(John 17)
MAN'S history was all but closed. The first man, Adam, had been tried with perfect divine patience. There was not a process that could be applied to the heart but what God had used. But even before new trials began, it was all too late. There might be millions on millions of men; there might be trial upon trial, but the material to be tried was altogether evil before God. And it is remarkable, too, how far the earliest statements as to the state of man go, lest, perhaps, the thought, the evil thought, might have entered the evil heart of man, that God knew not the end from the beginning. God shows from the very first that it was all perfectly out before His mind. In fact, before the grand platform for the dealings of God with man was laid, before man was under the direct government of God in every possible manner, his sentence was pronounced. Read the account in Genesis before the flood. God there tells us that every imagination, every purpose and desire of the heart of man, was only evil continually. The deluge did not mend it. Nay, so thoroughly evil was it, that, even after that manifestation of judgment, God could only repeat it. Accordingly we find, after the deluge, that it was not God's thought so to deal with man again, because every “imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth.” (Gen. 8:2121And the Lord smelled a sweet savor; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. (Genesis 8:21).) And yet this was before the chief, detailed development of the moral history of man under law.
But now the end of it all was at hand. Another man appears—the second man. The second man! Where were all others? There had been but one morally; one miserable, self-exalting, rebellious, dying man, no matter what might be the different measures of God's dealings with him. It was only Adam, and Adam showing out what man was, let him be tried ever so, and by whatsoever advantages surrounded.
But now the Lord Jesus comes. And if He was “the second man” looking back, He was “the last Adam” looking forward. If He was the One that excluded all others between Himself and him who was the parent, through Satan's guile and power, of all the mischief that had come into the world, He was the One now that satisfied every thought of God's heart. He was the man whose own heart God could delight in. He, too, had been tried: in what, indeed, had He not been? He Himself had been found upon this earth. The Son of God and appointed heir of all things, divine glory belonged to Him by right. But how did He walk here? The dependent, obedient One, He was ever ready to surrender all, and He did surrender all. His life was but the expression of One who never sought His own glory, but only God's.
And now this blessed One, anticipating the hour and scene, with which none other can compare, when that history would be forever closed, as far as concerns dealing in the way of trial with man—Jesus looks up to heaven. It was a hopeless scene: man was altogether a ruin. Most evidently the earth was gone. Not even Jesus, true God as He is, could act upon that foul heart of man, save to draw out its foulness more manifestly. For when God came with all goodness and lowliness to meet man in all his wretchedness, what did it but extort still more the horrible evil of the human heart? And now, anticipating that cross where all that is of the creature meets its doom to faith, His eyes are turned to heaven. It was no longer a question of the earth. The world's fate was decided; man is utterly dead before God. But the second man, the last Adam, is about to take a new place. He returns to that heaven from whence, as the Son of God, He came down, and He returns a man—He carries (wondrous truth!) human nature up into heaven. But in what a different condition that very humanity, which, through the malice and power of the enemy, had dishonored God as He never had been dishonored before! For what was all else compared to the shame and degradation heaped upon God by those on whom He had spent His love so lavishly?
Well, the Lord Jesus returns to heaven a man, carrying up human nature to the throne of God. But He returns not till He has finished the work which was given Him to do. He returns not till God is as much glorified about sin in His death, as He was already by holy service and subjection in His life, and He would not return there till He could lay down upon the throne of God that which would morally magnify God Himself; yes, if I may reverently say it, that which would put Him under an obligation to Him, the man Christ Jesus, and thus a new way be opened into that very heaven, for those who had outraged God even in the person of that blessed One Himself.
What a joy that there is such a man for me in heaven—that “second man” at God's right hand! What a comfort that He is the “last Adam!” God looks for nothing further, as if anything beyond could be needed as a title after His presence there! He is the last Adam. The question of divine righteousness is answered, just as truly as that of man's sin was closed in principle before God. There might be other men following the track of Adam, showing the same sinful nature and ways. But it is well now to know that Christ is not only the second man, but also the last Adam.
And now let us listen to what this blessed One says—and, indeed, He does say it for us! How sweet to hear what He feels about us to His Father, where there was nothing, so to speak, that could be a bar upon one thought of His heart, where there was the most entire communion between Himself and His Father—He whose heart beat in perfect unison with His! And we are allowed to listen. He “lifted up His eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee.”
Mark the bent of His mind even there. If He asks for glory, what was the object? What was still the desire of His heart? “That thy Son also may glorify thee.” Never such a thought as that the glory should terminate even with Him the Son. It was not enough that He had glorified the Father on the earth. Nor was it enough for the Father that He should show His sense of it by glorifying Him in the heavens. “Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee.”
“As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given Him.” It was no question now of anything that had to do with the world that passeth away and its delusive glory. It was no question of what was connected with man or with Jewish hopes. All that died in His death. And now, if He had been denied His glory, if the assertion of the truth of His person was about to be the shameless ground of His rejection, if His own people Israel were those who would take the leading part in His cross, what is the result? The earthly kingdom crumbled that a better, larger, deeper, brighter glory might break into view. “As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given Him.” There I find the universal dominion of Christ over all flesh. And within that universality that now comes out of His death, who was born and rejected as the King of the comparatively small land of Israel, is the blessed thought, deeper than any kingdom, “that He should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given Him.” But would they have to wait for this life? and in what did it consist? In some magnificent display of glory by and by? No; that would be in its time. But “this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” It was no longer Jehovah God who was dealing with men, with Israel, with a nation. All that had been, and it could only end (so evil is man!) in the crucifixion of the blessed One, if He came on earth to glorify God and bear witness of the truth.
But now, behind all, we find, out of the clouds and darkness that surround His cross, this eternal blessed truth shining forth—Eternal life in the knowledge of the only true God and of Jesus Christ whom He had sent. Paganism and Judaism hide and vanish away.
Nor is this all. He does speak of His own person, but He tells us more. “I have glorified thee on the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” For what had He wrought? For whom had He lived? Was it to become what He was? Assuredly He was the Son from everlasting, the delight of His Father's heart, before and in the heavens or the earth. Why, then, need He do this work, and what was the end of it? It was in the Father's heart to have fellows for Christ, sons by, and in, and around Christ the Son. It was in the heart of the Son that the heart of the Father should be satisfied—that He should have sons and have such as had known what sin and the power of Satan are—such as had been under the most miserable consequences of distance, and darkness, and death. Among these was the blessed work done; for such Jesus came. There may be some poor soul that reads, still in this condition. Do you think yourself too bad for God? Whoever you may be, who have such a thought, I would ask, Why do you think so? It is because you do not know your badness enough. There is none too bad for God. For He is not blessing because of anything in you. Nay, you blot out all the history of God's past ways with man, if you are looking for any reason in yourself why He should bless you. Is it possible God's dealings have been all in vain for you? Have you not read for yourself how your own nature has been fully tested in the person of others, as no one man could have the advantage of every conceivable trial? Why refuse through unbelief the profit of the lesson? It is unbelief to look for anything acceptable to God in the first man, Adam. But what think you of the second man, the last Adam? Do you ask what He is for you? How can you get near that blessed One? Is not He in heaven, and you an unholy, wretched soul finding your pleasure on earth and in the things that are contrary to God? What can there be for you in such a blessed One as He is? Everything. It was for sinners that He came. It was for the lost that He wrought His work. No doubt it was for God. It was the work His Father had given Him to do. But it was that God might have ever-during joy, and indulge all His own love in bringing such as you out of all your badness, and in giving you all the goodness that is in Him. Think you that He is too high for you? No, He speaks to the Father, but He also speaks to sinners, aye, to the worst. He speaks here because all is silent as the grave as to man. Why should not you have done with yourself? Why not believe what God says about Him, and about yourself too, instead of giving Him the pain, so to speak, of proving over and over that you are good for nothing? He calls upon me to believe that I am thoroughly bad. I ought not to need the constant proof of it again and again. How do I show that I have come to the bottom of myself? That I receive Him, that I believe in His name. I may not have put my hand to murder or stealing. I need not prove what I am by doing all these things; but this is what I am. Not merely what I do, but what I am, is the point. God looks at the sin-convicted man and, as it were, says, he is good for no one else—he is just the one for my Son.
Do you believe this is true? That Jesus came, and died, and rose, that God might be able thus to love the worst of sinners? This He was about to vindicate upon the cross. Himself, He was perfectly holy; absolutely without sin always. God tells us so. He was “tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin” —not merely without sins, but “apart from sin.” None but the open enemy of God and man would dare to say that He had sins. But there might; be the wicked thought that some taint of sin touched Him, because He took human nature upon Him. But He, even as concerned His human nature, being conceived by the Holy Ghost, (that “holy thing which shall be born of thee,” &c.,) was called the Son of God, and was as morally perfect here below on earth as when He returns again in glory. God uses the same expression about both; for we have in Heb. 9,” He shall appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” The same word is used in speaking of Him when He comes the second time as when He, the first time, was here below, tempted as we are. There was another moment when it could not be said that He was apart from sin, when God Himself made Him to be sin—when He who did not know sin was made “sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” So here He says, “I have glorified thee on the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” He looks through the death that was before Him, the cross and all that hung thereon, and that solemn question that could be settled nowhere else, that must be settled if He was to have a companion with Himself in glory, and if God was righteously to have His own joy; for there was but one way of doing it. Would Jesus bear the sins in His own body on the tree? Would He endure the wrath, the judgment of One who could not tolerate sin, even in His own Son? It is done—blessed be God!—done forever.
But again, “I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world.” None could send such an One but God the Father. None could conceive such an errand but He who was “the only true God.” Surely, God might have graciously taken men out of the world, but it was to be as gathered by the Son into the presence of the Father. Accordingly, “thine they were, and thou gavest them me.” And He in virtue of what He is, and of the work of which He anticipates the fulfillment here below, says, “I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world.” This was the thought of God. He would suffer for all the evil that was offensive to His nature, that would not suit His presence. For now it was not to be man blessed on earth, but a man in heaven, and there after having acquired a title to have those, once guilty, wretched sinners in perfect blessedness with Himself in the Father's presence. Mark, too, how He owns whatever is of the Spirit of God in His people—how He estimates their faith! He puts the very best construction upon the feeblest feeling of their heart towards Himself. He says of them, “They have kept thy word.” Could they have said this about themselves? Jesus only would have said it. “Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.” How little had they known it! It was the reckoning of divine love! “For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me.” That which revealed Himself, which the Father had given to the Son. “And they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.” And now He prays for them: not for anything that had been promised of old—that all disappears. Not for anything that had been the scene of God's ancient dealings to meet the earthly people: it was quite another; a heavenly one is revealed before the days of heaven dawn upon the earth. It was His Father's house into which He was about to usher them—to give their hearts a place there—to bind them there with Himself. They were to be on the earth, but it was to be as those whose only home was now where Jesus has His home. So He prays for them, as men who, by His own act, and by His going away, were made strangers in the world. “I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me, for they are thine.” Mark the skilfulness of Him who pleads our cause with the Father. He prays in the certainty of His love—claiming His love. Was it not the Father that had given them to Him? Would He not love them and take care of them? He was going away Himself; they would be desolate, the objects of Satan's malice and wiles, and of the world's scorn. And was that a little thing in the eye of the Father who had given them to Him? He was leaving them, but would the Father forget them? Would the Father leave them? He could not” They are thine.” How blessed! The Father's they were; the Father, therefore, must love them. But they were His too, the Son's; they were given to Him. They were bound up with His glory. Was this a little thing to the Father? “And all mine are thine, and thine are mine, and I am glorified in them.”
“And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee.” I have been here, He says, to take care of them. I am leaving them; I come to Thee through a sea of sorrow and blood, and these are in the world. Was this, too, a little thing? That He should be thus going up to His Father and leaving His poor ones in a world of danger and of difficulty? Oh! who could plead our cause as the Son thus with the Father? “Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are.” How could this be? “That they may be one,” &c. How could oneness like this be given to such? We know what man is, and what even saints are, a little, if we know ourselves at all. How could there be this oneness as the Father and the Son are one? It was by the Holy Ghost. He, sent down from heaven, alone could make them one. And He, as a divine person. gives absolute unity to those that otherwise were but units—to those that otherwise were separate and mutually repellent, save in the instincts of the new nature. But the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, crowning that work which Jesus accomplished on the cross, would show His sense of its value. Had they not been, by Him and His cross, met in all their miserable ways? Had they not been each going his own way, but all the downward road of death and hell? Had they not been pursuing their own selfishness, and yet had not God's grace proved itself above it all? And now He would unite them in a bond that never can be broken for an instant— “that they may be one as we are.” I believe that by this is meant that unity which the Holy Ghost would produce, that is, entirely independent of all circumstances.
But along with this unity of the Spirit, still they were in the world. The world was to be the scene where they would thus be made one by the Holy Ghost, and it would need all the Father's care and name to keep them. But it is the Son pleading with the Father. “While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name; those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition.” Had He failed them in His care? Had He not been able to keep that miserable man? Was it any question of His failing? Not for a moment. If it was the fulfillment of Scripture that the Father might have His joy in the full and heavenly blessing of His own children, it was the fulfillment of Scripture that the apostate man should prove what he was. It was no failure on Christ's part, but “that the Scripture should be fulfilled.” It was not that God made that miserable man to be what he was; He never made any man bad; He made men, not sinners. He might send him that which would prove his sin; as He did under the law. But Judas, going on in sin so near to Christ and against Him, becomes a son of perdition. And this is what all men would be but for the grace of God. Lest, however, there should be the semblance that Jesus had failed, Scripture takes express care to the contrary. Were the others to fear lest they should be lost too? The very same Scripture that proved he was to be lost, proved that they would he kept. The Father would keep them. Would the Father fail the Son? The Son had never failed Him, and now it was the Father's business, so to speak, to put honor upon Him to whom He owed the display and maintenance of His will and glory against everything that contributed to give a false thought of God and make Him appear other than He was.
There had been glimpses from time to time, but what were they? They passed away, and the darkness reigned only the more dismally. But now and here was One who came to manifest God—who did win God His vindication. And who could do this but the Son, He who came from the bosom of the Father? But now He was about to return to the Father. And were they to be left to themselves? No. The Father that had been so manifested, would He not answer the trust that the Son had reposed in Him? “And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil.” Could the heart even of a saint have thought of such a thing without the deepest presumption if the Son of God had not been here? Could they dare to say, We are not of the world, even as He is not of the world? Yet this is what He says of them. He is the measure and source of it, the only way whereby it could be realized. And the Son says openly, in order that we may know and rejoice in it, and that we may boldly take that place, “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” But were they not in an evil world, and in the midst of influences tending to draw them down to the world? And what then was to be the Father's way of keeping them from the evil of it? “Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth.” And how was it that the word of the Father would sanctify them? “And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.” “I sanctify myself!” Was there anything then in Him that needed correction? Anything within that He required to be apart from? Never. Was it merely that He was about to become a sacrifice for them, (though perhaps I should not say merely of that which was the foundation of all the blessedness of which this chapter speaks.) Nay, it is this: He was about to retire from the scene of His lower glory, that had been despised and refused. He was about to take His separate place as the heavenly Nazarite above.
And it was for their sakes. “For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth” —through the revelation of truth, the truth in Him. I could not do without Him anywhere. I need Him above all on the cross. For even if He had been here for all eternity, still there were my sins. No nearness of Jesus—no love—nothing that He could say, or do otherwise, could take away sin or sins. It was too deep and infinite a question save only to Him. But He who was Himself the Son, the One who knew no sin—He has settled it forever. He has put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
But He does not speak of atonement here. He is all through looking onward to the place He was about to take in heaven. “For their sakes I sanctify myself,” (or set myself apart). Do I not need Him there? Shall I be sanctified through the truth unless my soul apprehends the place He has taken there? He is nearer me there than anywhere. No doubt He takes my sins upon the cross. But I want not only that He should be near me in His love, coming down to me in my need, I want Him to take me out of that place of misery, and to have me in His own place. Not yet taken out of the world, but as near Him—as closely bound up with Him there, as if we were there already. He takes the place which God was waiting for—the place of the second man—the last Adam. It is the place where He becomes the object of our heart now, on the ground of sin being completely put away, and God being satisfied, not only about Him, but about me in Him. It is God's satisfaction in that blessed One for me that I find now that He is in heaven. I find what God intends for me by looking at Christ Himself in heaven. He is for me on the cross, but I am not one with Him there. But here I find that He becomes the object of my soul, that I may delight in as my portion and model before God. “For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified through the truth,” through the revelation that the Father makes of the blessed One.
But that is not all. There were others to be brought in—persons that had not been witnesses of His love upon earth. They were not forgotten; we were not forgotten. “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word.” He anticipates the work extending, souls brought in, the most diverse throughout the world. But it was not merely that these chosen objects were to have that blessed privilege—were to be one as He had said before. Now He speaks of their oneness in another point of view. He was going to make a witness of it in the world, and He prays that they all might be one—no matter who—Gentiles in due time. Had not God then separated the Jews from the Gentiles? Undoubtedly He had. How then came it that they all were to be one—all that believed in Him through their word? The reason was this. It was no longer God dealing according to what had been promised on the earth. It was a new thing—a man in heaven. And where had that been spoken of or promised? And not merely so, but, that blessed One from heaven being our object and portion while we are upon the earth, along with this the old partition wall between Jew and Gentile falls. “That they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” It was to be a testimony to the world. It might, perhaps, be a transient testimony—a bright vision that would soon pass away in the hands even of saints. For how soon did the scene change! How soon would the world find its reason for unbelief in the very thing that was to have been the demonstration that the Father had sent the Son!
Why should saints be separate? Why not be one? Of old so it was. But if there was to be the sad failure of man and even of saints here, there is another thing that will not fail: “The glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one.” Now I find that there is a new oneness— that there is a blessing where no failure can come in and mar its brightness: that it is not merely the testimony of grace in this poor world, but there is glory—that glory which the Father gave the Son—that glory for which we wait on earth. “The glory which thou gavest me I have given them;” and it will be manifest in its own time, and then it will be seen that they are one, even as the Father and the Son are one. “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect, in one.” And what is the effect then? “That the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me.” Oh! what a joy to think that Christ will have this perfect scene according to all His heart. There has been the putting our hearts to the proof meanwhile, but He lets out to us, that the time was coming when He would have all His heart, not only in having us individually with Himself, but made perfect in one. And then the world will not be called upon to believe, but they will know it.
The knowledge of Jehovah's glory, too, will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. It is the same time, when it will be impossible to gainsay the evidence of the glory. They will see the blessed One in glory, and “when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory.” Oh! what a joy! And men, the world, will look up and wonder. How came such poor ones there? Known upon earth, if known at all, as unknown ones; the world not accrediting them because it knew Him not. How blessed to have His portion here! But by and by known in the very same glory as the Lord Jesus, the Son of God! And in them, manifested as one, the world shall know that the Father sent the Son, and loved them as He loved Him. For what a proof of it! How came they to be in such glory as that? They were not angels, they were men. And how came men to be in this glory with the Son of God? It was because the Son had been here, and had done His perfect work, and here was the fruit of it. Here they were, these poor and despised ones in the very same glory as the Son of God. And how then shall the world not know in that day that the Father sent the Son? It is not in glory as the Messiah that they see Him, smiting and crushing His enemies, but it is the Son; and the world shall know that the Father sent the Son, and yet more, “and hast loved them as thou hast loved me.”
And when does that love reign? Have we to wait for it in the glory? It is ours now as surely as ever it will be. If it is not ours upon the earth, it will never be ours for heaven. I must have it here, if I am to have it anywhere. It is here that I must have the love of the Father—the very same love with which He loved Christ. It is no question of what man is now. The Second man is everything.
Nor is this all. It is not now that our Lord prays merely; there is desire—an inner, deeper thing beyond what He asked or prayed for them. It was the expression of all His heart's will about them. “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am.” What an expression of a heart that loved them perfectly! Well He knew where the Father would have Himself, the Son, to whom He owed everything as regarded the vindication of His own character. Jesus uses it all for them. But there is more: “that they may behold my glory.” How blessed, again, is this, that Jesus counts upon the delight of our hearts in beholding His glory! To think that He should reckon thus about us! When we consider what we are, how apt to be selfish and cold, and yet that He counts upon this—our joy in beholding This glory! He reserves the best wine to the last. We shall be with Him where He is. No stranger eye will be there; none to intermeddle with that joy; none but those whom He has loved, and who, He knew, loved Him. It would be enough for them to be there, and thus to see His glory. “That they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me; for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.”
And if the world did enter for a moment, how terrible to think of its sentence! There is no scene of judgment, no threat pronounced of what God must execute. But it was all decided now. “O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee.” The Lord leaves the world entirely to the righteous Father. He was not even about to speak of what that world had done against Himself. All was said in saying that they had not known the Father.
How blessed it is to find that the same chapter that shows how He estimates our feeblest feeling about Himself, meets us on the simplest, surest ground possible Does He here say, in speaking' of His own in contrast with the world, that they had been true to Him? No; “But I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.” How blessed to find, after all the heights of this chapter, and of such communications as those of Jesus which He here tells out to the Father, that He so comes down. “These have known that thou hast sent me.” It is so that He speaks, that our hearts, instead of being lost in comparing what He says of us with what we are, should know that He comes down to the very least perception the Christian has of what He is. “These have known that thou hast sent me.” The first thing for my soul that has turned to God is the last thing that abides, passing out of all the scene of death and darkness, and recognizing the love that sent Jesus down, and given me Him outside myself.
“And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it; that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them.” When in heaven, as now, He would declare that Father's name to them as He had upon earth, and this, that they might know themselves objects of the same love as Himself, yea, that they might know Himself in them, their life. May our blessed God grant that every word that our Savior has thus spoken may be graven upon our heart! May we delight that these should be His thoughts about us! They are the true means and motives of heavenly practice. It is not insisting on what we must do or be, that gives power to us. That which alone fits for doing anything according to the heart of Christ, is that our hearts dwell in Him and His fullness of love with the Father. These are the thoughts that the Son utters to the Father and that the Father reciprocates with the Son, in order that such as we may know, and enjoy, and live in them, and know Christ in us, their source and power, even in this world.