John 13:36, 38; 14:1, 1136Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards. (John 13:36)
38Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied me thrice. (John 13:38)
1Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. (John 14:1)
11Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake. (John 14:11)
It is well to remember, and to have fresh upon the mind continually, that our God has said that His thoughts are not our thoughts, nor our ways His ways. It is important, not only because it prepares the soul to receive what His may present to it, but because it enables the soul greatly also to put aside all its own reasoning. I come into the presence of the living God with the full conviction upon my soul, for He has settled and announced, that His thoughts are not my thoughts, nor my ways His ways. Individually I am prepared, so to speak, to receive from Him whatever He may present, on the other hand to set aside all the difficulties and reasonings that may spring up out of this mind which He says is not like His mind.
If I look at the question of what it is, which through grace, He says, brings the sinner into the place of being able to say “My God,” if I think of the truth connected with that, I see an instance of this. That in which I was ruined is brought to light. Man by nature is never prepared for the cross of Christ, never prepared for the truth of God. “We are children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” Man is antagonistic to thoughts in which God is first; he refuses to believe that God is a Reconciler. When He comes to show that pre-eminence He has in having been first, it comes out in a way which sets man in utter defiance. “For he hath made him sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” Man is lost sight of there.
There is another point in which I see this more strongly still, not in the position of a son being secured to me, but in the giving of privilege consequent on it.
“Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father,” (Gal. 4:66And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. (Galatians 4:6).) To my mind this is a great deal more difficult for the mind of man in anywise to get hold of simply and fully. There is no such difficulty in forgiveness. One can understand a creature going to God, and His providing something on which ground He could receive a sinner. The mind can understand it in measure. I may kick against it vigorously, for it puts one right into the dust. God has chosen, according to His character, according to His own ways, to do the things.
If I take the second thing, it is, “He has sent forth the Spirit of his Son” into the hearts of those who, He tells me, are sons. In the preceding chapter it is “Jesus Christ evidently set forth crucified.” Hence, it is “He hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” Well now what is this? What am I to understand by it? When I come to look at the subject, I find I have to be taught the A, B, C, by God, and to be simply a receiver, upon the plain ground that it is the Son of God communicating His secret thoughts.
The only begotten Son of the Father! What kind of a relationship is His? All my thoughts of a father and a son are, so to speak, set aside. I understand “like as a father pitieth his children, so Jehovah pitieth them that fear him;” I understand this as I stoop down to my child. But here is the only-begotten Son. I cannot talk of Him being inferior in that relationship—One toward whom the relationship named would be expressed as it is in the relationship of a father toward his babe down here. I see I am brought into the relationship in which I am to call His Abba my Abba, and the very abode which by right and title belongs to Him is the very place, to which He is guiding me, and to which I shall shortly be brought, Adam and Eve could not understand it. The Father set forth His Son as the One in whom was all His delight, the One who was the perfect expression of everything in which His heart could rejoice, John shows me this. I see this in it: sonship, the only-begotten Son, the perfect expression of the Father, and I see that God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into my heart. I am to call His Father Abba. It is entirely new ground. It is not creature ground. It is ground I could not be set upon if He could not quicken me with the eternal life which He had with the Father before the world was.
It is very important to note it as one of the grand failures of believers now; we constantly begin with items connected with privileges, items that touch ourselves. When scripture presents privilege, it presents it in Himself, all perfect, and the work wrought out in Him in every way, and the relationship which He had with the Father, before the world was. We are in the relationship. This involves all the rest, and the burden and weight of all hangs on Himself.
Now in the Gospel of John, chapter 13, He just sets Himself as recognizing that the door had closed on Israel. He sets Himself with His disciples, the doors being shut. He knew that His hour was come. In love He is content to gird Himself. The great point brought out there is the consciousness which He had of being the object of the counsels of the Father. He knew all things were given into His hand. “Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hand, and that he was come from God, and went to God, he riseth from supper and laid aside his garments, and took a towel, and girded himself.” Perfect, every action!
No one could have taken His life away. He came forth from God, and He went to God. He deliberately set Himself to bring out truth connected with this doctrine, as the outflow of what was in His own mind.
First of all is the cleansing; then the coming out of a traitor present, which He knew. But there was no check in the glow of His thoughts, or of His love, in the purpose of His heart. There was weakness too on the part of the disciples. John was easily influenced, though he lay in the bosom of Jesus. Peter was uncommonly full of himself, full of thoughts of his competency to stand on Jewish ground.
The Lord brings out a little picture of all that was in man, as known to Himself, when He was about to bring out these thoughts of the Father's love, when He was about to show the relationships of sons with Abba. It comes out the more touchingly because He pronounces the most complete sentence on Peter—a good man, but full of what he meant to do. The Lord puts it all entirely aside. “Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake?” the Lord says to him. No wonder! He was offering Himself, He was not only ready to wash their feet. He had spoken of what He was about to suffer. “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him.” (Ver. 31.) He had that upon His soul at the time, and Peter puts in, “Well, I am the man that will lay down my life for you;” He cannot but express incredulity, ignoring all. “Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, the cock shall not crow till thou hast denied me thrice.”
Then, instantly, the Lord Jesus goes on, “Let not your hearts be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.” What He had in His bosom at that time with regard to Peter, John, and the rest, could not be repressed. It was filled with the love the Father bore to those poor disciples, love that could not be taken aback and could not be stopped. Could the flow of what was in His mind be stopped by the rude impediment of a man saying, “I will lay down my life for you?” The man did not know what he was about, the Lord understood it all. Not a bit of light have you there, Peter: all you can do is to deny me. “Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now.” As to Peter, and those thoughts of Christ, the state of his soul could not take Christ's thoughts in. He did not like anything of the sort. The Lord goes on “Let not your heart be troubled.” Everything is failing here, and the kingdom is going;
Israel is denying. I have taken you up on another ground altogether. You are associated in my heart with the Father; and this is the ground on which I am acting.
I may just remark here what to my own soul is somewhat peculiar. I find all the thoughts of the heart of the only-begotten Son of the Father toward this. He was going to give' them the stamp of sonship. His heart was flowing towards them. And He could pass on to that which was included in the love. He could show them that, if we are loved by the Father as sons, we are to be in the house of the Father. Which of those two things is greater? Surely the first. If I can say that the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ is my Father, what can I want more? The gyves and the fetters of Egypt may be scarcely off my hands, I weary and footsore, going through the land; but the assurance of Abba's love will keep my soul above all circumstances of the way. We shall get into our true state when we get into the Father's house. If we could be there without the love of the Father beaming out upon us, it would be nothing. It would be nothing to be there as any chosen gem out of Israel, to see what the peculiarity of the Father's love would be, and not to have that love resting upon us. It is my Father's house. I shall come again, Peter. You will swear you do not know Me. I shall come again, and pick you up in the power of that love which will last, not only through your lifetime, but through all the dispensations in all its greatness.
I want to show you the sort of love that was in His heart. Now what was He about to do? If He had listened to them, to Peter, He would have taken another line. No! He had got His clue from fellowship with the Father's love and counsels. He knew what He was about. He saw the whole way from the beginning to the end. He knew all things that should come upon Him. To Peter He makes known here that he would curse and swear he did not know the Lord. When He comes back, He receives him and all to Himself. Such is the One who had the whole thing before His mind, and from whom we have to learn about this sonship, and how the Spirit works in us, crying, Abba, Father, the Spirit of the Son of God, by whom we call Him Abb.
The Lord soon goes on to the doctrine in the second and third verses. “In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you... I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.” Man is failing: everything has failed in man. Christ does not fail. And He has a place given Him.' Nor will He fail us in the least. However long it will be before, He will certainly come and bring us home at the appointed time.
There was something much dearer to His heart, one of the first lessons He had to teach them. We do not sufficiently rest upon the grand truth which is presented here of God, that He who thus came into the world is the revealer of the Father. “Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.” He was here in a simple quiet way, leading them upon the ground that made them confess their ignorance, and gave Him the opportunity of teaching them. “Thomas saith unto Him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also, and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.” The first thing that strikes me is this; His conduct here is just the illustration of His fellowship with the Father, and His competency of apprehending the Father's mind. He knew the Father. Talking to the poor woman at the well of Sychar, He could bring that home to her heart. He stops here, and turns round and back to that which would oblige them to express their ignorance. “Lord, we know not whither thou art going, and how can we know the way?” He just gave His own self as the answer, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me. From henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.” I believe, to our own shame, we very often read that down and think very little about Him. It is not here as in Peter, “Born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God that liveth and abideth forever.” It was what was directly addressed to them. “Ye who have followed me, who know the sort of person I am, who have seen my ways, who have heard my voice, who have witnessed my character: now everything I want to search you about the Father is presented in me.” It is like a child learning the character of the father perhaps in the little things of the nursery or the schoolroom, and showing the knowledge it has got. Let a mother not restrain a child, the child learns those ways. Let a father in the fear of God wisely restrain his child, and show love: when it is put into other circumstances, it has got its heart formed its affections trained, and, if you brought before it something of a different character, the child would not admit it. On the ground it knew circumstances? No! that is not my father. You brought me a lawyer's letter—no, that is not my father. I know my father well. Very severe he is at times, but full of patience. But I know that is not my father.
Now the Lord had been with them in all the Jewish circumstances. He had been with them at Jerusalem. They had seen His character, His ways. “I want to bring my father before you,” He is saying. Now do you know me? Oh! I do believe that the children of God at the present time have a little word to look at there in connection with themselves, whether or not they have taken the character presented by the blessed Lord, that flowed forth from Him; as He said He was the way, and the truth, and the life, as the true expression of the Father. “If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also, and from henceforth ye know him and have seen him.” Perfect self-possession on the part of the Lord! What a complete purpose of His heart to vindicate the Father's marvelous grace in presenting in such a way a man as the expression of Himself!
He had sent that One to manifest Himself to them. Teaching enough there, if their hearts had been open to receive it! Whenever we come to know Abba, we are to read Him. We are to think of Him as Himself the revelation of His Father. They had seen Him, the perfect Son of the Father, walking among them, caring for them, keeping this ever before His mind—the revealing of the Father to their hearts. But they did not understand, and they gave Him another occasion for instruction. “Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth in me He doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me, or else believe me for the very works' sake.” I should suppose the “works” here are not what people take them for, but rather His whole bearing at the present time. “Whatever you see me do, that is of the Father.” What knowledge have you of me? “I am the way.” He showed it at the time of His own humiliation. He came upon the ground on which Israel was to show the fullness of the perfection that was in Him. He even turned to wipe the tear from the widow. He turned to feed the multitude. He ever kept His eye on the glory of God.
What has been the revelation to us in connection with the Father, and what followed afterward on the revelation of that blessed Son of God's love in His ways to Ηis disciples in respect of this? The whole question of sin has been settled by Him who knew no sin; and “because we are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father.” Has this led you into the Father's heart? Has it led you into the truth of what it is to be a son of His by adoption? “In my Father's house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you.” The blessed Son gone there is just the One through whom that truth is told out, still of all that love of Abba, of all this purpose of Abba. God shows us Him in the very highest glory, and tells us that our place is there with Him.
Now is there in your souls that love, the consciousness of that character of love, that is presented in the Lord Jesus Christ? I do believe it is an important thing to keep separate the fruits of the relationship and the security of the relationship. Am I a son? “Children of God by Christ Jesus.” What is the grand token of sonship now? Why that the only begotten Son is upon the throne—is there as man, the rock that was smitten; and because we are sons, God hath sent forth His Spirit into our hearts crying Abba, Father. If there were not a second believer in the world, but I have the Spirit of the Son of God, I am as much a son as if I were in the Father's house. And how is the love of Abba set upon me? In His Christ. I may walk carelessly and get into sorrow because of it, but the relationship never varies, and it is a relationship established by the presence of that blessed One upon the throne of God. He is gathering many sons unto glory, and I am a son, individually. Well, how is my heart?” How far does that fullness, that circle of love which goes forth because of the Father's delight in that only-begotten Son, engross my heart? I am a son of God, and I have nothing to do with any world, or any place that does not know these sons of God. Has He put me into the place of being a son, a son adopted, one who knows the certainty by the Spirit indwelling, knows Abba by the light that shone upon the Son here in humiliation, by His having given me the Spirit of adoption? Can I, beloved friends, take a place before you and say, if you look at my life nearly enough, you will see I am carrying out that Ρ Can you say, “Well, I know I am a son, and I have taken that place distinctly; if you know me well enough, you will know that I am practically a son?”
Brethren and sisters in the Lord, I ask you individually, do you take that place? You will find it will not do to have any neutral ground. You cannot stand upon earth and water. You must have this very ground, clear and defined—that you know you are, and that you are practically, sons of God. All the tide flowing in will wash away what is not thus secured by the Lord Jesus Christ. Can you say, “There was a Son down here, personally a Son: I am here to carry out His mind?” You will find that it cuts off a thousand things that you would do comfortably if you were only trying to be a good man here on earth, when you try to carry out His mind. He knew what He was about. He had no mind but that of a son of God down here.
Independently of Him, we could not say to His Father what He could say directly to His Father. It is made good to us in Himself. He is Son of God, heir of God. We are sons of God, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ. It comes in thus—the place connected with the privilege. It is exceedingly important to bring in the place, for it detects the character of what we are carrying with us as we go along. What burden am I carrying with me now if Is it anything that will amalgamate with the in-heritance? Anything that will be a pleasant retrospect from the glory? Shall I look back and say, “Well, there I was, toiling and laboring. It was what came upon Him, the same in character. I did suffer with Him, and now I am reigning here. How pleasant it looks from the Father's house!” Or will it be this rather, “But, indeed, He did drag me up through the dying embers, like Lot in Sodom, and thus is my whole course all gone, practically wasted. It vexed me as I went along. I am positively angry when I think about myself.”
Today you have been acting as a son or a daughter, or you have not. You have been carrying out that mind that was in Christ Jesus, or you have not. He had objects that He loved. His heart brooded over those poor objects He had taken up. His heart was bearing in gentle patience all their stupidity; yet there was not a single thing in connection with the course of the Lord that was not of the Father. No one could put a finger on anything in that course, and say, “there was a bit of worldliness.”
Now it is a time of great profession, and therefore for complete separation. If you get back to the Gospels, it was a time when all was going to the sieve. Scribes and Pharisees and Herodians were there; one spiritual mind in the scene, that One was the touchstone of everything in that time. The separation took place: other ground was found for placing what He counted dear upon. What do you think of the present hour? Much more will a spiritual mind feel at such a moment that the crisis has come, and that there is no longer any time for shilly-shallying. Every principle is called into question at the present time. All the influences of the world are active. The power of Satan is at work, driving the vortex round; and people not knowing where they are drifting to.
“I am a son of God, I have the Father's heart open to me. The one thing on which the Son knows my mind is set is carrying out His mind down here.” “Well,” He says, “they will feel my mind some way or other,” “Smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered, and I will turn my hand upon the little ones.” (Zech. 13:77Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones. (Zechariah 13:7).) Whatever the state of things, the Father's hand will be turned upon the little ones. They must walk now in the comfort of it, if they are to find it in that day. Are you a son of God? Does He look down upon you with the affections of that; heart beaming upon you as a son? Yes, blessed be God! All your steps down here are the marks of your feet as you go along through this scene here below: are they the stoppings of the Father's children?
The relationship is all secured. It is not a question of whether I shall get into the Father's house, it is not a question of whether He will bring me there, conduct me up as Lot from Sodom, but am I walking as a son?
Are you, individually, walking in such a way that the Father's heart can find its satisfaction in? that the Son of God can look down upon you as those to whom the looking to Him for guidance is habitual? Behold, it is practice; it is the carrying out of God's mind in all the detail of your path down here.