NOTES OF A READING
[p. 17] NOTES OF A READING
CAC The writings of John have a very peculiar place and value particularly as having been written, as we might say, late in the day. I suppose every form of evil that has come into the assemblies was present and had manifested itself before John wrote any of his writings. I have no doubt that if John’s writings got their place in our affections they would make us overcomers. We should come out in the full bloom of life, notwithstanding all that has happened and that exists. There is a certain completeness about things in John that we do not get anywhere else. For instance, we do not get in John any parable of the sower with varying results; we do not get any net let down and breaking, or any such parables as that of the talents in Matthew and the pounds in Luke where there are varying results. John has in view a complete result; he has in view the holy city coming down from God out of heaven, all its features divine and spiritual and coming up to full measurement. There is a complete result for the glory of God; that is the line of John.
We are not on the line of responsibility in John’s gospel; we are on the line of divine sovereignty and of what God does. It is a question of the work of God, and John would help us to look at it in its essential character, in its perfection. The more we are occupied with what is of God and perfect, the stronger we shall be to overcome what is of the flesh and of the world.
The responsible side is in the background in John’s gospel, and things are brought before us in which there is no defect. A Person is introduced in whom it is impossible [p. 18] there should be any defect, and what that Person says, and what He does, and what He gives are all like Himself; all is divinely complete and perfect. Therefore it is of the greatest importance for us to start with a right thought of the greatness of the Person, and this is presented to us in the opening verses of the gospel.
The great thing before the mind of the Spirit in this book is that we should understand the mediatorial glory of the Son of God, and therefore the gospel opens with a statement that introduces Him in His mediatorial glory — that is, “the Word”. “The Word” is a mediatorial title. It is a most precious title of the Lord because it sets Him forth as the One who has expressed God to us. And those for whom this gospel is written are persons who have apprehended Him in that character.
Ques Could we say He expressed God “in the beginning”?
CAC No, but the Person whom we know as having expressed God to us was “in the beginning”. This gives us the ineffable divine greatness of the One who has expressed God to us. If He had not been so great as He is He could not have expressed God to us. If He had not been Himself God He would not have been equal to expressing God to us. His mediatorial glory as “the Word” is dependent on His personal glory: it is dependent on the truth of His Person. As to His Person He was from eternity and He was God. He had no mediatorial place in eternity. I suppose we can all see that in the past eternity before there was any creation, He was not expressing God to creatures capable of hearing what He had to say. His mediatorial glory as “the Word” is connected with the way that God has made Himself known to men. God has spoken in Son — that is mediatorial. God could not put Himself into communication with men apart from a Mediator. God is infinitely great, and man as a creature is small; it is [p. 19] impossible that God could put Himself in communication with men, His creatures, without a Mediator. Scripture is full of that wonderful idea.
Ques What is “the beginning”?
CAC It is an expression which carries us as far back as our finite minds are able to travel. There are different beginnings in Scripture: John speaks in his epistle of “Him that is from the beginning” — that clearly refers to the beginning of Christianity in the incarnation of the Son of God and its blessed results. Then John speaks of the devil sinning from the beginning; that is the beginning of sin. Then in Genesis 1 we read, “In the beginning God created” — that is the beginning of creation. But in John 1 it says, “In the beginning was the Word” — that carries us right back before these other beginnings; it carries us back to God’s eternity; our minds are not able to compass that, but it is made known to us that from the most remote point which we can conceive in relation to the eternal God, the Word was. When we think of Deity in eternity we cannot explain it. Our attitude of mind and heart relative to it is reverence and adoration. It is only what has come into the mediatorial sphere that is accessible to us; it would help us greatly to see that. There are certain things which are inaccessible to us, and we must accept that, “No man has seen God at any time”; as such He is inaccessible. He dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, but everything that God has brought into the mediatorial sphere is accessible, that we may apprehend it and live in it. In the sphere of absolute Deity everything is inaccessible to men as creatures.
Ques Is “that they may behold my glory” (John 17:24) in the mediatorial sphere?
CAC It is a given glory which will come within the range of the apprehensions of the glorified saints. It is not within the range of our apprehensions now but it will be in [p. 20] the glorified state when we shall be with Him and like Him. We shall then behold the glory that the Father has given Him, for He loved Him before the foundation of the world. Who can tell what it is? I do not think anyone can, but we are going to see it in our glorified state. It is a given glory and it is given to the Son of God as One loved before the foundation of the world but now known as having come into the mediatorial position.
Rem Jacob said he saw God face to face (Genesis 32:30).
CAC Yes; he got a sense, as others did, that he had seen God. There were certain occasions in Old Testament times when God manifested Himself in angelic form or in the form of a man. It was “a man” that wrestled with Jacob; one could not think of God as such, wrestling with a man; the man would be consumed in a moment. A man wrestled with Jacob, but Jacob realised that God was there, though He was hidden, if we may so say, behind the form of “a man”. It says in Exodus, “They saw the God of Israel”, Exodus 24:10. God was pleased to manifest Himself in certain forms in Old Testament times, generally in angelic form. The law and all that was known of God in connection with the law and the appearance of the glory of God then was, we are told, “by the ministry of angels”, Acts 7:53. It was angelic glory. All the appearances of God in the Old Testament were a foreshadowing of the incarnation; we must not think of them as being any full outshining of the invisible God. The words of this chapter make it clear that “No one has seen God at any time” (verse 18). Indeed, I do not know that even in the New Testament God is ever said to be “revealed”. The Father is revealed by the Son (Matthew 11:27) but God is said to be “declared”, and this is in keeping with Hebrews 1 where we are told that God has spoken in the Son. The Mediator has come out and declared the God that no man has seen nor can [p. 21] see Why is there a change in verse 18, “No one has seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”?
CAC That is to bring out the wonderful place the Mediator has in the affections of the Father, so He is competent to declare God. None of us knows God at all, morally or in His nature, save as His beloved Son has declared Him. There is no other knowledge of God but as He is declared mediatorially.
Ques Is there anything more to make known? The Lord said in John 17, “I have made known to them thy name, and will make it known”.
CAC Those last words refer to what the Lord would make known in resurrection. He had made the Father’s name known in His life before the cross but He had never then said, “My Father and your Father ... . my God and your God”. There is no more to be made known. What we have to do is to seek to enter into what has come out.
Ques What is the force of declaring?
CAC All that God is morally and in His nature is made known. Creation never made that known; it did make certain invisible things known, which are apprehended by the mind through the things that are made (Romans 1). These things are God’s eternal power and divinity; these are invisible things, but they are apprehended by the mind of man through the things that are made. Man cannot get farther than that through creation. I see God’s eternal power and divinity in the star-spangled sky and all the beauty and order of nature, but that gives me no conception of what God is morally or of what He is in His nature. I cannot learn that from the things that are made, I have to learn it through the Mediator.
Ques What is the thought of “in him was life”?
CAC In verse 4 we come to man’s sphere. In the first three verses we are in the sphere of Deity, in which [p. 22] man does not appear; verse 4 brings men into view. “In him was life, and the life was the light of men”. So verse 4 is the mediatorial aspect of things; something becomes available as light for man.
Ques Why do you say there is no revelation of God?
CAC The Father has been revealed by the Son, for He could say, “He that has seen me has seen the Father;”, John 14:9. God is known to us as the Father, not simply as the Creator or Elohim, or as the most High, or as Jehovah, but as the Father. But God is “declared”; He is told out; it is not a question of what we can see but of what we hear. Revelation properly is what we may see; the Father was seen in the Son. But the way we know God is through declaration; He has been declared. Everything depends on what can be heard; it is heard from the Son. This is peculiar to Christianity: it is obvious that we cannot carry the name ‘Father’ back into the Old Testament; no one knew Him as Father in the Old Testament; He was known by other titles. Of course there could not be any change in God, but it is a question of how God is pleased to be known by men. He was pleased to be known by the patriarchs as the Almighty and Most High, and to Israel as Jehovah; we cannot carry the name ‘Father’ back into the Old Testament; it does not belong to that period. No people of God could go beyond what was made known to them. The Psalms do not go beyond the name of Jehovah; there is no address to God as the Father in the Psalms and there is no trace in all the 150 Psalms of conscious sonship. If people now live in the Psalms they live below their privileges, though of course we can profit by all that they contain.
Rem Paul said, “Whom therefore ye reverence, not knowing him, him I announce to you”, Acts 17:23.
CAC Yes, Paul was a chosen vessel taken up so that God, who was unknown by the heathen, might be [p. 23] announced to them by one who knew Him through the Mediator. Paul knew Him through the Mediator so he was qualified to announce Him to those to whom He was the unknown God.
The present period is distinctly contrasted in this chapter with what went before. “For the law was given by Moses: grace and truth subsists through Jesus Christ”. The declaration of God has made a complete change in the whole position of things: they are not at all what they were before the incarnation. Scripture speaks of the incarnation as an entirely new beginning; it must be so if a divine Person has become Man. Such a stupendous intervention of God could not do otherwise than change everything. It changes everything for God and for man, and I do not think we have any right conception of the greatness of the incarnation; it is stupendous!
It would help us greatly to see more fully the import of this wonderful designation of our Lord, “the Word”. That is how He is known to those who believe on Him; He is known as “the Word”. There is no statement in Scripture that He was “the Word” in eternity, but the One whom we know now as “the Word”, the One who has become “the Word” to us, was “in the beginning”. That Person was from eternity, and in eternity He “was God”.
Ques What does that verse mean, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, saith the Lord God, he who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty”, Revelation 1: 8?
CAC God is “the Alpha and the Omega ... the Lord God, he who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty”. These are Old Testament titles. But the Alpha and the Omega is that God presents Himself as the great starting point of everything and the great end of everything. He is the A and Z, the first letter of the alphabet and the last. Everything begins with God and everything will end with Him. It is what belongs to God [p. 24] as such; but then the Lord Jesus is God, so He has part in it all.
Ques Does this explain the title, “Father of eternity”, Isaiah 9:6?
CAC Yes, I think so. That is the name of the Child born and the Son given, “His name is called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Father of Eternity, Prince of Peace”. All that is proper to God belongs to Christ because He was God and He is God. He is co-equal personally with the other Persons in Deity. All the titles by which God is known in the Old Testament belong to Christ — Almighty, Elohim, Jehovah. All these titles belong to Christ because He is God; that is the greatness of His Person.
Ques Why is verse 2 brought in in addition to verse 1?
CAC It is brought in to make clear the distinct personality of “the Word” from eternity. It is not that He came into existence at some point far back — there have been some who held that — but “He was in the beginning with God” — a distinct personality from eternity, co-equal and co-eternal with God. The common ideas current in christendom do not take account of that. The commonly held thought in christendom is that there was a point in eternity when He was begotten, when He derived His being from the Father. But the term “begotten” is only applied in Scripture to the Lord as begotten in time. Psalm 2, verse 7, says, “I will declare the decree: Jehovah hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; I this day have begotten thee”. That scripture is quoted several times in the New Testament. It is as born in time that the Lord was “begotten”, not before all worlds. From eternity He was God, but He became incarnate through the power of the Highest overshadowing the virgin so that she conceived in the womb and bore a Son. He was “begotten” on a particular day as born in time.
It is altogether wrong to apply the term “begotten”
[p. 25] to our Lord in eternity. In eternity He was God, and there could be no thought of origin or generation in connection with an eternal divine Person. But the thought of generation did have place in connection with Him as born in time; He was conceived in the womb of the virgin by the Holy Spirit, and as “that holy thing” born He was called the Son of God. He came into manhood in that way. The word “begotten” applies to Him as born into the world, and not as in eternal Deity.
Ques Is the “word of life” in 1 John 1:1 different from “the Word” in this gospel?
CAC “The word of life” is that He has become the expression of life to us. In the gospel there is the expression of God to us, and that becomes life in our souls. But then our Lord is not only the expression of God to us but He is the expression of life to us. If we want to know what life is, what eternal life is, we may find the expression of it in Him.