RADIATION OF DIVINE AFFECTIONS IN JOHN'S GOSPEL (1)

RADIATION OF DIVINE AFFECTIONS IN JOHN’S GOSPEL (1)

John 1: 14 - 18; John 3: 14 - 16; John 5: 19 - 20

SMcC In suggesting these passages that were read one has in mind the thought of divine affections and the influence they are intended and calculated to have upon us. It is important that we should come under the influence of divine affection because the way that God has chosen to become known, to make Himself known, involves this very matter. He has come into relationships intelligible and well-known to men, relationships filled with warmth and tenderness of the affection that peculiarly marks them, and John’s ministry, bearing as it does on our time, the last days, would especially have in mind, over against the public breakdown and failure around us, that we should come under the influence of divine affection. Mr. Taylor once used the word “radiation” in connection with this gospel as to divine love, the radiation of divine affections. It needs to be understood better by us, because John the evangelist would bring before us divine love in the movements of Christ coming into manhood. Subsequent movements linked with His own mediatorial service and the mediatorial service of the Spirit involve that we should understand divine love, not just in an arbitrary way as made known to us in the scriptures, but that we should feel and be affected by the radiation of divine affections.

The first passage we have read speaks of the Person of Christ in a peculiar way; John would have us understand the glory of the Person of Christ, an essential point, in his teaching. We shall not understand divine affections properly unless we see the great import of the incarnation, the greatness of what is involved in a divine Person becoming Man, the Son, the Word. The Son alludes to His personal dignity and glory as representing God and bringing God so near to us; the Word refers to the inherent ability in Him as the “Logos” to make God known, to reveal God.

Into the mediatorial service there enter the unique wondrous positions taken up, and this radiation of divine affection that is calculated to bring others into the current of it and to keep us in it from all that is around in the way of apostate influences and currents, and to hold us in this circle of divine affections.

Rem Could you say something, then, as to this contemplation of Him, of His glory?

SMcC Well, that brings out how certain were affected by it. It was not just something that came across their horizon and passed on. It involved the most stupendous of all matters, a divine Person here in manhood in a known and intelligible relationship, contemplated in it in all the unsullied blessedness of the relationships that were between Him and the Father, God known in that wondrous name of grace that is presented in this gospel, the Father, not our Father but the Father.

RGN Would the parenthesis here show how deeply John himself was affected? He repeatedly breaks out in worship as he writes. His ministry bearing on our day would draw attention to the importance of this feature of worship with us, would it not?

SMcC I think that is, because John the Evangelist is dealing here with the movement of the Lord Jesus Christ into manhood. He stops for a moment to draw our attention to radiancy, referring to the glory, because glory involves what is radiant and divine affections here are seen radiating in the understood, well-known, intelligible relationship of an only begotten with a father. Then the Baptist is drawn in also to give us a touch as to the greatness of the Person that can be taken account of in this relationship. That is, John the Baptist cries. It is not a matter that we can speak of academically, although it is essential that our minds should be girt with the truth in speaking of it, but as in Philippians 2, so here the subject is brought in as to our Lord’s person in an environment of refinement, where the feelings of the saints are present.

CFI So he speaks of a glory as of an only begotten with a Father. Would that be intended to convey to us something of the intimacy in which Jesus moved as a Man with His Father day by day and the radiation of love between them?

SMcC That is how one understands it. It is what they observed in His practical everyday movements in His links with God here, His links with the Father. He was here in a physical sense - the Word became flesh and dwelt among us; He was before their eyes in that physical condition, and yet there was something which they penetrated beyond, in His links with God as the Father.

GRD Would the understanding of what you are speaking of as to the affections in John mean that christianity is not just a system of teaching, but rather the affections are caught up in the activity of divine Persons and we become attached to them?

SMcC Exactly, and attached to them in such a way that we are affected by these currents of love and affection and find our part appreciatively and intelligently in them.

GRD Would you say, as you have referred to John bearing particularly on our days, that there was a possibility at the beginning, and is now, of the teaching becoming unduly prominent, not that we would lessen its value, but does John write just for what you said, to draw attention to and attach us to the Persons Themselves?

SMcC John writes in a day when degeneracy in doctrine had set in, when the teaching became corrupted, and his ministry has in mind revival in the affections of the saints; and what he presents to us is this wealth of divine affection that is radiating in the relationships into which divine Persons have come.

EBMc Is this radiation, the effect of it, seen on the holy mount, the shining forth and the glory and the address “my beloved son?”

SMcC It would. The whole environment was radiant with divine glory. The voice, the excellent glory speaking, all suggesting an environment in which divine affections are radiating.

IC What is the thought of those words, “and dwelt among us”?

SMcC Well, it is to throw into relief the nearness into which Christ has come to men. In coming into the mediatorial position into which He has come He is not operating at a distance from us, but He is right amongst us, as John referred to it “and dwelt among us.”

WHW Is that thought, full of grace and truth, important to us, lest we try on our side to introduce some other thought?

SMcC I think so because grace and truth would bear upon conditions on our side that need to be met. If God comes into these circumstances in the way in - which He has, and man being what He is, of necessity there must be the adapting of divine love to meet these conditions on our side, and grace and truth enter into that, grace enlarging before our minds the side of supply, and truth enlarging before our minds the great adjusting features in what has come in in the way of light as to God.

DB Would the 17th chapter in particular show the wonderful intimacy between the Father and the Son?

SMcC Yes, it does, and the way He speaks to the Father and speaks about the saints. I think we need to make room for the Spirit, to allow the Spirit to come in and to affect us through His service and ministry, with the warm of divine affections that are flowing in these intelligible relationships in which we contemplate divine Persons.

EWC Would the thought of “with the Father” involve what it was to the Father to have One in that relationship here?

SMcC Well, I think verse 18 stresses that. You will notice in verse 14 the figure of speech. It is not an actual relationship that it refers to, but a figure of speech - that is, John the Evangelist is describing what came on to their view and appeared in testimony in the position into which Christ had come. He is naming it through this figure of speech. But when we come to verse 18 we get the formal statement as to the position of the Lord Jesus in the bosom of the Father. That would bear out what you are referring to, what Christ was in sonship here as Man to the Father, all the moral and spiritual excellence of a condition of manhood according to the mind of God, the like of which had never been seen before.

EWC It would be the activity of divine Persons to bring us into these holy relationships with their feelings and affections.

SMcC The uniqueness of Christ’s sonship is before us here. It is a question of how we are brought into it through the contemplation of it, especially making room for the Spirit so that He might affect us by this influence of divine love flowing in these intelligible relationships.

REH Do we come into the gain of this relationship through the knowledge of this grace and truth? Is that the way we come into it?

SMcC Yes. They would represent resources that bring about all that is needed on our side so that we might enjoy the wealth and warmth of divine love as exhibited in this relationship to the full.

CFI Is the word “contemplation” important in regard to what you are saying? You referred to teaching, but we have contemplation in the first chapter of the epistle “that which we contemplated.” These relationships are held without deterioration between divine Persons, but we come into them and see them in all their purity there.

SMcC Well, that is it. Therefore the need for the Spirit, the need for making room for the Holy Spirit in our day so that we can be helped in this contemplative attitude of mind, because it is not in us naturally. The Holy Spirit would help us in contemplating divine Persons in this wonderful arrangement of divine love, according to eternal purpose where God wishes to be known. God who is infinite in majesty, inscrutable, dwelling in light unapproachable, yet coming near in relationships intelligible to men, relationships in which there is radiating the wealth and the warmth of divine love, that men might be affected by it. How great these things are!

MRB How do we make room for the Spirit? What is to be our attitude to the truth, giving the truth its place? You referred several times to the thought about making room for the Spirit that He might come in. I would like you to help us to just how that is.

SMcC Well, we are helped to make room for the Spirit as refusing all that is linked with ourselves naturally. As having received the Holy Spirit we have positive power to help us in the judging of ourselves, and as judging ourselves we make room for the Spirit to come in in positive power and positive help in regard to these matters.

GAA And following on that, this idea of contemplating.

Do we need to make room for time for contemplation - make room for it?

SMcC Exactly. That is, we have got minds, divinely given faculties, for the mind is a great faculty among the saints. Paul says “we have the mind of Christ.” That is, among the saints in a gathering like this we have that wondrous divinely-given faculty to take in divine thoughts as to divine Persons and divine love.

REH If I am not diverting you, I think you said last night that self-judgment by itself can bring in darkness?

SMcC Well, exactly, therefore the importance of self-judgment in the light of Christ, because there are plenty of persons around us who are going on in self-judgment to a certain degree but are in darkness and distress of soul. They do penance and other forms of self-judging effort to hold self in its proper place, but it does not bring them anywhere because self is the centre and self is the object.

REH Would you allow the possibility of that being amongst us?

SMcC That is often what happens with young believers as they get into the throes of deliverance, that they get so occupied with themselves, their own inconsistencies, their own evil thoughts, that they enter as it were a tunnel of darkness and it is difficult to see beyond it, but as we go through it in the strength of our links with Christ we reach the Deliverer.

RGN Is that seen in John the Baptist here in his acceptance of his own eclipse as the greatness of Christ who was before him. He seems to lose sight of himself entirely as the greatness of Christ comes before him.

SMcC He does. He is a remarkable man, John the Baptist. He was a man who was with God and sent from God, and therefore his thoughts and his impressions were clear in regard to these great movements which call for spirituality as seen in type in John. Not that John belongs to our dispensation; he belongs to another dispensation, but the type would involve spirituality on our side; that he is able to take account of divine movements and to be affected by them.

JW “I have seen and borne witness that this is the Son of God.” The truth of that had come home to his soul, had it not?

SMcC Well, exactly. It had. He cried, meaning that his soul was entering into the matter.

GRD Would the several references to grace and truth in this section that we have read show that what was coming to light in the relationship into which the Lord had come and in which He is presented as with the Father has a bearing towards us, because grace and truth would hardly be needed, would it, as between the Father and the Son dwelling in His bosom (of the Father)?

SMcC The point is to remind us what is needed on our side, as it says “for of his fulness we all have received and grace upon grace. For the law was given by Moses: grace and truth subsists through Jesus Christ.” The mediatorial position involves that grace and truth comes into operation in the adjustment of us in relation to divine Persons in the position into which They have come.

GWB Does the footnote help us, that which is commencing to be with the incoming of Christ?

SMcC Well, exactly. It did not exist before. It began to be, the verb means that it began to be; it did not exist in the same way before.

CFI What do you understand by “grace upon grace?” Would it indicate the way that the sense of supply came into the soul of the disciples? Would John have in mind the way they had received supply after supply of grace?

SMcC Exactly. What he is writing here is what they had reached substantially in their souls. It is not that wave upon wave was passing before them, it is how they were affected by it. “We all have received, and grace upon grace.”

GH So is it both these things, the capacity to apprehend these relations and to be influenced, affected by them?

SMcC Exactly, that which is involved in these relationships into which divine Persons have come is not what is beyond us. While we are always faced with inscrutability, there is that which we have capacity to take in, and John’s gospel makes a good deal of capacity in the saints to take in divine thoughts in relation to divine Persons and their movements, as having come within our range.

GH So we see in John himself one who is superior to the doctrinal degeneracy that you have spoken of. The matter was in him, the substance.

SMcC That is right. So that christianity involves substance. It involves what is substantial. It is not merely doctrine in itself; doctrine in itself does not involve life and John’s gospel stresses life, and while doctrine regulates and controls our thoughts as to the truth, John’s gospel in its teaching involves more than that, and what we have in verses 14 to 18 is pointing to divine affections as calculated to affect us in a substantial way.

REH It has been said that we must first see any particular truth set out in perfection in Christ and then extend it to the saints. Is the thought here that this life is to be extended?

SMcC Well, it is. It is going to be extended in the saints and what is projected on our view in these verses is what was here in testimony in Jesus. Eternal life was there in testimony, sonship was there in testimony. If we are to know sonship and eternal life, we need to understand it as presented in testimony here in Jesus in manhood.

EBMc And what subsists too, in Him. It says grace and truth subsists. Law is by Moses but that does not subsist.

SMcC Well exactly. So that it says in verse 17, “grace and truth subsists through Jesus Christ.” Now that is a peculiar reference there. It is not often in the gospels that you get Jesus Christ alluded to.

EBMc What had you thought of it?

SMcC Well, I think the stress is on the mediatorial, administrative position, the way that divine affections have come in toward us. While the prime thought in verse 18 is what manhood in its spiritual excellence is in Jesus in sonship to the Father, it is preceded by what is towards us, subsisting through Jesus Christ. “Through Jesus Christ” is the line of what is from God towards us. “In Christ Jesus” is the line of what is toward God in connection with us.

RBM Would you enlarge on the thought “of His fulness” too?

SMcC Well, I think it is what is coming out in manhood. It would not be deity. That would be quite apparent to all of us because we could not receive that. It is a question of the excellence, of what was there in manhood, the fulness alluding to what is opened out in connection with it.

WHW Is this all standing over against the reference to the law of Moses?

SMcC Exactly, because we do not have the substance in the law of Moses. We have the shadow.

WHW Yes. I was thinking of the way you were presenting it just now, it is subsisting through Jesus Christ.

SMcC Exactly, so that it is important that we should understand this “through Jesus Christ,” that all that has come in in relation to grace and truth in our day in this dispensation has come in through Jesus Christ. That expression “through Jesus Christ” throws into relief the whole system of mediatorial operations.

Ques As seeing it in Christ is it calculated to make a change? We are changed from glory to glory as we behold it in Him.

SMcC Well, in result it would work out that way.

WHW So all the words of the law would be seen in finality as we contemplate what is presented in this blessed Person.

SMcC Exactly. He came to complete the law, to fulfil the law - that is, to give the completeness of it, to set it out in its fulness, we have a remarkable reference to that in Matthew, the Lord making the reference Himself. He did not come to set aside the law; He came, to give the fulness of it, so that in the presence of Jesus in the mediatorial position we have things set out in substance and John would stress substance - substantiality, all this over against degeneracy in the truth.

RLP Would John writing then at the close of his days give a greater value to this matter, glory and grace from chapter 1 to 21 marking the whole dispensation?

SMcC Exactly. We see in chapter 21 the wonderful way in which it is active, the modus operandi of it in relation to Peter, how it affected Peter, the way the Lord dined with the disciples and then took on Peter, so that Peter in the presence of it yields fully to the Lord Jesus.

RGC Is it the cure then from despondent self-occupation the understanding of how divine affections have been expressed, as between Themselves and then towards us?

SMcC Exactly, and we have to be lifted out of ourselves if we are to be helped in relation to the truth and also as to what gives substance for the service of God. What gives substance to the local position is persons who are formed as making room for the Spirit to bring them into the warmth and influence of divine love as suggested in these relations.

REH Had John seen the breakdown that had taken place when he wrote this? Is that particularly encouraging?

SMcC Well, it is. That is what he writes in view of and the truth is to be preserved in life. The truth is not exactly preserved in creeds; while men sought to do that, with perhaps good intentions when they did it, they fell into the error of disregard for the Spirit, and error entered into it.

GRD Would you say something as to verse 18 and the reference to the Lord “who is in the bosom of the Father.” Is there something there which is unique to Christ in manhood?

SMcC Exactly. Something that specially belongs to Him. It is very difficult for us to pursue an inquiry into the truth without wondering how we come into it, what part we have in it, how does it affect us. The brethren will always note how difficult it is to pursue far without bringing that side in, but what verse 18 would project on our view is the excellence of manhood in sonship in Jesus for the Father’s delight, for God’s delight is presented here in the Father and we should learn how to make room for the Spirit to help us in the contemplation of it, because the more we contemplate it the more we shall reject in ourselves all that is so opposite to it.

PBI Does this make way for the declaration of it? The contemplation of Christ uniquely in this position in the bosom of the Father makes room in our hearts for the declaration of the Father?

SMcC That is, the declaration has come out that way. He has declared Him. That is, it has come out, the declaration bearing upon the whole public position involving not only the saints, but involving men. That is, God is declared, but how is He declared? Well, this verse shows us how the declaration comes in, through the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, showing what substance attaches to christianity. It is a system where divine love and divine affections are peculiarly active and operative.

REH We have the expression “until Christ,” but all that had gone before was totally inadequate, was it not? We get life here.

SMcC So that the position here is to be noted because it is to stress that the mediatorial activities and service do not imply mere arbitrary action. It is God drawing near in the greatness of all that He is in a relationship intelligible to us, so that in the contemplation of these relationships, our souls and minds are affected as the Spirit would bring them under the influence of divine affection thus radiated.

CFI Does this declaration bring in the full thought of God?

SMcC Well, exactly. So that in “He hath declared Him” the “Him” is God. The “He hath declared” refers back to “No one has seen God at any time.” It is the full declaration of God and the full declaration of God involves Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

GRD And the present tense “who is in” the declaration would be a completed thing but the relationships remain, do they?

SMcC Exactly, and so the declaration is complete. Nothing can be added to it. The Lord later in John 17 uses another expression “I have made known unto them thy name and will make it known.” That is pointing on to John 20, but here the declaration is regarded as a completed matter.

GA Also in chapter 17 “I have manifested thy name to the men whom thou gavest me out of the world.” Does that fit in?

SMcC Yes, it is the inward bearing of it upon the disciples in John 17, but there it is the public side of it that God has come out and drawn near to men. He has not been hidden as it were from men, but He is declared, as it says.

GHR Is the early part of verse 18 calculated to keep before us the greatness of Christ as the one by whom God has been declared: “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father he hath declared him.”

SMcC Yes, exactly. The declaration of God had come in this way, by the only begotten Son. Now that points to the uniqueness of Christ’s glory, the uniqueness of His manhood, because certainly it could not refer to abstract relations in Deity, it alludes to the unique place of Christ in manhood, the only begotten Son Who is in the bosom of the Father. That is, the Father is projected on our view in the light of His wondrous place in this arrangement because the Father is supreme in this economy of love which these relationships involve.

CFI Do we see love - in all its fulness in this relationship?

SMcC Exactly.

MRJM Does this suggest a nearness that is possible to us. John in the bosom of Jesus in chapter 13?

SMcC Well, exactly. He is in the place of love, and how fitted and capacitated thus to speak on this exalted subject in the way in which he does, and how fittingly he refers to what we have here - the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father. What food there is for our affections in contemplating the excellence of manhood as seen in Jesus in this exalted relationship of love!

WHW I was wondering if Paul did not use this thought in his exhortation in Ephesians, “till we all arrive at the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, at the full grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ?” Ephesians 4: 13.

SMcC I think so. I think this enters into the stature of the fulness of the Christ. The gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, give us the stature of the fulness of the Christ; that is, what is presented in Christ as man.

RBM The wording of this in John has often appealed to us, who is in the bosom of the Father. Do you think it implies the thought of the mediator? They were able to contemplate the glory of this One, but if they saw Him they saw the Father. Is that right? Contemplation I mean of the nearness of this relationship.

SMcC Well, exactly. The Lord says “he that hath seen me has seen the Father.” The Father remains in the inscrutableness of Deity, but the Lord Jesus has come into a place involving relative inferiority but in which place He is contemplated as the Object of the Father’s love, the bosom particularly referring to the affections of the Father towards Jesus in the excellence of His manhood in this relationship.

Rem I think it has been said that love is the glory of God and that the glory of God is love. Does that come in here?

SMcC Well, love is what God is in His nature, whether we think of God in the absolute or whether we think of God in the relative, love is what God is, the working out of it involves glory, the outshining of God would refer to the working out of His nature, because God is love and the great link between the absolute and the relative is love. John’s epistle says “God is love.” That is an absolute statement.

RGC Does the “He” written emphatically show the intertwining of love and light?

SMcC Exactly. How love and light are linked together, because the declaration would involve that God is in the light but in the position of “in the bosom of the Father” is to show the love, the affections that are radiating in God thus becoming known.

RGN The Lord’s invitations a little later on in the chapter and the apostles going and seeing and abiding there would show how ready He was to lead others into the position?

SMcC Well, exactly. Where dwellest thou? “They said to him, ... where abidest thou? He says to them, Come and see.” I think we want to see the importance of this side, because it is the kernel you might say of Christianity, the wealth of divine affections lying behind the whole external structure of the position, and what we are going on with is not what they have in the philosophers and others, who set on theories and ideas and principles that are to govern men arbitrarily. What we are linked with in christianity is the radiation of divine love active in the channels that we are referring to here in Christ in manhood.

GRD Would it be right to think then that divine Persons have entered into these relationships because of the delightfulness of it to them? Not exactly in declaration, whether it is having effect on any or not, but because of what the relationships mean to them.

SMcC The position of the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father is peculiarly stressing what manhood in sonship is in Jesus for the divine delight. We need to contemplate it; we need to allow the Spirit to strengthen our minds, strengthen our souls to contemplate and feed on the excellence of manhood in Jesus. There is much that we cannot compass but the Father can, but much that we can enjoy in regard of it.

EBMc He only could declare Him dwelling in the bosom. The full declaration of what God has for man is seen there.

SMcC Well, exactly. The declaration of God involves that all the three Persons of the Godhead are active in regard to this great thought of God coming near to men, active in intelligible relationships, relationships that involve endearment and relationships which involve the activity of divine affections.

JC So you would say it should move us that the declaration here is connected with the thought of the bosom?

SMcC Well, it should, because it is the kernel of the position we might say in the divine arrangement, the bosom of the Father is a great central position and the Son in manhood is viewed in it. Object of the divine delight and at the same time declaring God in that wondrous position.

JW Mr. Darby says in his hymn “We see the Godhead glory Shine through the human veil” (188:6).

SMcC Well, we are always reminded at every turn of the road when contemplating the Lord Jesus in manhood that there is that about Him which we could never understand. We always have to keep in mind in regard to any divine Person, whatever position they may take up there is an inscrutability about each of the divine Persons that we can never pierce or get beyond.

REH Is the contemplation and enjoyment of this the greatest power in our souls for deliverance? I was thinking of John, who never refers to himself in the gospel except as the disciple whom Jesus loved.

SMcC Exactly. And this is to help us in the working out of the truth in difficult days, that we should see that love is a prime matter. It is a prime matter - love in the working out of the declaration of God. The declaration of God involves light. Light is a prime matter. “He that doeth truth cometh to the light that his deeds may be manifested that they are wrought in God.” And love is a prime matter. These are two great prime matters, light and love; and light is not in that way arbitrary - it is emanating from this environment.

REH So that light and love are extended in the epistle of John, are they not?

SMC Yes.

WHW Do we see here that John in the beginning of his ministry brings before us an unassailable position - the economy? That is, the Father has come into it and the Son is in it and the Spirit is in it, and then he proceeds with his ministry?

SMcC So that whatever may have come into the dispensation this is an impregnable position, an unassailable position. Nothing in the way of defection, nothing in the way of breakdown can ever interfere with the divine arrangement in its essence and substance. What has been interfered with is our enjoyment of it, in which the enemy always would entrench himself so that God might be robbed of His portion in us.

GWB So in that way does grace become a necessity for the operation of what we are speaking of?

SMcC Well, it is essential on our side. Grace is operational; it is love in activity adapting itself to conditions on our side. That is really what grace is. It is love in operation; it is love viewed operationally, in regard to the adjusting of conditions on our side.

HH Does the blessedness of christianity lie in what is seen in persons as over against arbitrary doctrine?

SMcC Yes, only that we are not setting aside doctrine. John would make a lot of doctrine. The Lord Jesus Himself uses the words “my doctrine.” John 7: 17. The Lord would keep that word right in our minds, but then there is much more than doctrine involved in the position in what we are saying. Now when we come to John 3 we get divine love operating on a great extended scale in regard to the scene of need, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes on Him may not perish but have life eternal.” This is now to enlarge the vista of our thoughts in relation to the Gospel so that we may not be narrowed, we may not be small in our outlook, but be enabled to think of the world and to think of men abstractly and divine love operating towards them.

EBMc “May not perish but have life eternal” is the thought, is it not?

SMcC That is it. Perishing would allude to what sin has effected in man, but God brings in now eternal life - sonship in the first chapter in Christ and also we might say extended to the saints in chapter 20, but now eternal life is a prime matter in relation to divine love here, and it is meeting certain conditions in our hearts that sin has brought in.

Eric C. What is the world that God has in mind? It says “God so loved the world.” Would you say a word as to what is meant by that?

SMcC Well, it is quite obvious that it would not be the moral evil that is around us. It would allude to what the world is abstractly. It is a great thing to be able to look at the world abstractly, to look at men abstractly, and God loves men. Someone was asking the other day about some who would say it is not right to speak about God’s love to sinners, God’s love to men. God loves men, as it is written “when the kindness and love to men of our Saviour God appeared.” There it is in Scripture - Titus 3: 4. God loves men and we are to think of men abstractly in the light of what they are to God, as forming part of an ordered system of things in which His pleasure is found.

EC Does that refer then to the people who are in the world as we speak of it. Is that right?

SMcC Well, it alludes to the world as an ordered system of things of which man is part abstractly.

CFI It is what God had before Him at the beginning and He has never given it up.

SMcC Exactly. Sin entered into it and has marred it. It has marred the system and it has marred man as part of it, but God is eventually coming back to it and the glad tidings have that in mind.

HH Something that God has made and has loved. Would that be right?

SMcC Well, it belongs to Him. It is His own workmanship. It is not what the world has become under the power of Satan. It is what the world is in His own mind and thoughts as coming from His own hand, man forming a part of it.

DB The worlds were framed by the word of God. Would that link on?

SMcC Yes, they were framed by the word of God. We sometimes speak of creation as if it were just an arbitrary act but what you referred to would show it is more than an arbitrary act. Divine wisdom enters into it; divine intelligence and feelings enter into it.

GWB So the preaching to men would be an extension of grace and truth?

SMcC Exactly. That they should be brought in to what this divine arrangement involves in its working out in operation. It has in mind that men should be brought into eternal life.

GWB Would not that affect our feelings in relation to the glad tidings and the presentation of it?

SMcC Well, it would enlarge our outlook. It would open up a great vista before our souls in preaching the gospel that God has in mind for men, eternal life.

JW Is this a part of the radiation you were speaking of His own affections?

SMcC It is just that exactly; so that we do not merely have the radiation of divine love on the inside but we have it on the outside that men are impressed even in regard to the glad tidings with the warmth of divine affections that enter into them.

AGI The Lord was concerned that the world might know the love of the Father in the 14th chapter.

SMcC Yes. That is putting us in mind that the thing is laid out, not that the world has come to it, but there it is. That is what He did that the world might know that He loved the Father. There was a testimony there, whether the world took it on or not.

REH God’s attitude towards men is unchanged in spite of the state they have got into, as it says in the gospel, referring to the Lord’s feelings, that He groaned in spirit. Do you think we should take on more of divine feelings, in seeking to present light and truth?

SMcC Exactly, that God’s approach to man is not arbitrary. It involves His love, that He so loved that ordered system of things which sin has marred that He sent His only begotten Son that whosoever believed on Him may not perish but have life eternal.

REH So that life eternal is in contrast to sin and death.

SMcC Well, exactly. And then verse 14 was read “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness thus must the Son of man be lifted up that everyone who believes on him may not perish but have life eternal.” That is, it involves the reception of the testimony presented, that the flesh is viewed in its state before God, as utterly condemned and set aside, and those who feel their state of sin may look, their eyes directed towards this Object towards which faith is active. The Son of Man and the only begotten Son; the Son of Man stressing our side, the only begotten Son stressing God’s side.

EC So that this would be in mind in relation to the open air preaching, would it not?

SMcC Every preacher should convey something of the warmth and radiancy of divine affections as he preaches the gospel.

WHW Is the “must” of verse 14 what we might speak of as a divine “must”? When we come to looking into chapter 1 there is something very great there but when it comes to the actual presentation of the truth, does this “must” not bear upon us?

SMcC Well, exactly. Our state had to be met. Such was our state that nothing less than the lifting up of the Son of Man would meet it and the lifting up of the Son of Man involves that our minds and affections are to be carried off the scene in which sin has been active in a state which God has condemned and set aside in the cross of sight. The lifting up points to the way that divine love is moving. It is the heavenly side that is in mind.

HH The way that divine love takes for its own radiation, would you say?

SMcC Yes, exactly. So that the whole moral question is met. We have our side in verse 14 and God’s side in verse 16.

EBMc It was a tremendous move on God’s side in that way to meet men, in the Son of Man that man’s need may be met entirely.

SMcC Well, exactly.

WH Would verse 16 show how impregnable the position is that we were contemplating in chapter 1? It is what God produced to meet that position.

SMcC And is it not all the more affecting when we think of what God had in manhood in Jesus, all the moral excellence that we spoke of that John draws attention to in Christ in manhood in sonship in the bosom of the Father, all that that was for the divine delight, to think of His preparedness to give that up, to give His only begotten Son, because it alludes to that. He is prepared to give it up that men might have eternal life. It shows the immensity of what is involved in God’s movements towards men.

GHR So does all this suggest how blessedly available all this is to men? It says, “And every one that looketh upon it shall live.” Numbers 21: 8.

SMcC Yes, exactly, that in meeting this great question of sin, marring man and marring the world which was for the pleasure of God, this is the way divine love meets it. I think we need to think more of what manhood was in sonship in Jesus as in the bosom of the Father, that it was from that position as it were, that God gave His only begotten Son. It was not exactly what the Lord Jesus was in His movement from heaven. That was His own movement, a voluntary movement from heaven; but as in the position in which He is viewed as Man, God sent Him. When we think of all the excellence that was there in His manhood to God, well, “He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes on Him may not perish but have life eternal.”

REH So we see the necessity of partaking of these divine feelings to rightly present the gospel to men?

SMcC Exactly, and in relation to our activities among the saints too, “For God has not sent his Son into the world that he may judge the world but that the world may be saved through him.” All our activities should be in the light of reconciliation because the world stands provisionally in reconciliation at the present time.

GRD Would you say a word as to life eternal?

We have been speaking of the gospel in relation to this. Is the gospel intended to lead men into that thought of life eternal?

SMcC Well, exactly; an order of blessing that is glorious, that goes through time right into eternity and will last eternally, an order and environment of blessing where God is known. Man stands in relation to God in this fixed condition of blessing.

CFI Would that be set out in the relations of the Lord Jesus as Man with God?

SMcC Well, exactly. It was there that eternal life was in testimony. When the Lord Jesus became Man and entered these living relations as Man with God, eternal life was there in testimony, and how wonderful it is to contemplate it in that light. Some of course thought that the words “in the bosom of the Father” (John 1: 18) allude to His place now, but while they include His place now, and what will be His place eternally, they refer to the uniqueness of His place too, in manhood here. In coming into manhood He came into that position, the preposition “in” in John 1: 18 “made movement towards,” the Greek preposition “eis” meaning movement towards; that is, He came into that position.