IN the preceding verse of this chapter we have what Christ did: " He loved the church, and gave himself for it." In the verse we have read we have what He is doing now: " That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word." And in the following verse we have what is future: "That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish."
What I desire to bring before you beloved brethren, is this: what is the present interest of our Lord Jesus Christ touching His own on the earth. You see I cannot possibly get the other side until I get this side. I cannot tell how I am to respond until I know what I am to respond to. We all know something of how He has loved us, but we do not so well know, we are not sufficiently occupied with, what is His present interest in the church, His present service and His present love. Here we find it in one little verse: " That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word."
I propose to turn to the gospel of John to see how the Lord opens out the nature of what we find stated as doctrine by Paul.
We will turn then to John 13 It is interesting and important to remember that John was written after the failure had set in, yet the Lord puts on record what is in His heart towards His own on the earth. There is no thought of division, no thought of separation. If I look around now I have to see it; I have to see the ruin that all is in. But if I look up, I see what His heart is; and I am convinced that, if we understood that heart better in relation to His own upon earth, we should be largely affected by it.
Now my intention is to give a little view of chapters 13. to 17.; and, in what I say, I merely suggest for your own after study, for, as I often say, I find that suggestive teaching is the most helpful teaching. The Lord is always dealing with our souls, and when the heart has been exercised about some truth, He gives us help by the way, and everything that He gives us we trace back again to Himself; He uses us as deputies to carry out His own purposes.
As to these chapters, 13. and 14. are what I would term " within doors." It is not public; it is belonging to the assembly. Or rather, as I will only use the words that are given to us in this scripture, I will not say " assembly," but " His own." He took His place at the supper table with His own. It is important thus to notice who are within doors. They are " His own." There are three places in these chapters: within doors; without doors; and heaven. There is nothing to do with the world in the last. We get here the terminable and the interminable. Chapters 13. to 16. give us what is terminable, that which lasts for a time. In chapter 17. we have that which is interminable, that which is not of time, which belongs to eternity.
I begin then with the fourth verse of chapter 13., where we read the Lord rises from supper, and lays aside His garments. I lay great stress upon this, because supper is commemorative of an accomplished work; the atoning work is at an end. John 13 is generally looked at as being relief to the conscience; the washing of the feet being supposed to be the setting aside of our sins. But I believe that it is an entirely new thing that is now introduced; it is not a question of sacrifice; it is an entirely new work which is introduced, consequent on the completion of the first work-the great work of redemption.
This new work is the washing of the feet. It is a work never found before in scripture. There were sacrifices and offerings, but nothing like this. Here, having loved His own that were in the world, He does a new thing for them-a thing that we too may have a part in as His deputies. And what is the effect of this work? It is in order to restore communion with Himself while He is absent, otherwise "His own" would have "no part with me."
I believe that there is great deficiency amongst us on this point. I believe there is difficulty in understanding what communion is, because there is not that anxiety about it that characterized our early days. The very word itself is scarcely used now. We never hear of anything but " fellowship " now, where it used to be " communion." Now though " fellowship " and " communion " may be the same word in the original, they express two very different thoughts in English. I speak of it timidly, but I cannot but say that I regret that there is so little anxiety about communion. There is anxiety about work; there is anxiety also about walk; but I see very little about communion; and you may have both these without communion.
You may perhaps ask, Then do you object to my preaching about walk and work? Not at all; it may be very right to do so, but I say right things may be misplaced; and that which is very right, very praiseworthy, may be still out of place. There may be right things done which are not done in the right way; about which there is no communion-no having part with Him. Communion is taking the right step at the right time in the right way, and perhaps only one step. It is only a gardener who can tell the difference at the first between a weed and a flower. An ordinary spectator might say, " The seeds are coming up very well; there will be a fine crop." " No," says the gardener; " they are weeds." So the spiritual man " discerneth all things." He knows which is the weed. I hope we are gathered together at this time to help one another; and to do this we must come close to the point.
The first thought that we find here is one which is calculated to touch every heart. The Lord says: I am going on high; and whilst leaving you down here, I have put you before my Father in the unclouded light of His presence, without a spot upon you. I leave you in a defiled scene, but such is my continuous affection for you, that I will make it my business to remove from you everything that might produce distance-everything that might cause reserve between you and me.
Then there must be intimacy first? Yes; that is just what I am coming to. And I say it sorrowfully before the Lord, I believe that souls are not intimate with Him; there is not the sense of acquaintance. It is my unfeigned desire for souls that they might form acquaintance with the Lord. Many have no sense of reserve, because they have never been intimate. Joseph's brethren were living with him for seventeen years, recipients of his favor, and all the time they did not know him intimately.
But how may I become acquainted with Him? I answer, that He is gone on high, and therefore there is no acquaintance with Him now but by the Holy Ghost. It is a wonderful moment to the soul when it first knows the blessed reality of acquaintance with the Lord. It may not be for years after conversion, but it is the grand characteristic of Christianity. Sacrifice was not a new thing for the Jews. They could accept without difficulty the fact that the Shepherd was to die, wonderful though it be. But that He should say, " I know my sheep and am known of mine," that is an entirely new thing; " as the Father knoweth me and I know the Father." There is the same character of intimacy between Himself and His people as between the Father and the Son.
Do I know this intimacy? If I do not know it, I do not know what it is to have a shade cast upon it. You cannot lose what you have never had; but the more intimate you are with any person, the more quickly you will discern the smallest shade of reserve, the least change of manner. Then do not talk about reserve until you know intimacy.
I would remind you that whilst the Lord never changes His love, He does change His manner. John fell at His feet when he saw His eyes as a flame of fire: as much as to say, I do not know that aspect. We have to bear this in mind. To the saints we ought never to change our love; but there are at times those with whom we can " have no company," so that they " may be ashamed."
And further: affection is not communion. Peter was full of affection, but he was not in communion, though he cast himself into the sea to go to Jesus.
But if I am thinking so much of the Lord's things and having part with Him, what about my own affairs?
When I am near Him, I find, as the disciples did in John 21, that He has unbounded forethought for me; the dinner was ready: " A fire of coals, and fish laid thereon and bread." As the little hymn says: " Make you His service your delight, He'll make your wants His care."
The more you are in communion with Him the more you will find out how He sympathizes with you, and how in the smallest things He is thinking for you. The more His interests occupy your heart, the more He will surprise you as to the manner in which He thinks of yours.
As I have already said, fellowship and communion, though the same word in the original, do not convey the same thought to us. If you ask me what I understand by communion, I answer, It is going in company with another's mind. Like a faithful dog following his master, nothing satisfies him but to go the road his master goes. If he loses him, how he will wheel about in every direction until he finds him again! Did you ever feel that you had lost the Lord? That you did not know which way He was gone? That you were off the line? Have you any anxiety as to this? A man may have many dogs, but they may not all know him. It is only those that know him that follow him. Are our hearts set upon the incomparable blessedness of such reciprocity?
The following chapter is quite a different thing. Whilst John 13 separates us from the defilements of the world, John 14 comforts us as we pass through the world. I divide the chapter into two parts, showing out the double way in which the Lord comforts us as we pass through the world. He goes up to prepare a place for them. That ends at verse 14. Then the descending; He comes down to comfort them here, and whatsoever they shall ask, He will do.
Three things are brought out.
First: there is a place up there.
Second: He is the way to it up there.
Third: He makes known the Father who owns it.
Stephen is practically an illustration of this. The Lord says, Keep your eye on me, and you know the way, the truth, and the life, the Owner of the place, the Father, and, as you are dependent on me, the power to take you up to it.
One word as to the power, and I speak it timidly, anxiously, I do not think we really understand what the good of union is. I do not look upon union as that which may be illustrated by an engine drawing carriages. That is connection, it is not union. What is the nature of union? I am united to the One who is the Son of God; I am a member of that body of which He is the Head. It is the most wonderful thing to be the smallest chip of this great wheel-to be the least little bit of it. John alone tells me the nature of it. But I am not so much speaking of the nature as of the effect of it-the power of it.
As to this the Lord says, " He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father." The Lord's greatest work down here was to raise a man from the dead. But He says, " Greater works shall he do," and " If ye shall ask anything in my name I will do it." He is effecting a far greater thing for his own now than when He was here on earth. Stephen is not raised from the dead, but he is made superior to everything on earth; through the power of Christ by the Holy Ghost in him, he rises above all the wickedness arrayed against him, and is superior to the power of death.
How little we have practically of this! Do we know the exceeding greatness of His power to make us superior to suffering? Do we overcome evil with good? Perhaps not able to be superior to an insult? You may suffer greatly, but is it to be an occasion for complaining, or for overcoming with good •? Where is the power that works in us? Oh, you say, I thought it was for us? Not only! It says, He is " able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us." Seeing our ignorance is the great way to learn. It is well to say, I am not up to that, but I should like to be. It is well to get a sense of what we should be. Thus far is the upward side-the power side.
Now let us look for a moment at the downward side, which is obedience. Verse 20 gives us the nature of the union. " At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." But I cannot think as I look round me and see, and hear, what goes on, I cannot think that we have grasped the fact of what it is to be united to Christ. The gospel places me in all the beauty of Christ, in the very place where I was estranged from God. I have exchanged the judgment of Adam for the blessedness of Christ.
That is the gospel. I am united to the Person who has effected this work for me. Do you mean linked to Him? No; but united to Him. That is the nature of the union.
Do we take in this wonderful verse? At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." Christianity is not a thing that you can take in like a problem of Euclid. It is the opening out of what makes you feel that, however much you have seen, there is yet more to be acquired, there is a yet firmer grasp to be got of what you hold. I feel it is important to get a sense of the moral height of our position in Christ. The magnificence of the place we occupy on this earth might well fill our souls. We in Christ, and He in us. There will be a desperate climax of evil, so heading up as to enable man to say at last that he is independent of God; it is placing him on such a pinnacle of importance, that he will assume to dispense with God. Man is to be so self-cultured, so restrained, that he can avoid every vice, and be able to attain every virtue, and thus support the immense weight of importance that science will have conferred upon him. Self-culture is the great cry. But, thank God, the Christian has a divine moral elevation, which eclipses all that man is able to think or do; and no one can raise up a standard against this pretension of man, unless he knows this divine elevation; we can never meet it, except as we eclipse it by the grandeur of the place, of the position, in Christ in which we are placed by the power of the Holy Ghost-the only power that can raise up a standard against it.
I can say very little of verse 21. It is wonderful, but I feel I know so little of it, that I attempt not to express it.
One verse more I would notice; the 26th, where we read of the Comforter, " Whom the Father will send in my name." We have lost too much the meaning of what is meant by "My name." I give it as a subject of meditation. This wonderful Guest, who has taken up His abode with me, comes in the name of my absent Lord. As if a friend should enter my house, saying, I come in the name of your father, who has died; I come to acquaint you with him, to speak to you of him. How should I receive and regard such a guest-one who can tell me of one so dear to my heart! But no human illustration can perfectly convey a divine reality.
We now, in chapter 15., leave the sacred enclosure-we are going out of doors; and out of doors the Lord takes the place of the vine. The words, "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be clone unto you," tell us the greatness of the place we are set in. Can we enter on this place?
Now what is the phase I occupy after we come out of doors? I go out for Him; as a soldier comes forth from the barrack to stand on the battle-field. I have been well trained, well fed, well equipped; and in moral power I come forth to stand for my Lord.
What is the first and great characteristic of the battlefield? The twelfth verse gives it: " This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you." And this calls out the enmity of the world. We begin here to display ourselves, and, from here, go out into the world and recruit for our corps as well as we can; but it is from this point we start. There is no such thing as ascending in goodness; there is descending. " Every good and perfect gift cometh down." You do not rise as a minister from the gospel to the church; but you do go out from the church to carry the gospel to the world. Evangelists are given from the Head; they come from above, to aid in effecting that grand work: gathering out a people for His name.
Have we all felt the force of that passage, " a people for his name"? We act sometimes as if we forgot that the Lord Jesus Christ is rejected from the earth; people speak as if the millennial day had come, and as if the living water had only to flow out, and heal wherever it flows. But this is not at all the character of the gospel now. The evangelist now has to search the world over for all that belongs to Christ, as the woman swept the house, seeking the lost piece of silver. I want to bear a distinct witness to that wonderful secret of God, that, where Christ was refused bodily on earth, He has a body gathered by the gospel in the power of the Holy Ghost. He has called out a people to His name.
How were these people born? By the Holy Ghost. And what is their great characteristic? " Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." The character of the servant as he comes into the world is this: That man would die for the saints. Then it is the world hates us. But we have lost this hatred in a great measure; we have made terms with the world. We have said to the world, You be civil to me, and I will be civil to you. This is the battle-field, " He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me." He brings us into this place of intimacy; He makes us His friends; and therefore, He says, will the world hate you. He calls me to have Him as the distinct object of my affections; and thus shall I be separated from this scene.
Now mark verse 26 " But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me." It is to " testify of me," mind. The Holy Ghost, who in chapter 14. is sent from the Father for the comfort of His own on the earth, is now sent by Himself for this express purpose: to " testify of me."
In chapter 16., His own are out in testimony in the world, and the Holy Ghost is the One to support them in it. I only call attention to one verse in it, that is the twenty-third " In that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you." In all these chapters we get dependence on Him; we learn what the Lord's heart is to His own, and the Holy Ghost is the power in each one. If we come out to fight for Him, He says, " Ye are my friends." Can anything be greater! To be able to go out in the morning and say to myself, I am the friend of Christ! It is written of the wise woman, " The heart of her husband loth safely trust in her." So here the Lord says, I call you not servants, but friends; for a servant does not know what his lord does; but you do, for you have part with me; and " all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you."
Do you want me, then, to give up my business? No; I attend to it better than I ever did before; just as the laboring man does not forget his family whilst he is at his work; his very affection for them makes him a better workman. There is no fear but that the heart that is devoted to Christ will do his own business well. If I am in communion with Him I am sure to do the right thing; the thing that He would like. I shall do the right thing in the right way. I shall take a long step if He likes it, and if He wishes, I take a short one. I have no rule about it at all, but the sense of His affection will lead me wherever His interests are.
I just turn to chapter xvii. to see what is interminable. This is not within doors, neither is it out of doors battling with this scene; it is that which we have for eternity. He gives us eternal life, His words, divine intelligence. We may not be in the enjoyment of it all, but we have it. Then verse 17 is sanctification: " Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth." It begins here, but it is interminable. " Sanctified thoroughly;" we have not got that yet; it will continue through all eternity. But it brings an immense fund of blessing to each one of us when we discover what Christ has in His heart for us. We have not come to the fullness of it yet, but it is an immense cheer to know it is a fact in His heart.
In verse 21 we have unity. " 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." When will that be? Is it now? If I look around I do not see it. But I know it will be-even here; it will be yet seen in all its wonderful and blessed reality, when the bride comes down from heaven in all the splendor of unbroken concord, the beautiful and perfect expression of Himself, to administer and set forth Christ in glory. Paul calls the church the " temple" in the future; but in John "the bride," is her one unmistakable characteristic; thorough identity of interest with her Lord.
We are to have the glory too, and that is eternal: "And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me." And then He winds up with that wonderful verse, "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."
I have thus just rim over the verses that they may strike chords in our hearts, which may elicit the response the Lord looks for. May all our hearts be more deeply versed in Christ's present thoughts as to His own on earth, for His name's sake. (J. B. S.)