CHRIST THE SON OF GOD
[p. 270] CHRIST THE SON OF GOD
John 1:14-18; John 1:29,30; John 1:43-51; John 2:1-11
I took up this passage as indicating that it is a point of the greatest importance to get a distinct and definite idea in regard to Christ. The great mainstay in christianity is Christ. I feel more and more that Christ is the immovable rock — nothing is a real rock except Christ — and what I want is to give two or three points which come out here in regard to Him. The more we know of Him the more likely we are to be kept, and we shall get enlargement of mind. If a man wants to be enlarged in mind, it will be by the knowledge of Christ. Some people say you get enlargement of mind by reading, and some men read a vast amount, but their minds do not get enlargement morally — that consists in the knowledge of Christ. They go back, after all, to things which are after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. God brings before us what is after Christ. “In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”. Then you are likely to get great enlargement, morally as well as in mind.
The question is between Christ and the world, because in Christ God sets forth His glory, and the world is the scene of man’s glory, where man seeks for glory, and hence the system of the world, in its very nature, must be antagonistic to God, because God alone is to be glorified. In Isaiah it speaks of the day of the Lord, but the point of it is that God alone is to be glorified in that day. He will not tolerate anything that does not bring glory to Him.
I am quite certain that no one would pretend that the glory of man is of God. You find very unrighteous and very wicked men glorified by this world, but a man would be very blind to think that could be of God. “Which receive honour one of another, and seek not [p. 271] the honour that cometh from God only”. There is a great deal of honour in the world, but no one could think there was any honour from God. No one, as I said, can gainsay that on the one hand, God sets forth His glory in Christ — that which has, and will, come to pass in Him — and that, on the other hand, the world is a system of things where man has glory, but not from God. Therefore Christ and the world are antagonistic. The world has been tested by Christ, and now the spirit of antichrist is in the world, but this did not appear until Christ came. The apostle John says, “even now are there many antichrists”. The system of the world will find its head in antichrist himself; who is yet to come. Apostasy is turning away from all revealed truth; it paves the way for antichrist, but the point is, there are many antichrists now. You find men denying the Father and the Son, and you find scepticism with regard to revelation. There was none of this until Christ came. All the spirit and power of antichrist is working down here to set aside, if possible, the idea of God.
There are two lines taken by the spirit of antichrist, the first is the denial that Jesus is the Christ, and the second is the denial of the Father and the Son.
There may be progress of a certain kind in the world as it is, but exaltation and honour in the eyes of man is only a proof that the world must be antagonistic to God and His glory. I can understand the statement of James, “Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God”.
Now, beloved friends, we are in the world, and we are liable to be affected by the influences about us, and the great question in regard to each one of us is as between Christ and the world. We cannot have the two — they are absolutely antagonistic. Christ is the Head and centre of another world, and it is impossible for a man to have his heart in both worlds. Faith always connects itself with the world to come. God gave to men in the world, here and there, light as to the world to come, and [p. 272] all the light which God gave referred to the world to come, which is put under Christ.
I now come to the passage I have read. I assume that all here would admit that Christ is the Son of God. That is the point of the gospel of John. “These [things] are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God”. John 20: 31. “I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God”. John 1: 34.
I will just distinguish the gospels. In Matthew, Christ is spoken of as the Son of David, the Son of Abraham, the Son according to promise. In Mark, He is the Son of God, God’s Servant. In Luke, He is the Son of man; and in John, the Son of God in all the greatness of His Person. Matthew and Luke present Christ under what I may call official titles, but in John the great point is the Person of the Son of God. So in chapter 2 the Lord says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up”. He spake of the temple of His body — God was there.
In the chapter I have referred to, you get the Son of God spoken of in three lights, and you get what I may call the climax in the beginning of chapter 2 (Read verses 17, 18, 33, 34, 48, 49.) These three passages are before me because they give us what is characteristic of the Son of God. Each presents the Son of God to us in a very distinct light, and we have to take in the whole to get the complete thought.
First, He declares God. If He be the Son of God, in the very nature of things He declares God. He comes from God, and He declares God. God has come out in Him.
In the second passage you get another thing — He baptises with the Holy Spirit; that is, He brings in the influence of the Holy Spirit to bear upon man in connection with the testimony, and in the third passage, in connection with Nathanael, He is privy to all the exercises of His people.
My object in speaking is to put these three thoughts [p. 273] together, to make them centre in the Son of God, and you get the consummation in the beginning of chapter 2; I will touch upon them in detail.
In the first, you see Christ contrasted with Moses — “The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ”. “Grace and truth” were not given, they came to pass by Jesus Christ. No man could exercise grace and truth towards man; it could not be by the law and the prophets, but grace and truth came to pass by Jesus Christ, and the secret of it is given, “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”.
That which marks the present time is that God is declared, all the mind of God is declared, and everything is based on that great fact. God is love, and we have got the perfect expression of divine love in Christ. “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”. Until the gospel came into the world, man had no idea of love. If you search for it amongst the ancient Greeks, you will not find it; all man’s notions of love were completely debased, there was no true thought of love.
Now, Christ has declared God. What could be greater? Whatever the Son of God came to do, the greatest thing was to declare God. I am not insensible to the greatness of redemption, but what transcends all is that God is declared. God is now in the light of declaration. John says, “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all”, and “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light,” 1 John 1: 5, 7. God has come out according to His own nature, because the Son has declared Him.
We are brought into the light; it is a wonderful moment when the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, and we are really in the light of God. “In him is no darkness at all”. “God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us”.
The next point is in connection with the Spirit — that He baptises with the Holy Spirit. It was indicated to [p. 274] John the baptist that upon whom he should see the Spirit descending and abiding upon Him, the same was He that would baptise with the Holy Spirit, and John adds, “I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God”.
Now, beloved friends, I want to dwell a little more fully on this. It was a wonderful thing that had come to pass that there was a Man down here on whom the Spirit could come to abide. We read of the Spirit coming upon men, upon Samson, for instance, but He did not abide on them. On Christ He descended and abode.
“He which baptizeth with the Holy Spirit” I understand to mean that Christ is to bring all under the influence of what God is, that is the result of Christ’s coming into the world. He was the anointed Man, and He was the beginning of things for God. The starting point of the ways of God, in that sense, was Christ anointed with the Holy Spirit. In this way the whole order of things was altered. Who could bring that about — who could baptise with the Holy Spirit — but the Son of God? In this chapter it is the Person who is before us, the One who is competent to declare God and to baptise with the Holy Spirit.
Beloved friends, everyone would admit that the beginning of all things in God’s world is the anointed Man. All began with Christ, and, in that sense, He is the Head of every man, and then there is another thing — He accomplished redemption. He takes up all the liabilities of man and settles them. Further than this, He is the last Adam, the quickening Spirit, who baptises with the Holy Spirit. Who but the Son of God could accomplish all this?
Now with regard to the third point (verses 43 - 51), the Son of God was recognised here by Nathanael, and He was privy to all the exercises through which Nathanael was passing. “When thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee”. It is in the same way we get the conviction [p. 275] of the truth — it is in this way I am searched by Scripture. I am searched and known. We are not told what passed under the fig-tree, but what was brought home to Nathanael was that he was searched — Christ was privy to all his exercises. He knew Nathanael individually, and his individual exercises. Nathanael was known to the Lord.
Then there is the response — “thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel”.
We get from it all, the great thought connected with the Son of God that He is privy to all the exercises through which men pass with regard to God. God knows how to bring about exercise in man. There is a variety of ways in which God speaks to man — by sickness, by circumstances; God has His own way, and men pass through exercise as the effect of the work of God. But the Son of God is privy to all the exercises — as He said to Nathanael, “when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee”, and it is blessed when the response comes, “thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel”.
Now, beloved friends, I want to put these three things together — they are very simple — He declared God, He baptises with the Holy Spirit, and He is privy to the exercises of man. All this gives us a great idea of the Son of God. Just think of the competency of Christ to declare God, and that He should have the Spirit of God, so to speak, at His command to baptise with. The Holy Spirit is content to become the servant of Christ.
And, further than this, that He should see all that is passing in the soul of man with regard to God! The Lord says of Nathanael, “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!” He was a true Israelite, there was no kind of concealment, nothing hid, all was naked in the presence of God, and it is such a one who can give the suitable response, “thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel”.
In the end of the chapter His official title also comes out, “Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man”. There is no doubt whatever that Christ is pointing on to the kingdom, when communion will be established between earth and heaven, when all will be put under the Son of man, according to Psalm 8. The church will have a very great place in connection with that, as we see in “the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven”.
Now in chapter 2 we see the Lord acting here in the power of resurrection (”the third day”). That assumes that redemption has been accomplished. That is the meaning of God acting in the power of resurrection.
In the world to come, resurrection is the great principle. Israel is revived, and the nations are revived; everything in the world to come will be revived towards God. Christ was the true Israel — “I ... called my son out of Egypt” — and He was a light to the gentiles. The restoration of Israel is life from the dead — the great principle on which God acts — the power of resurrection can come in because redemption has been accomplished.
Now, in this second chapter, Christ turns the water of purification into wine — “wine which gladdeneth the heart of man”. The water of purification, in the power of Christ, really becomes the means of cheering the heart of man. The great hindrance to a man’s joy is himself. I find out that I have not done with myself; I find that I myself have a certain place, and it is a great hindrance to my joy. Hence a christian has to become like a little child — of no importance in his own eyes. I feel there is a vast amount of joy there for me, and I cannot enter into it because I have a certain importance in my own eyes. I am not prepared for the complete setting aside of myself. You want the water of purification in order to be purified. What from? From all importance in your own eyes, and from the world. When a man is purified from importance in his own eyes, he is purified from the world. The world is the scene of moral impurity, and if [p. 277] there is any affinity between me and the world, I am not purified from myself; or ready to be exposed in all that is in myself by purification, so that I may judge myself as of no account in my own eyes.
It is the practical putting-out of self; and of all that belongs to it. What for? To make room for God. God will not meet you on your own terms; you have to get down to the bottom. God’s terms never make anything of you or me. You get down to the lowest point, and then when the water of purification has taken effect, joy comes and fills you. No one gets real joy from oneself or the world, but when one comes down, then the water of purification becomes the wine of joy in the knowledge of God and of what God’s disposition is towards us. It all lies in the consciousness of what God is for us, in perfect consistency with the sense of nothingness in oneself:
‘O keep us, Love divine, near Thee,
that we our nothingness may know’.
The light of God and His love brings one to the sense of one’s own nothingness, then the water of purification is effectual, and there is joy and delight in the knowledge of God. The water of purification, in the power of resurrection, becomes the wine of joy.
All this will find its complete fulfilment in the millennium. Nathanael represents a true Israelite according to God. What comes out in chapter 2 is what Christ will effect in Israel. First, they will be purged from themselves and the contamination of the world, and then, because redemption is accomplished, the water of purification will be turned for them into the wine of joy — there will be the feast of tabernacles.
This is all bound up with the Person of the Son of God. It is a great thing to get the apprehension of Christ in the light of His Person, and of what is characteristic of the Person. He declares God, He baptises with the Holy Spirit, and He is privy to all the exercises of man. It is very wonderful that each of us who are christians is known by the Son of God, that we have come under the [p. 278] baptism of the Spirit, and that He knows every exercise of our souls. “I know those that are mine, and am known of those that are mine, as the Father knows me and I know the Father”.
Now, beloved friends, we have God declared, and the Spirit given, and the witness and proof of it is that “The Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life”.