THE WITNESS BEFORE CONFLICT
THE WITNESS BEFORE CONFLICT
FER I suppose in a sense, the witness would come before conflict. The witness is the witness, and the conflict is to maintain it. The first thing is to understand what the witness is, otherwise you could not understand the conflict.
DLH Is the witness that God has completely set aside one man, and brought in Another?
FER I think so. The point is that eternal life is in another Man, the Son of God.
DLH So that the Spirit’s work is on that line?
FER Yes; the introduction of the second Man puts aside the first, and not only that but when Christ was born into the world, He was a Head for man — Head of every man. It comes out fully in resurrection, but in principle it was there when the Son of God became incarnate.
DLH Does not the expression “This is he that came by water and blood” convey that thought?
FER I think so. He came in to remove what the first man had left behind him — sin and death.
DLH The moment He was there, He was God’s Man, but He had to remove the first man.
FER Yes, headship is a place of pre-eminence, and He takes the first place. The best illustration I know of is the Speaker of the House of Commons: he is the first commoner. He is one of them, he belongs to the House, but he is the first commoner, the head of the House. If the Commons went into the Lords, they would be headed by the Speaker, but the Speaker is not lord of the House, he is head of the House, and is commonly spoken of as the first commoner. The recognition of the Head is by faith. Faith recognises Christ because He is the testimony, and faith recognises and receives the testimony.
WJ [p. 25] What is believing that Jesus is the Christ?
FER Christ is the testimony.
WJ In what way was He made Christ in the Acts?
FER It is in resurrection He is made Lord and Christ. All is taken up in resurrection by Him. Jesus speaks about Christ in Luke 24. “Thus it is written, and thus it behoved the Christ to suffer, and to rise from among the dead the third day”. In resurrection He was vested with all the authority of God, but at the same time the Christ had to suffer. The only thing God had to say to man in Christ was “not imputing their trespasses unto them”, because Christ was under His eye. Christ’s presence was the final test for man, but there was no idea with God of His being accepted. He was born to be set aside. It is very remarkable what is said in Luke 2, “A light for revelation of the Gentiles,” and then “the glory of thy people Israel”. That shows what was in the mind of God in connection with the birth of Christ, at the same time light comes to man and he cannot help being responsible.
JMcK It is the responsible man you preach to?
FER Yes, if you had grace to go and put the truth of the gospel before man, he must be responsible for what he hears.
JMcK Would you present to man the headship of Christ?
FER You must. It is impossible to present the gospel without presenting His headship. If you announce the simplest things in the gospel, repentance and forgiveness of sins, it must be in the name of the Head. You must present the Head because God’s overtures to man are all in the name of the Head of every man. Headship brings in the presentation of grace in His name. He had died to acquire repentance and forgiveness for every man, and it is preached in His name.
DLH Is the idea of headship limited to pre-eminence or is there any thought of direction?
[p. 26] FER There is that thought morally, not authoritatively. My head does not direct authoritatively, but it is natural to it. The Speaker of the House of Commons gives guidance and direction to the House.
WB Is there also the idea of receiving from Him as in Colossians 2?
FER Yes, He is the medium of communication, “from whom all the body ... increases with the increase of God”. Another, and scriptural idea is that of husband and wife. The husband is guide to the wife, and supplies come by the husband, he is pillar and guide.
THB Does headship involve mediatorial work?
FER I think so, because the One who is Head to man, is also the Revealer of God. The One who declared God, has become Pillar and Head of the universe. That is God’s mind and thought about Him. It is His glory as Man, that He is that, and the consequence is all will be upheld by One who is competent to do so. In the Psalms you get “The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved: I bear up the pillars of it”. (Psalm 75)
ERBR How do you take the headship of Christ to every man?
FER God addresses Himself to every man in the name of the Head. The real point as between God and man is Christ. Every man is responsible to hear God. He is a Saviour but He is that by a Head. Apart from Christ man has no Head at all. The introduction of a Head is to bring man within rule, and if he does not accept the Head, it only proves him to be lawless; and when lawlessness is headed up in antichrist it will only be to come under God’s judgment.
JMcK Could you go up to any man in the street, and claim him for Christ?
FER No, I should proclaim to him repentance, and forgiveness in the name of a Head. Christ is Head of every man, but I could not say that every man belongs to Christ.
JMcK [p. 27] Is not man denying the Lord that bought him?
FER That is referring to a professed christian.
JMcK How would a christian deny the Lord that bought him?
FER The passage refers to one who takes that ground, he may not be really a christian.
HCA Lawlessness shews you do not approach God in that way.
FER It shews that man has not accepted God’s appointed Head. The first thing is to receive the testimony of Christ in His name.
HCA Is that why stress is laid on the name in John?
FER Yes, everything is in a name at the present time.
HCA The Lord sets Himself as a ground of approach to God.
FER He is Head of every man, so that in Him God can approach man. I have been much helped in seeing that Christ’s death was both declaratory and sacrificial, because God was declared, and He died for man. God’s righteousness was declared, and the grace and love of God set forth. All came out in His death, but it was sacrificial for man.
HCA What is the witness of the water and the Spirit and the blood?
FER The witness is that God has wrought to effect His purpose. John says “God so loved the world”, Christ Himself was the witness to that. There was the declaration of God’s mind. In the epistle John says “God has given to us eternal life; and this life is in his Son”. It is witnessed by the Spirit, but the fact is the witness. The witness changes character somewhat because Christ is not here bodily. The water and the blood shut man out; the Spirit brings in what is of God.
DLH You get the same thing in the Son of man lifted up.
FER Exactly. The witness there was Christ Himself.
ERBR What is the difference between the water and the blood?
FER The water refers to moral cleansing, the blood to expiation.
DLH You get the negative and the positive in the witnesses.
FER Yes, in the three witnesses. The water removes what is morally unsuitable and the blood is the removal of that for which man was responsible. It is death, the end of a man, to which the blood witnesses. You could not get expiation without the end of a man. The end of man was death “God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh”.
JHB Is it right to say that the blood is for God, and the water for man?
FER The blood is the witness to man not to God. The water is cleansing from the world system, and the blood is expiation; you are clear as in Hebrews 10, “by one offering he hath perfected for ever”, and the Holy Spirit is witness. The water means washing from the pollutions of the world, it is death to the world. Christ’s death must involve our death, and it is that all may die as far as I understand it.
AEW Atonement was complete before Christ died?
FER Atonement and sacrifice is that you might never come into judgment; you have to accept His death. The first thing for a converted person is baptism. The eunuch wanted to be identified at once with His death. The world to him was Jerusalem, and instead of going back to Jerusalem like the two on the way to Emmaus, he went on his way rejoicing.
JNB Why is verse 6 put in that particular form?
FER To bring before us that the history of the first man is completely closed. There always had been in a sense, water, but Christ came by water and by [p. 29] blood. By there being water before I mean, that all the communications of God had death in view.
DLH In Hebrews 6, it speaks of the doctrine of washings.
THB Would you say a word about verse 9?
FER There is the witness, and it is that God has given to us eternal life, and it is in His Son. There is a company that have the Son, and are in the Son, and they are conscious of having eternal life: that is the witness for the moment. Christ was the Witness here, but now it is the church, and the witness of the church is dependent on association with Christ. The gospel is so very weak because the witness is such a failure. The gospel depends upon the church, and you get very little power in the gospel, if you have not got the church.
The church is the witness of the love of God. There is the conscious witness of the Spirit, and he that believes has the witness in himself; but then there is the public witness that God has given to us eternal life, and it is added “He that believeth not God hath made him a liar”. The epistle is an advance on the gospel of John.
The Lord prays in John 17, for the unity of those who believe on Him, that the world might believe that the Father sent Him. If the saints were in the consciousness of eternal life, they would be the witness of God in the world, and if men did not believe the witness of God they make Him a liar. You see the immense importance of the church as witness. In Revelation the church fails and Christ comes in and says, I am “the faithful and true witness”, but that is what the church ought to have been.
WB I should have thought the witness was found in the scriptures?
FER The witness was here many a long day before the scriptures were written. Unity was the witness, “That they all may be one ... that the world may believe that thou has sent me”. The point to me is this, the gospel depends upon the witness. The gospel is [p. 30] not the witness, but the church, and if the witness is a failure it must seriously hamper the gospel. Life is the witness and it is in unity, or not that exactly, but unity is essential to life. Life is in spiritual affections. The moral import of unity is the will is set aside and shut out, and life comes in in consequence. Life is in the Son, and it is put in the place of witness to the love of God expressed in the Son.
ERBR Where is the witness now, if the church has failed?
FER You will never get it much here now, but we want to get into the divine idea, from which you get great good.
DLH There is great power there.
FER I would not have christendom or any part of it at any price.
WJ Is “holding forth the word of life”, the same thought?
FER Yes, only more individual there.
JMcK The witness was not obscure at Pentecost. What is the gospel?
FER It is glad tidings, an announcement. It is not a moral witness, it goes forth from the church. If you could get the church in order, what an immense activity in the gospel there would be. The gospel is to enlighten, but then it is to bring people into the witness. The point for people today is to be in the witness, and that is by receiving the Spirit but the gospel is the means by which they receive the Spirit.
WJ What is “we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world”?
FER That was apostolic. We could not say we have seen and do testify, but we take it up from the apostles. The gospel was first given to the twelve, but it has been deposited in the church, and the evangelists go out from the church.
DLH The gospel we try to preach is in christendom, which we would not have at all if things [p. 31] were right.
FER No, christendom is confusion worse confounded.