Scripture Outlines.

From: Helps by the Way: Volume 1

John

The Gospel of John, (Continued.)

We have had then, in chapters 3 and 4, the two fundamental things in Christianity: eternal life, and the gift of the Holy Ghost. We now proceed to consider in detail, in the following chapters, the characteristics and accompaniments of this new life which God gives.

And first of all, the relation of the law to this life is taken up in chapters 5. The question is, if given by Moses, why given? Has it power to quicken, to give life? And if not, what claim has it upon the life God gives?

The scene at Bethesda is the Divine answer. There was healing virtue in the pool, no doubt; not, however, proper to the water itself. “An angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water.” Then for a moment there was power for him that stepped in first. Help was conditioned upon having strength to avail oneself of the remedy.

The law had no power in itself to heal or save. Pure law, as when it was given the first time at Sinai, promised continuance only to the righteous man who kept it. It had no provision for failure, no grace for the sinner. It said, “Do, and thou shalt live.” By sin came death, and passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. Therefore he that never sinned, could never die.

But that law, so given, found men sinners, as it finds all to this day. Its tables were broken at the foot of the mount. Its dispensation was over before it had well begun. And under it, men still know well they can no more stand than did Israel.

But the second trial was a longer one, for God, came in with goodness and long-suffering mercy. The tables came down from the mount again, and it was still, “This do, and thou shalt live.” But the angel’s hand had troubled the water now, for whereas the law could only speak of death for sin, God had revealed Himself as “forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin.”

There was now, then, a “Bethesda.”1 And as the water “troubled” by the angel, healed, so the law was to be His ministry of help for sinful men. Not law alone, or by its own efficacy, but law and grace combined; not water only, but troubled water could be this. But thus, now God could say, as He does say in Ezekiel, even of the wicked man, that “when the wicked man turneth from his wickedness and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive” (Ezek. 18:27²⁷Again, when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive. (Ezekiel 18:27)): That is, if he had strength to get into the pool he should be saved.

But where there was not this strength, what remedy? That is the very case before us. The impotent man at Bethesda explains the matter. The very disease for which he needed cure, had taken from him the power which was needed for his cure. Without strength, and without any one to help, he is the very picture of one finding out, what we all must for blessing, that he is not only ungodly, but without strength too. And Jesus does not help him into the pool, nor God help the wicked man to do what is lawful and right, and save himself. He heals by His word, and in a moment.

The antitype goes here, however, as always, beyond the type. It is not power we lack alone, but life. And the doctrine of the chapter, which is developed out of the miracle, goes on to that. The world is under death, and waiting judgment. This is the scene into which the Son of God conies as Worker, with life in Himself (verse 26), and a life-giving word for others. The dead hear His voice, and hearing, live (25). And those so quickened by Him, shall not come into judgment, for He is Himself the judge of all, and has absolute power to quicken whom He will (21). The resurrection of the body will be the full display of this power, exercised in the meantime over the souls of men (25-29).

Law could not help the dead. Conditions, however easy in themselves, would not suit impotence. In the matter of giving life, the Son of God is the only real Worker. Moses could only accuse sinners (45), but if they believed his testimony, it would shut them up to faith in Christ. For in the Divine intent, Hagar was only handmaid unto Sarah, —the law to grace. Truly convicted souls must needs find (having themselves nothing) their all in Jesus. And the Scriptures, in which they thought they had eternal life, stake of Him ever and only as the One in whom it was (39).

But if the law did not give eternal life, then, what claim, had it upon the life given by Another? Plainly, none. Therefore He says to the impotent man, “Take up thy bed and walk,” though “the same day was the sabbath” (8:9). For the walk of the one healed by grace is to be no longer measured by the lay, but by the word of the One who maketh whole. The world, too, has forfeited its sabbath-rest by sin; nor could Love rest in such a scene: “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.”

Law then has no claim upon the soul alive to God. And thus the judgment, inseparable from law, is not for it. Here once more there is contrast between the type and antitype. To the man cured at Bethesda, Jesus says, “Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee” (14); but to him that heareth His word, and believeth on Him that sent Him, Jesus says, he “hath everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment,2 but is passed from death unto life” (24).

Whither, then, does the word of Him that maketh us whole lead us? It is this that the sixth chapter now points out. First, His own path through the world, for it is His own path He gives us. Then ours, with its wilderness-trial, but its wilderness-mercies too, and the daily manna, our sustenance by the way.

First, His own path.

He it again at Galilee, the place of mercy, and He is manifesting Himself there as the Sustainer of all. Five barley loaves and two small fishes feed five thousand men. But they have no heart for Himself, no sense of the Divine goodness which has met them there. They eat of the loaves and are filled, and would fain secure the fountain from whence came such supply. “They would come and take Him by force and make Him a King,” and from such carnal homage He withdraws Himself. Full of meaning is that preliminary statement that “the Passover was nigh,” for such reception was indeed rejection; and the voices of those here ready to make Him a king, would soon be clamoring, “We have no king but Caesar.”

He retires then, “Himself alone,” leaving His disciples even, behind. And they, so left, “when even was come, went down unto the sea, and entered into a ship, and went over the sea toward Capernaum.” Difficulties ensue; night falls, and a contrary wind springs, and the sea rises. What a picture of our path through the world in the absence of Jesus! But He does not leave them long: “when they had rowed about five and twenty, or thirty furlongs, they see Jesus walking on the sea, and drawing nigh unto the ship.” What comfort for them! No, they are “afraid.” Are you afraid, believer, when you hear of the coming of Jesus You want His reassuring word, “It is I, be not afraid.” And when these heard that, “then they willingly received Him into the ship: and”— mark, — “immediately the ship was at the land whither they went.” Blessed ending of all sorrow, perfect consummation of all joy, will be for us indeed, the coming of Jesus. Our ship will be at the land. “Ever with the Lord” says all.

Thus we have our path pictured fur us in the Lord’s absence: its trials and difficulties, the course of this world contrary, our toil through it, the happy ending of it all. Now, as elsewhere in this Gospel, out of these materials is developed, with many additional things, the doctrine of the chapter; in which we see the “life” of the believer putting on its pilgrim-character, — its sorrows, its sustainment, and its joys; not without intimations —alas, — of how little known it is practically by us as it ought to be. And “they said one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was.”

The development is very beautiful. To the multitude who have followed Him to, the other side of the sea, He explains the spiritual mystery of that of which they saw only the outside form. The Son of man, —He does not say “Son of God” here, because everything in this depends on His humanity, ―the Son of man, as the one on whom the Father could set the “seal” of perfect approbation, ―God’s man, true spotless man, had meat to give them which “endured” (the meat itself endured) “unto eternal life” (27). Yes, the precious reality of the Man Christ Jesus; — food―as it is for our souls down here, ―lasts as long as the life it feeds. We labor not for the life — we have it. We do, we should labor for the meat that feeds it.

He tells us what it is: the true bread from heaven the true manna; satisfying by the way the soul of him who yet waits for his proper portion in the day of resurrection (32-40). There the pilgrim-character of our life comes out. And the Lord dwells upon it, repeating more than once that he that believes on Him both had as a present thing, eternal life, and shall have the resurrection belonging to that life.

But it is not only the Man Christ Jesus that we have in this “bread from heaven.” He gives His flesh for the life of the world. The flesh and the blood are separate: “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you; whoso eaten My flesh, and drinketh My blood hath eternal life, ant, I will raise him up at the last day” (53, 54). Sweet and yet solemn that reiterated assurance! The mystery of His death, His cross, we are thus called to enter into and near and intimate is the place this apprehension of Himself, the Crucified One, brings the soul into. “My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood ‘is drink indeed He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him.”

But it tries the soul nevertheless. A rejected, crucified but ascended Lord, bidding into participation with Himself in His rejection, teaching the lesson of death, and to wait for resurrection as the day for the reception of all one’s real portion, — is, alas, a stumbling-block to more than carnal Jews. “From that time, many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him.” So much so, that He questions even the twelve, “Will ye also go away?” Peter answers for them, what indeed keeps faith steadfast spite of all the trial of the way, — not only they had nowhere else to go, for eternal life was in Him alone, — but also that this Son of man was the Son of the living God for him. Ah yes, the lowlier the path, the darker the shadows over it, the more shines out that glory. Forsaken, rejected, crucified, — at each step downward in the path of that humiliation, brighter that glory shines; “glory, as of the Only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Yet, amid the number of this chosen twelve, there was one who was “a devil.”

I thank Thee, O my gracious God,

For all Thy love to me,

As deep, as high, at long, as broad

As Thine eternity.

And when I far from Thee did rove

In paths of sin and shame,

‘Twas then thou call’d’st in Thy love,

And gav’st me to the Lamb.

Oh! happy day! when yawn by love

To Thee, my Saviour God,

My guilty conscience came to prove