THE GOSPEL
[p. 32] THE GOSPEL
FER The subject last time was the witness, I think.
DLH Yes, had you not something on your mind in connection with the gospel?
FER Yes, I think it is the thought of God that the gospel should have the support of the living witness. The thought I take up from Matthew 16; before the Lord gives the keys of the kingdom to Peter, He speaks about building the church. The keys of the kingdom followed upon the living witness, and as a matter of fact until the assembly is there the gospel could not go out, it was dependent upon the church.
JMcK What about Peter on the day of Pentecost?
FER The church was there before Peter preached; he went out in the testimony of the kingdom.
JSO You get the principle in the Spirit saying, “...he that will, let him take the water of life freely”. Revelation 22: 17. There is the living expression as well as the proclamation.
FER Behind the proclamation there is the living witness. I do not think you get the gospel in power if there is not the living witness. The early days were days of power in the gospel, but behind and connected with that, there was the living witness.
WB How do you apply that today?
FER The great thing for us is, to look to what is within.
WB Do you mean that the assembly should be evangelistic?
FER If you have things right within, you will have a great deal of energy in that way. We have to look to the condition of things within — the living witness in the saints — and then the proclamation would take [p. 33] character from that. The divine way has been to establish the witness here.
DLH In verse 11 of the chapter from which we read it says: “And this is the witness, that God has given to us eternal life; and this life is in his Son”. Is it in that connection that you would speak of the gospel going forth?
FER Yes, Israel were God’s witnesses; they had taken that place.
JSO You would identify the Spirit with the living witness?
FER That is it.
DLH That really creates a subjective condition in the saints?
FER That is really what we have to look for.
WB And when you do not find it how do you produce it?
FER You yourself have to become the witness. Israel were the witnesses that God was the true God, one God. The Son came in as the witness of the love of God, and was the expression of His love, and now the witness of it is maintained in the church, until Christ comes again, then He takes up the witness. He is the faithful and true witness, and in the meantime the church is the witness to the Son. The church has broken down, but if you had not the church, you would have no witness whatever here of God’s love. The point is that God has come out in love now. He did not come in love to Israel, but as the one God in contrast to idols. The moment the Son of God comes, He is the witness and expression of God’s own love, and that witness is continued in the church.
JSO In spite of the external breakdown, the church is still the pillar and ground of the truth.
FER The body is here; the truth of the body runs with this chapter. Paul takes it up in his own light and connection, and John in his, but the truth of the body and what comes out here, go together. What comes out [p. 34] here is the record that God has given to the saints eternal life and that life is in His Son. The body is the witness of Christ, it is His body. Christ lives in the body, the body lives in the light of divine love because it is the body of Christ. The body is the witness, not what the body does. You get the same thing coming out here in principle, God has given to us eternal life. The Son was the witness of God’s love, and now the church is the witness because God has given to us eternal life in the Son, and on account of its place in the Son, the witness of God is livingly continued in the church.
JSO How do you view the water and the blood?
FER They witness to us. The Spirit is the truth and we witness now. “He that believes on the Son of God has the witness in himself;” 1 John 5: 10. We are become the witness, because God has given to us eternal life in the Son, just as the body is witness to Christ. “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” Acts 26: 14. The body was witness to Christ, and eternal life in the saints is the witness of God concerning the Son.
JSO It says “and the three agree in one”. 1 John 5: 8.
FER That is to one point.
WB What place do you give the scriptures in connection with the witness?
FER They tell you what the witness is.
WB You do not mean to imply, that the church is a teaching body?
FER No, but the testimony of the church has to be accepted; it is an element in the responsibility of man.
WJ There is a difference between teaching and expressing.
FER The church is taught, but the point is what the church is.
JSO It must have a testimony as well as Israel.
FER Yes, if Christ has come you must have eternal life, if there were not eternal life it would be a [p. 35] proof that He had not come; eternal life must be somewhere. The prayer in John 17 describes it in the way of unity and affection. He prays for those who should believe on Him through their word that they may be all one, etc. The saints were one in the Father and the Son. There was a unity and reciprocal affection and that was the witness to the world that the Father sent the Son.
JMcK The state of the saints must greatly affect the witness.
FER We want to come to the witness ourselves to get at the reality of eternal life. It is not that you can restore the witness, the witness is completely obscured and the only thing to be done is, individually to seek to return to the witness.
DLH That characterises the remnant.
FER Yes, you return to all the characteristics of the original, you must get at the truth of these things individually, which would result at our being knit together. Not being able to restore the thing in its completeness, is no excuse whatever for not getting back to it individually.
JSO To understand eternal life you must know the meaning of the water and the blood.
FER The Spirit is the positive side, the water and the blood are the cleansing and expiation side. The Spirit is the true relationship into which we are brought. If the witness to us is effective in us, we then become the witness to the Son. The water and the blood witness to man’s state. The Spirit is truth positive, the expression and power of the relationship established by God in Christ. Each one has to know the witness in himself and if it was known in power we would be drawn together in unity and give witness to the Son. That is what God has established in the church here. The body runs parallel with it. It is a divinely appointed witness to the Son of God. That is the testimony. In the proclamation you have all the support of the witness and the power and vitality of it. It was so in early days, when the [p. 36] church was in power, a living power according to God, in the reality of eternal life outside the world. You can understand what a support it was in the proclamation, because the reality of the love of God was with it, in the expression of it. Today the proclamation has to a very great extent to go out without it and is consequently weak. We have to get things right within.
DLH The individual servant must be a witness.
FER Yes, Paul exhorted Timothy to lay hold on eternal life to which he was called. It was essential to Timothy, and is to every one of us. You cannot get the church restored, but nevertheless God’s principles never vary and you cannot plead that a change of things here is sufficient ground for departing from divine principles.
JMcK If we cannot get the church up to it, are we not responsible to get the local meetings up to it?
FER The point is to get oneself up to it. There is nothing more powerful than example. In 2 Timothy, and Titus, Paul is an apostle according to eternal life. When the witness has failed, that is the point to be reached and is of the greatest importance. It was pressed upon Timothy to lay hold of it: In Ephesus the church has failed as a witness, but the prominent idea in Smyrna is life; life really brings you back to the proper place of the church. We have to remember that this epistle was written when the church had failed as a witness.
DLH John really wrote the last of all.
FER He speaks of many antichrists which existed even in his day; it was the last time. The great thing is to lay hold on eternal life.
JSO You do not get the structure in John, but, the moral force and effect of everything in the church.
FER John 10 helps us greatly. As Shepherd of the sheep He leads them out; then He is the door of the sheep, whereby they are saved, and go out and in and find pasture. Then He is the good Shepherd that gives His life for the sheep that they might have it abundantly: then He is the one Shepherd, and then He gives them [p. 37] eternal life. That is the witness, there is one flock and one Shepherd, which is really the heart of Paul’s doctrine.
WJ Does not the gospel in a way go with the epistle?
FER As to the application of the truth the epistle goes with the gospel. The gospel is that you may have eternal life, that is the setting forth of that which came out in Christ: the epistle is that you may be conscious that you have it. In the gospel it is what is true in the Father and in the Son; in the epistle what is true in Him and in us. John’s writings come in confirmation of Paul’s. Nothing came out in the ministry of Paul but what came out in the ministry of Christ. Paul added nothing in the way of truth. To maintain that it was so would be very serious, because the Spirit sealed a complete testimony, and nothing could be added to it. Christ did not leave anything unrevealed, all came out, but not in public testimony. John comes in late to shew that what was really descriptive of Paul came out in Christ. There was a great deal which came out in Christ which was not committed to the twelve in public testimony. I think that one would admit that the Spirit sealed a complete testimony.
HCA Has not the testimony been limited to what is said rather than to what the church is?
FER The point is, not what the church says, it is not a teaching body. The witness is what the church was in. There are only two things to be witnessed to now, the love of God and the Son. All that is for man is involved in the two.
Ques Can you witness to anything of which you are not conscious?
FER You do not witness to it, it is to be witnessed in you. Eternal life was set forth in Christ. He was the beginning of it; it is continued in the saints and it characterises the age to come. God has come out in the revelation of His nature, and eternity depends upon [p. 38] that. Eternity is filled with the love of God, and love in the Son. When God’s ways have been worked out, there is nothing but love.
JSO That is the priceless treasure that the church is loved in the Son.
FER Quite so.
WJ Are the three last verses a summary?
FER Yes, and a most striking one.
DLH In connection with the scriptures as bearing upon this subject, how do, you take this, “Search the scriptures”? John 5: 39.
FER He says “Ye search the scriptures, for ye think that in them ye have life eternal, and they it is which bear witness concerning me”. All Scripture bore witness to Christ, and until He came they had nothing but the Scripture, but now things are there in Him and continued in the present day because He has come, and now the Spirit is here as the truth; but that is all very different from what it was before.
DLH The testimony runs now in a living line.
FER It was living then in a sense. It was a prophetic testimony all the way and God maintained it. We have scripture still, but then you must not use it to displace the truth that the Son of God has come.
Ques What is the word of His grace?
FER The word of His grace was the expression of it. The activity of the Spirit of God is really to bring us to obscurity, the use of the Spirit is to enable us to detect what is wrong. The Scripture cannot put us right, it is the work of the Spirit. The Spirit uses His own way. I cannot prescribe what the Spirit shall use.
The use of ministry is to enlighten, it cannot go further. Divine teaching is not by the Scripture. No one can describe what divine teaching is.