its great educational schemes, and its philanthropic institutions; but, beloved friends, it is exposed for those who love the Son of God in the very fact that it has rejected Him. For those who love Him the world is thoroughly exposed; we have no respect for its pretensions; our hearts have broken with it and are free from its influence, because the Person who has made Himself everything to us has not found a bit of response in it.
Then the flesh is thoroughly exposed in John 13. It comes out in Judas in the most awful form, as being just material for Satan. Satan understands the flesh perfectly; he is master of all its intricacies and he can do anything he likes with it. And in Judas we see what the flesh is capable of when it is allowed to take its own course. For the sake of a paltry gain he would betray the Lord. Then in Peter we see the flesh in what might be called its best form. In Judas we see it in its worst form, but in Peter it is the flesh taking credit to itself for its constancy and its power to suffer for Christ. And what becomes of it? It completely breaks down. Beloved friends, we have to learn that the flesh is a thing that will break down. We cannot trust it for a minute. It is sure to break down. The flesh may set up to be energetic in service, to be profound in humility, to be intelligent in the things of God, to be devoted in affection to Christ, or to be eminent in spirituality. But, sooner or later, it will break thoroughly down. I trust that none of us would care to go on with something that is sure to break down in the end.
Then in John 14 the Lord says, “Let not your heart be [p. 191] troubled: ye believe on god, believe also on me”. That is, He was going out of the sphere of sight, but as an unseen Person He would have His own to be linked with Him in faith and love. When He was with His disciples He so commanded their hearts that they were delivered from the power and influence of other things, and now as the unseen and absent One He would carry their hearts with Him entirely outside the range of seen things. If we are influenced and controlled by things which are seen, we come under the power of things in which Christ has no place. He has gone out of the sphere of sight, and the question is, How far has He carried our hearts out of it with Him? It is a great thing for us to be in some measure delivered from these things, for it is only as we are thus delivered that we really enter into the thoughts of divine love.
The Son of God has brought divine love here. As we read in John 13:1, “Having loved his own who were in the world, loved them to the end”. Everything that is not the outcome of divine love will break down sooner or later, and we do well to take this to heart. But there is something that cannot break down — that cannot fail — and that is divine love. I am sure the effect of knowing even a little of this love is greatly to draw us to the blessed Person who has brought it to us. A taste of it makes us long for more, and we are thus drawn to Himself.
I have no doubt that every young believer here knows what it is to pray. You pray about your pathway, about difficulties and changes in your circumstances, about your trials, and your service. But I should like to ask, Do you know what it is to get near to the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, that He may lead your heart into the blessedness of His own love? He may give us a taste of that love, as it were, at a distance, but it is in order to draw us to Himself, that we may learn it fully in His own company. Satan will do his best to divert us by all possible means from entering into this, but if [p. 192] our hearts have really come under the power of divine love we shall not be diverted. John had come under the power of that blessed love, and responded to it, leaning on Jesus’ bosom. It seems to me that John 13 is the school of love The Master teaches divine love in perfection; the disciple learns with his head pillowed on that Master’s bosom; and the result of the learning is that the disciples can be told to “Love one another; as I have loved you”.
What a wonderful thing it is to get into His company to learn there how He loves; because His love does not ignore what the flesh is, nor does it forget our liability to be influenced and defiled by what is around us here. Yet He loves, and loves to the end. It is a blessed thing to know that His love has secured to itself the title to regard us apart from everything that is unworthy of that love. He has gone into death to remove from us divinely and for ever all traces of unsuitability to Himself. His death has set Him free, if we might say so, to love us, and as we appropriate His death it sets us free to be loved. On His side love is free, and as we appropriate His death we appropriate that which sets us free in spirit from all the sin and imperfection of the flesh, and we are free to be loved. The Lord Jesus looks upon us according to the thoughts of His love, and according to the perfect sanctification of His death, and thus apart from every trace of imperfection. When he “loved the assembly and delivered himself up for it”, do you think He saw it in guilt and ruin? No, He saw it in its beauty, according to the thoughts of His own love. For us to enter into this there must be the appropriation of His death, and this sets us free to be loved. There can be nothing more blessed than to be free to enter into the love of divine Persons. It is eternal life, and the effect of it comes out in love one to another. Thus the saints are bound together in affection. It will be so perfectly and for ever in the Father’s house. All hearts there will be full of divine love, and bound together in that love by the all-pervading [p. 193] Spirit. What a wonderful thing that we may taste a little of it even here.
In John 14 the Lord says, as it were, While I have been with you I made you conscious of My love, and made known to you the thoughts of My love. Now I am going away, but another divine Person will come to you to maintain in your hearts the link which I have formed. He will maintain in your remembrance the communications of love by which I attach you to Myself. He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. No doubt this applies in a special way to the apostles, but in principle it is true for the whole christian company. A young believer might say, If I could have been with the Lord I am sure He would have made me conscious of His love, and I should have known that love much better than I do now. Well, beloved friends, the Comforter has come to maintain in our affections those blessed communications by which the Son of God established the knowledge of His love in the hearts of His little company of disciples when He was here with them. Those communications included His “commandments” and His “word”. We read in verse 21, “He that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me”. And in verse 23, “If any one love me, he will keep my word”. As I understand it, His “commandments” are the expression of the pleasure of His love concerning His own, and His “word” is the expression of all that He is in Himself. He says, “This is my commandment, that we love one another”. That is the pleasure of His love concerning us, and if we love Him we keep His commandments. They are attractive to our hearts; they win their way into our souls and are treasured, there; and they draw us in a very blessed way to Himself. Then his “word” expressed what He was in Himself; it established the knowledge of Himself in the hearts of the disciples; they knew Him in His own blessedness; they contemplated His glory. He says, “These things I have said [p. 194] to you; but the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and will bring to your remembrance all the things which I have said to you”. That is, the Comforter comes to maintain our hearts in those blessed affections which were formed by the communications of His love. Beloved friends, how far have we been in the good of the presence of the Comforter? He is here to maintain us thus in affection for Christ, and if we are set for Christ there is no doubt He will thus maintain us. May the thought of it be real encouragement and strength for our hearts!
Now a few words as to the Spirit being here to maintain us in testimony for Christ. We are left here for the testimony of Christ. When He came here, sent by the Father, He brought into this world everything that was perfectly suited to the Father. And He was hated, persecuted, and cast out, because the world did not know the One who sent Him. “Now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father”. All the power of the world and Satan — all the power of evil — was put forth to get rid of Him, but, beloved friends, they did not get rid of the testimony which He brought here. And no power of evil can dislodge the testimony of God from this world. It was brought here by one divine Person, and set forth in Him in absolute perfection; it is maintained now in the saints by another divine Person — by the Comforter. People may get occupied with the ruin and failure of things until they get completely discouraged in heart. There is immense power in getting to God’s side of things, and in seeing that there are things which cannot break down, because they subsist in the power of divine love and by the Spirit of God. It is certain that everything else will break down; everything that has not its outcome from divine love, and that is not in the power of the Spirit, will break down. But the Comforter will maintain the testimony of Christ here, and it is surely the chief concern of our hearts to be in the line of that testimony. The Comforter did not [p. 195] come to add to the testimony. When the Son of God was here the testimony was complete; nothing could be added to what He brought; He set forth all the blessed light and grace of the Father here, and everything that was perfectly suited to God and the Father in a man shone out in Him. And now another divine Person comes from the Father to maintain that same testimony in the assembly, the body of Christ.
The Comforter is here to maintain us in the power and grace of the wonderful testimony that came out in blessed perfection in the One sent from the Father. It came out in all its heavenly grace and beauty in Him. There may be correctness in life and doctrine, with very little display of the grace of Christ. Many believers have a line they would not care to step over; they would not like to do anything they had a conscience about; they are outwardly correct in life, and they are orthodox in doctrine. But there may be all this without much true testimony — without much expression of the grace of Christ; there may be very little in it to give real satisfaction to the Father. In the blessed Son of God everything was divinely right — it could not be otherwise — but everything was in such exquisite grace that it was infinitely acceptable to the Father, and the Father’s grace was perfectly expressed in it. This is true testimony. How small the consideration of it makes us feel.
I believe if we settle down with mere outward correctness the world will approve us. The world can get on very well with a Pharisee, for he is of the world; but I am sure the world will never appreciate the grace of the Father — it will never appreciate the testimony. If we are here really in the grace of Christ, I am sure people will not understand us. They will say that we are fools and not fit for this world. The world can never understand the wonderful grace which was shown out here by the One who came from the Father, and it is the expression of that grace which constitutes true testimony now, and the Comforter is here to maintain us in it.
[p. 196] The subjects of John 15 are fruit and testimony. Fruit is for the Father, and only that which is fruit for the Father is testimony in the world.
I come now to chapter 16, where the Comforter is promised as the One given to lead us into the knowledge and joy of the Father’s counsels. “But when he is come, the Spirit of truth, he shall guide you into all the truth: for he shall not speak from himself; but whatsoever he shall hear he shall speak; and he will announce to you what is coming. He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine and shall announce it to you. All things that the Father has are mine; on account of this I have said that he receives of mine and shall announce it to you”. The Son has an equal interest with the Father in the carrying out of the Father’s counsels. It is the distinctive glory of the Father to originate those counsels, and it is the distinctive glory of the Son to give effect to them. And we, marvellous to say, are brought into a circle of things which could only be originated and carried out by divine Persons — a circle of things where everything is the outcome of divine love. How could we enter into such things without the Comforter! It would be impossible. “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now”. But, thank God, what He could not say to the disciples He could say to the Father in the marvellous language of John 17. He could lift up His eyes to heaven and say to the Father in their presence what He could not say to them. And we are privileged to stand by and hear one divine Person speaking to another, and occupied about us who are brought in infinite love within the circle of the Father’s counsels. And not only so, but the Comforter has come to lead us into the knowledge of those counsels, and into the ineffable satisfaction and joy of the divine love which has originated them, and which will give effect to them in a universe of bliss for ever.
Beloved brethren, our great distinction is that we are [p. 197] loved by divine Persons. One feels lost in the greatness of it. I feel that I have only begun to touch the verge of christianity, and nothing would please me better than for every one in this room to go away impressed by the fact that there is very much in it that our hearts have not yet been conducted into. It is an immense comfort that the Holy Spirit has come, and that it is His blessed mission to guide our hearts into the knowledge of the Father’s counsels. I cannot attempt to unfold those counsels, or to do more than suggest one or two thoughts in connection with John 17.
The ground on which all is effected is, “I have glorified thee on the earth. I have completed the work which thou gavest me to do”. Then in verse 1 the Son asks to be glorified, that He may glorify the Father. And He brings about the Father’s glory by giving eternal life to as many as the Father has given Him. It is the Father’s glory to have a company of many sons capable of appreciating Himself. It is His glory to have a company of worshippers before Him. Worship is the appreciation of divine Persons, and the appreciation of divine Persons in creatures must be adoration. He would have us as sons before Him — as those who have sprung out of the death of Christ, as those who are the “much fruit” of that precious “grain of wheat” in new creation suitability to the Father’s presence. It is the very glory of the Father to have such a company. And the Son has glorified Him, and is glorifying Him, by securing that company — by giving them eternal life. Then lower down in the chapter we find that the saints are also the glory of the Son. He says, “I am glorified in them”. It is a marvellous thing that we should have been taken up, and enriched and blessed by divine love, so that the glory of the Father and the Son should be displayed in us. The assembly is the vessel of divine glory. “To him be glory in the assembly”. We belong to the vessel in which divine glory will be displayed for ever. And the Comforter is come to lead our hearts into these [p. 198] things, and to maintain the knowledge and the joy and the ecstasy of them in our hearts. If we enter into these things we must be beside ourselves. In the circle of divine love we are outside the range of the natural man altogether; we are in a region where nothing can sustain us but the Comforter, and He is here for that purpose.
Then the consummation of everything is that we are to be with the Son where He is, to behold His glory which the Father has given Him — a glory connected with the love which the Father had for Him before the foundation of the world. We are to be introduced to a scene where we shall know what one divine Person can be to another, and how one divine Person appreciates another. We shall find the eternal joy and rapture of our hearts in knowing what the Son is to the Father, and in knowing the Father according to the blessed revelation of His name made known by the Son. “I have made known to them thy name, and will make it known: that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them”. And the Comforter is given to show us things to come — to give us now ‘as heavenly light what soon shall be our part’.
I desire for my own heart, and for every saint of God in this company, that we should know the presence of the Comforter as a great reality. He is here to make these things real for our hearts. If we are really set for Christ, I am sure we may count upon the Comforter to maintain us in affection and in testimony for Him. And if we are responsive to divine love, He will guide us into the knowledge of those counsels in which the blessedness of that love reveals itself. May God bring the light and joy of these things a little more into our hearts!