THE doctrine of the tract is clearly and fairly stated on pages 12 and 13:-
"It is not surely possible, therefore, to deny that life from the beginning was in the Son. The hour then was in which He was quickening" (the reference is to John 5:21, 25-27), "before ever He had finished the work which was in His hand to do. And the everlasting life He was ever, the Word of life,' as John says. (1 John 1:1.) Some would make a distinction, as it would seem, between the Word' and the Son;' but it was the same blessed Person who was at the same time both Son and Word of God. Now, because He is Christ also, life is necessarily in Christ.' And the saints of old, who were one and all of them quickened by the Son, with the life in Him, have it now in Christ, not by any new communication, but simply by the fact of what, through His work accomplished, He in whom their life is has become. Other quickening, other spiritual life than this, can no man show." (The italics are the author's.)
Possibly, we say! But is that to be our question? We desire not to know what man can shew, but what GOD SAYS in His word. Does the scripture say that the Old Testament saints had "life in the Son"? Does it anywhere hint at such a thing? Why does our author not confess as to this, what he hastens to say as to another point affecting his doctrine as to the Spirit indwelling: "Scripture is silent as to this"? But he goes on to say (p. 23): “With the doctrine which scripture teaches, there is no difficulty at all. Of course they could not be in Christ before Christ had come, but they were in the Son as having life in Him." Were they? we ask. Who told the author so? How does he know it? Does the SCRIPTURE teach this, as he would have us believe? He knows it does not.
Abraham was God's chosen servant, in whom His elective grace, and the corresponding walk of faith, was made known, and to whom God gave unconditional promises which were repeated in the new covenant made with his seed according to the flesh. The Lord refers to his being "in the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 8:11; cf. Luke 13:28); to the fact of his "living," as "all live unto" God, and to his having part in the resurrection (Luke 20:37, 38; &c.). He speaks of him at length in John 8; but does he say a word as to what his "life" was, or as to what it is Does the apostle say a word about it, when, in Gal. 3, he says, "they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham," and quotes from Hab. 2: "The just shall live by faith"? Does he do so in any other passage? The scripture says nothing which can warrant the assumption of the tract.
But more. The revelation made to Abraham determined the relationship into which God brought him with Himself: "I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect" (Gen. 17:1). And this, wonderful and blessed as it was, is expressly distinguished from that which was afterward made to Moses, and which formed the basis of God's dealings with Israel. Moses asks what God's name was, in order to meet the inquiries of the children of Israel when he should tell them, "The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you." “And God said to Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you." (Ex. 3:13, 14.) Again, in chapter 6:2, 3, we read: "God spoke unto Moses and said, I am JEHOVAH; and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of GOD ALMIGHTY, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them." Are all these distinct statements of the scriptures to be ignored, in, order to make way for one systematic form of "life," as if it had nothing to do with the God who gives it, and were not characterized by communion with Himself as to the revelation of Himself He thought fit to make?
But how then is such a conclusion arrived at, so as to be laid down authoritatively, and thus be made the basis of all that is reared upon it? We are told that life was "in the Son" ever, "because He was the Son ever" (page 6). True, the scripture says, "In him was life." But is it there speaking of its communication? (John 1:4.) We plainly answer, "No." It is a statement as to Christ Himself—abstractedly what He was— as having life divinely and eternally in Himself, and as such, light which is not received at all (ver. 5). And more than this, is there in the passage a hint of explanation as to what the life of the Old Testament saints was? But this is a small matter for one who can readily leave out "dispensation" and "divine purpose," if he can only get an "actual fact" to suit his system. The "fact" is, that life was "in the Son," because the Son is the Word! This is the first logical step. We have not to go far for the second. The "Son quickens;" so says John 5:21. So of course He quickened in lime past, and with the same life !—But the passage says nothing about time at all. It speaks of the way in which the glory of the Son is shown forth, as being equal with the Father, "As the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom he will? Our difficulties are speedily calmed however, for we are told "that in all divine acts the Father, Son, and Spirit unite" (page 13). But does it not say, “The hour is coming, and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live"? Are we at liberty to give a retrospective effect to a passage which the Lord applies to a time which was then future, though having a present application in connection with His acting while on earth; but yet waiting on the accomplishment of redemption, as the ground on which life could be communicated? (Compare John 6:51, 56; 12:24, 25.) Is this, we would ask, a point too insignificant to be taken notice of? Is there no importance in the truth of mediatorship as to the life communicated? for the Lord adds," As the Father has life in Himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in Himself. "Here He speaks of Himself as the Son of God incarnate, receiving everything from the Father, and as Son communicating life by His word to" the dead. "All this is confounded with the word" in him was life, "of John 1;4; and the summary conclusion stated, after quoting the above passages (p. 12), is this:" It is not surely possible, THEREFORE, to deny that life from the beginning was IN THE SON. The hour then was in which He was quickening.... And the saints of old who were one and all of them quickened by the Son with the life IN HIM, have it now in Christ," &c. (italics, &c., mine). Such is the system before us. Such the way in which the word of God is torn to pieces and made up into theological statements such as please an imaginative reasoning mind, bent on forming theories out of scripture.
Take the phrase "life from the beginning was in the Son. "If it be read alone, as a fact true of Him, of course He was "that eternal life which was with the Father." But, this, as all the reasoning which follows shows, is not what our author moans. Every word has another sense. "Life" is the "life communicated" by the One who "quickened;” "from the beginning" applies to those who lived before Christ came to this earth; and "in the Son," consequently, means the way in which they had the life — what their spiritual life was. The tract does not distinguish between "by" and "in" the Son; notwithstanding the importance of the difference. Had it done so, the conclusion arrived at would necessarily have fallen through, at all events in so far as regards the second part of the argument. It is all a piece of human reasoning, every detail of which does violence to what is written in the scriptures.
But further we would ask, Have angels spiritual life? The blessed Lord says that "they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from among the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; neither can they die anymore; for they are equal unto the angels ...." (Luke 20:35, 36.) Have they too, then, "life in the Son," of whom it is said that He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they? For the tract says, "other spiritual life than this can no man show." Let its author answer the question. With him we are on ground whore all the beautiful and delicate distinctions of the living word are crushed with a barbarous hand, to make way for the hard stereotyped forms he would present us with. Is this the holy ground of the presence of God, which demands that our shoes should be taken off? We have no longer scripture, in its substance and form, but human reasoning.
Yet see the importance the blessed Lord Himself attaches to the form in which the truth is presented. He says, “I have not spoken of myself, but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment what I should say and what I should speak, and I know that his commandment is life eternal; whatsoever therefore I speak, even as the Father said unto me so I speak." (John 12:49, 50.) And again, "I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me." (John 17:8.) It is not merely the revelation of the truth; but the very words chosen of the Father in which the divine communications were to be made. So the apostle, in 1 Cor. 2, insists not only upon the "things of God" revealed by the Spirit, but upon the words taught by the Holy Spirit, which was the only proper form for communicating the divine things. Are we prepared, then, to give up the form, and allow our poor reason to define for us what God in His holy word has not thought fit to define Or shall we cling to the divine forms of the truth, and learn humbly, as led by the Spirit of God, what are the things revealed which through grace belong to us, and are the source and food of faith?
But once on the slippery path of systematizing, such considerations as these are readily disposed of. It is boldly asked (p. 13), “If life before Christ's being upon earth were not the Son, how then?" Ought not the very question to have arrested the author, and shown him how he has been allowing his mind to work on divine things? The mystery of life is encountered with a "how then?" as if it were within the competency of human intelligence to declare it, or as if it had become the duty of a mere creature to decide what it is, and what it is not. Must we then venture where God draws the veil, and intrude with carnal inquisitiveness where the seraphim hide their faces I Is this faith, and dependence upon God? Have we forgotten that it was death to a Kohathite to touch one of the holy vessels he carried, or even to go in to see them being covered I What is to become of our consciences, if the first principles of that which suits the presence of God are practically expunged from our spiritual apprehension? No doubt it is inconvenient for the system to leave such things unexplained. But if the theory vanishes when brought to the light of the scripture, the need for it disappears also. For truth lives in the scriptures "the word of God liveth and abideth forever." And the heart that delights in the things that angels desire to look into, which are now reported to us by them that have preached the gospel to us with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, finds its joy in no way curtailed because there are points yet reserved unexplained, and which belong to Him who works all things after the counsel of His own will. He has shown how the faith of the Old Testament saints cannot be satisfied with a recompense short of what is heavenly; "wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He hath prepared for them a city." But He has also said that He has "provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect." (Heb. 11; 1 Peter 1) The Lord said that John the Baptist was the greatest of those born of women, but He added, "He that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”
Were the theories before us merely a disquisition as to the peculiar portion of the Old Testament saints, we might well leave it as not a fit subject for this kind of discussion. It is not so however. They are introduced as a needed illustration; for the statements about them form an integral part of a system which really sets scripture aside. This is the serious part of the matter. It behooves us then to inquire, What is "life in the Son" How does the scripture present it? We look in vain for this in the tract; which can reason upon what it "implies" (p. 13), but does not tell us what it is. On the contrary, we arc struck as to this point by meeting in the tract with as complete a silence, as we notice in the scriptures with reference to what the tract asserts with unbounded confidence! The point of view in this tract, and in the scriptures, is so different, that we feel instinctively we must give up either one or the other. We cannot have both. It is true that 1 John 5:11 is quoted on page 9: "God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son." But the passage from the Gospel, which directly explains what this life is as communicated, and the fact that it is here communicated, after the Lord is in the glory as the One who had glorified the Father "on the earth," and finished the work which the Father had given Him to do, is omitted entirely. The blessed Lord says (John 17:1-5): "Father, the hour is come; 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. And this is life eternal that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me, with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.”
Now here we have a clear and simple definition, passing wonderful as are the truths contained in it. The Lord is speaking of giving, communicating eternal life to those who had it not, and in this connection defines it to be the knowledge of God, "the only true God," the Father whom He was addressing, and the knowledge of Himself, Jesus Christ, whom the Father had sent. It was personal knowledge, as the Lord Himself had shown (14:9) in answer to Philip's request, "Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us;" ‘! Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip' He that lath 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. "And again, as to His mission distinctively, (a truth the disciples themselves did not grasp at the time, as shown in the following verses 29-31), the Lord says (16:28)," I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again I leave the world, and go to the Father." This was the truth the Lord had come down to make known, and which forms the basis of Christianity. He speaks to the disciples as being brought into the relationship it implied, and which His going back to the Father would make good to them. "At that day ye shall ask in my name, and I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you: for the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from GOD" (vers. 26, 27).
And this is the truth with which this Gospel opens. It is the revelation of the Incarnate WORD who declares GOD to us, and declares Him as the FATHER. In the first five verses we have that which is absolutely true of Him, without its being a question of the light being received on earth (indeed the contrary is stated in ver. 5), beyond the fact of the indication of the scene in which the light was to shine, the scene of the joy of His heart in divine counsels, before ever man was created; as we find it in Prov. 8:27-31, where the account of the creation does not go beyond the work of the third day. "In him was life; and the life was the light of men: and the light shineth in darkness." It is that which characterizes it, the sphere of its manifestation; and with the added fact, "the darkness comprehended it not." Then, from verse 6 and onward, we have the history. The light was to come into this world; and a man, John, was sent from God to bear witness to it, and prepare human hearts to receive it; for when it comes into the world, it sheds light upon every man, not on Jews only, and manifests everything as God sees it. The world knew Him not; His own received Him not; but as many as received Him, to them gave He power, or the right, to become children of God, even to them that believe in His name. Such are "born of God." This is the blessed, wondrous truth. Sonship is made by God, in grace, inseparable from the reception of the incarnate Worm, come into the world from God. "The Word" (in whom was life, and the life the light of men)—"was made flesh and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of an only-begotten with a Father);" "No man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." (Chapter 1:14, 18.)
The epistle of John insists upon the same truth: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the Word of life; for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life which was with the FATHER, and was manifested unto us...." The result is declared by the apostle, in the following verse, in such terms as forbid a retrospective effect, for it is the consequence of the manifestation of the "eternal life" as stated, "That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." (1 John 1:1-3.) The light is come—the full knowledge of God; and when that is given, it is as the Father that He reveals Himself, by the Son; and in such a way, that we may know Him and have communion with the Father and the Son. In the following chapter we find that "little children"—the earliest stage of spiritual life produced by this revelation in the power of the Spirit of God—are characterized by the knowledge of the Father (ver. 13); and again (ver. 23), "Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father, but he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also." It is the characteristic of Christianity as here presented; and with the knowledge of the relationship imparted, we find at the same time the revelation of the love of which the blessed Lord Himself,—as the Word made flesh, Son of man and Son of God, "the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father,"—was the object. Into that same love He introduces us, as well as into the relationship, and insists too upon the reciprocal personal knowledge which accompanies it: "I know those that are mine, and am known of those that are mine, as the Father knows me and I know the Father." (John 10:14, 15, New Trans.)
The life was seen, "manifested" in Him, when He was "dwelling among" us, in this world. I have no intention of saying the disciples saw it intelligently; but I speak of the way in which He is presented, in the written word, by the Holy Spirit of God. He was the eternal life, as is stated. But it is only when His work was accomplished that He could call the disciples "my brethren," and speak of them as being in the relationship in which He was, and into which His death and resurrection had brought them.
It was in view of the extent of the blessed results of His death, as Son of man, beyond all that His title of Son of David implied, that He said when the Greeks came up: " The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified: verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but IF IT DIE, IT bringeth forth much fruit" (chap. 12:23, 24). Apart from His death, He abode absolutely alone. Only in resurrection could He address the disciples as actually in the relationship Ile had come to reveal.
Then, for the first time (20:17), He speaks of the relationship as existing, as far as they were personally concerned, and that too in connection with the place in glory He was about to Ell; and also, as He soon shows them (20:22), in connection with the coming of the Holy Ghost, as He had before explained. (Chaps. 14.-16.) For it is the presence of the Holy Ghost in the believer which characterizes the life given, in its manifestation in this world. "He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive; for the Holy Ghost was not yet [given] because that Jesus was not yet glorified." (Chapter 7:38-39.) And we find that after the Lord had sent them the message by Mary: "I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God," — when He first presented Himself in their midst, He says, "Peace be unto you: as the Father hath sent me" (again the very essence of Christianity), "even so send I you; and when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye [the] Holy Ghost...." As the Head of the new creation, and the source of life as risen from the dead, He breathes on them the breath of resurrection-life, and states at the very moment what is the characteristic of the life, namely, "[the] Holy Ghost." (In a similar sense we read of "the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," Rom. 8:2.) No one, I suppose, thinks of denying that this "looks forward" to the coming of the Spirit, in the sense that, as we have seen, the presence of the Holy Ghost in the believer was what determined the blessed position of those whom the Lord was leaving, and to whom He said in view of this, "It is expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you." (Chapter 16:7.) The believer was to receive the Holy Ghost (7:39). But it was of the breath of this new resurrection-life that the Lord used the words, "Holy Ghost," as John 20:22, states; and that is a different thing from the presence of the Holy Ghost with, and testifying personally in, the believer — "with his spirit." So that to confound this passage with the coming of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost would only obscure the truth in both cases. We have here the new life in the full power and efficacy of the Holy Ghost, as acting in, and forming that life; and not the Spirit personally, with that life, as dwelling in the believer. (As has often been noticed, both these things are seen in Rom. 8) And this new life, as revealed, is "in the Son;" not said to be "in us," as if it could be apart from Him; much less be possessed independently of His accomplished work, testified of by the water and the blood which flowed from Him when "already dead." (John 19:33-55.)
The communication of this life is based upon the death of Jesus looked at as having already taken place. For we read, “This is he who came by water and blood, Jesus the Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that bears witness, for the Spirit is the truth. For they that bear witness are three: the Spirit, and the water, and the blood; and the three agree in one. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater. For this is the witness of God which he has witnessed concerning his Son. He that believes on the Son of God has the witness in himself; he that does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the witness which God has witnessed concerning his Son. And this is the witness, that God has given to us eternal life; and this life is in his Son. He that has the Son has life; he that has not the Son of God has not life. These things have I written to you that ye may know that ye have eternal life who believe on the name of the Son of God." (1 John 5:6-13, New Trans.)
We find, then, in the Gospel of John, the manifestation in love of the eternal life, and as light too (the light in which we walk); the life is so presented that, redemption being accomplished, it may be communicated to us: He that believeth on the Son hath it. (Chapter 3:36.) As expressed by another, it is "the life which constitutes Christianity." In the Epistle, the practical effect is shown us in the believer. It is stated to be the knowledge of the Father, and its immediate effect is communion with the Father and with the Son.
THE REVELATION OF ETERNAL LIFE, WHERE AND HOW PRESENTED: EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY THINGS.
It will be well now to examine what is said about this life previously. And here we may remark, that we soon find that as a present possession for us from God, and as far as any development of it goes, it is a doctrine peculiar to John; for it is scarcely more than mentioned in Paul's writings, and that only in a general way. In Rom. 6:23, the whole chapter would convey the thought that it especially (I do not say exclusively) applies to its future manifestation in the saints in glory, as in verse 22 preceding, and in chapter 5:21, "unto eternal life,"—which comes just after what is stated in verse 17, "they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ." Compare, too, 2 Tim. 1:1 with Titus 1:2: "in hope of eternal life." 1 Tim. 1:16 is perhaps the nearest approach to what we find in John: "believe on him to life eternal." It is like Rom. 6:23, and in both cases the complete thing which will be fully manifested in glory. Jude 21 is evidently future. In the first three Gospels, where the expression "eternal life" is used, but not often, it refers likewise to the future, though not always precisely in the same sense.
In Matt. 7:14, the Lord speaks of "the way which leadeth unto life." So in chapter 18:8, 9 (compare Mark 9:43,45, with ver. 47, "enter into the kingdom of God"), and in Matt. 19:17, we find "enter into life,"—again as a future thing (however near it may be in point of time), and having a direct application to the realization of the blessings of the new covenant to be introduced by the Messiah,—while leaving the door open (especially as regards the moral import of the expression) for further developments as to what the "kingdom of God" means in its fullness, and what "life" means, when God sees fit to explain it. The passage in Mark especially—not dispensational like Matthew—forms a sort of transition between it and John 3, which we shall look at presently. (Page 46, below.)
But the last noted passage in Matthew, compared with the parallel passages, Mark 10:17-22; Luke 18:18-23, demands further consideration. The rich young ruler uses the expression "eternal life." in Matthew, the dispensational gospel, he says, "that I may have eternal life;" for the character of the gospel renders its meaning clear, and "have" here brings into relief the contrast with "enter," in the Lord's answer. The two others omit this contrast, and so say "inherit," which of course is future; and that adds force to the use of the word "have," in Matthew. A Jew, instructed in the Old Testament scriptures, looked forward to the accomplishment of the national blessings; he knew of no other than what were promised in connection with Messiah's reign, "the life for evermore," announced in Psa. 133, as blessing commanded in the mountain of Sion, and in Dan. 12:1, 2, as that which especially awaited Daniel's people, that is, such of them as were written in the book. More than this he could not know of. And it is to be remarked that the blessed Lord, in His answer to the young man, distinctly drops the epithet "eternal," saying, "If thou wilt enter into life [and even this is not said in Mark and Luke], keep the commandments." He did no more than carry him back to what the law had already said, just as He did for the lawyer in Luke 10:25-27, quoting: "This do, and thou shalt live." It is the language of the law in its principle; the apostle insists upon it in Gal. 3:12. The law went no further than proposing the continuance of life on this earth (however blessed that may be under the new covenant, when the law will be written in the hearts of God's people, during the coming day of blessing for Israel), on the condition of the maintenance of practical righteousness in obedience. And it is in contrast with this, that the Lord says to the young man (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), that on condition of giving up his earthly blessings to the poor, and following Christ, he would have treasure in heaven.
When the Lord Himself speaks of "eternal life" in Matt. 19:29, He says "inherit," that is, it is future; as the corresponding passages, Mark 10:30, and Luke 18:30, positively state: "in the world to come." (See below, p. 53.) The character of Matthew's Gospel as noticed above, renders this explanation needless there. The only other passage is Matt. 25:46, where it clearly refers to Messiah's kingdom (or the" world to come ") after the judgment of the nations living upon the earth, at the time when the Son of man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, and He sits upon His throne of glory (ver. 31). Compare this with the passage, peculiar to Matthew (chap. 19:28), referring to the scene the Lord calls" the regeneration.”
In the Gospel of John then, for the first time in scripture, we find the revelation of eternal life; first of all, in its essence, life in the Word that was in the beginning, was with God, and was God; and then in chapter 3. for the first time, its communication to men as a present blessing from God; and mark it, as following the cross: "Even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him [thus lifted up] should not perish, but have eternal life." In this way the Lord introduces it, applying it to the state of sin in which He finds us individually: "as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness;" that is, for a dying sinner who, in the object to which his attention is directed, sees the expression of the righteous judgment of God, under which his sins had justly brought him. Here the Lord uses the "must,"—"even so must the Son of man be lifted up." Righteousness has to be satisfied in view of man's state and responsibility, according to the requirements of God's 'nature; that is, not only to remove what is defiled and unclean, subject to condemnation, but to put man where God will have him according to His own counsels in grace and glory. The "must" is met in the cross, as in Rom. 3:24; and "eternal life" is based upon accomplished redemption. This is the first side of the truth. Then follows verse 16, where there is no "must," no kind of obligation, but God gives, according to what He is, from the fullness of His own heart, accomplishing thus His counsels of love which were in Christ before ever the world was. (2 Tim. 1:1, 9 Titus 1:2; compare Eph, 1:4, 5.) "God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten. SON, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life," We see here, not merely deliverance from the state in which man is found as a sinner before God (the penalty of death having been enforced too by the law), but there is the full blessing according to God's purpose and nature, "eternal life," life in the SON. (1 John 5:10-12.) These two sides of the truth are presented in 1 John 5:9, 10, as the manifestation of the love of God, and hence too, "life" is put there before the "propitiation," it being there a, question of God's love ' and purpose in giving His Son, and not the order of its communication to man; but both are through "His Son.", In the gospel they are brought out by the Lord, in connection with what He was personally as Son of man and Son of.. God, meeting man in his ruined state; and that, after intimating His going up to heaven, where no man had ascended but He who had come down from it, the Son of man who was there even then, in His own divine nature. The Lord calls these "heavenly things.”
All this was wholly new to Nicodemus, who, though no I doubt, as a Jew, looking forward with hope to the Messiah's? kingdom, did not even lay hold of the moral import of the earthly things of the new covenant, according to the prophets; much less of the way in which the Lord presented them.
The water and the Spirit of Ezek. 36, were little else practically than a dead letter to him. Indeed, to understand them, a man must be led of the Spirit who gave them, for "the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God;" and in this way, a teacher of the letter of the scriptures might be further off from the truth than a poor ignorant woman living in sin, but who knew that Messiah was coming. (John 4) But when the scriptures are applied to the heart and conscience by the Spirit, they are not merely found to be life-giving, but the soul is by faith brought into a relationship with God which is determined by the position in which Christ is personally and dispensationally, and by the way in which He is presented in the scriptures so applied by the Spirit. This is the secret of their true interpretation, as the Lord shews to His disciples in Luke 24:27, 44. So too here. The Lord in His first word to Nicodemus, gathers up in one single sentence, prophecies which not merely foretold the coming day of promised blessing, but which, by referring to what was personal to Christ, gave such a value to the "old things," as sufficed to open the door for the revelation of the fuller truth He was about to make known, and which was distinctively "heavenly" in its scope and character. In doing this, He brought Nicodemus into the immediate presence of God, in view of "God's kingdom," where He was free to act towards man in accordance with His own nature. "Except a man be born again," He says, "he cannot see the kingdom of God." For the Lord presented the truth here, not from the point of view of man's need, blessedly as this was met by it, but in view of GOD and what was suited to Him. Besides, the Jews are already looked at as a rejected people, and the blessing goes beyond them. It will be helpful to refer now briefly to some Old Testament scriptures.
The "kingdom of God" had been celebrated as a moral principle in Israel, in connection with His dwelling in the midst of His redeemed people; their faith laid hold of it, in the song of Moses, sung at the Red Sea after the destruction of Pharaoh and the Egyptians (see Ex. 15:18; and compare 1 Sam. 8:7, &c., &c.). We find it both as His direct government, and also by the instrumentality of the "chosen king" (see Deut. 17:14, 15). The one chosen by the people was—as is always the case with man tested in responsibility—a failure; and he was set aside in favor of David, the man chosen by the Lord "out of the people" (Psa. 89), the "man after his own heart," and figure of Him that was to come. David's desire to build a house for the mighty One of Jacob (Psa. 132) was the opportunity God took for announcing the "age to come" of promised blessing. A comparison, for instance, of 1 Chron. 17:14, with the parallel passage 2 Sam. 7:16, will make this evident. In 2 Samuel it is said, "thy kingdom," that is, David's; but in 1 Chronicles, it is distinctly "my I kingdom," that is, God's: " I will settle him [that is, Messiah, David's `seed'] in my house, and in my kingdom,' forever; and his [not "thy" as in 2 Sam.] throne shall be established for evermore." (As to the" house "and the" kingdom," compare Ex. 15:2, 13, 18.)
"Birth," in the Old Testament, is presented in two ways. It is predicated of Christ, as coming into this world (Psa. 2; Isa, 9:6, 7, &c.) Secondly it is spoken of Israel nationally in looking forward to the day when "the kingdom shall be Jehovah's," as in Psa. 22:28-31: “A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation: they shall come and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this,"—a wonderful verse indeed as to the moral order of a soul's apprehension of the truth. So in Isa. 54:1, 13, 14, 17. So again, the remarkable passage in Isa. 66, whore the consecutive verses 7 and 8 set forth blessedly the personal relationship with Christ, which we have referred to: first, the birth of the" man child "(Rev. 12) before the pains came; and secondly, the birth of the new Israel" in one day," "as soon as Zion travailed." It is in the time of Jacob's trouble "as of a woman in travail," that "lie shall be saved out of it;" and "they shall serve the Lord their God and David their king, whom I will raise zip unto them." (Jer. 30:4-9.) In the next chapter we find, "For I am a father unto Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn." (Jer. 31:9.) But the Lord had said this too of Israel in Egypt, when about to deliver them (Ex. 4:22), when also for the first time, we find the expression "my people" (Ex. 3:7). So in the song of Moses, we read, "Do ye thus 'requite Jehovah, O foolish people and unwise I is not he thy father that hath bought thee? hath he not made thee, and established thee?" (Deut. 32:6.)
It would seem that the prophet Hosea brings these two things together (compare chaps. 1, 2., with 11: 9); and here it is that we find perhaps the nearest approach to the relationship of "son" individually (1:10): "In the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God." But as "said to them," it is more the moral character which attaches to those who are made the objects of God's mercy, and it is applied definitely to Israel nationally. And so the apostle evidently quotes it, in Rom. 9, putting it after the quotation of Hos. 2:23, where we read, "I will say to Lo-ammi, My people, and they shall say, Thou art my God." When it is God that speaks to them, He says "my people," not "my sons." The vision of the resurrection of the dry bones, in Ezek. 37, would confirm this. It is not, as in Gen. 2, God building a woman out of one bone, but the bones coming together as they had been, "bone to his bone," and then the flesh and sinews coming over them, and being covered by the skin as had been before, and lastly, the breath of God coming into them, that they might live. It is the new Israel, raised up from the dust of the earth. (Dan. 12) They enter into the blessings of Messiah's kingdom upon the earth, as purified men with changed hearts (Ezek. 36), in whose minds God's laws are written. (Jer. 31 Heb. 8:10) Theirs is " the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the service, and the promises " (Rom. 9:4).
But the expression "Son of God," is not always used in the same sense of child-relationship. For it is elsewhere, as in Job (1:6; 38:7, &c.), applied to angels. They too are of God's creation. And as to birth itself, we find in the first chapter of Luke what should make us very reticent in using systematic expressions to describe it. We read as to ' John the Baptist the wonderful statement (ver. 15), "He''' shall be filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb." Again, it is said that at the voice of Mary's salutation the babe leaped for joy in the womb, and his mother was filled with the Holy Ghost. But of the Lord it is said (ver. 35), "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." Such is the different way in which the Spirit speaks of Jesus, and of him to whom Jesus bears testimony, in the same Gospel (7:28): "For I say unto you, Among those born of women, there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist; but he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he." John the Baptist' belonged to another dispensation, and closed it.
The direct personal association with Christ, and more especially so in connection with His death and resurrection (an intimation of which we may find too in such passages as Isa. 26:19; 49:1-8, and again in Psa. 17:15, as compared with Psa. 16:10, 11), brings us however on to ground which, when the blessed Lord Himself is manifested, takes a new character in connection with what He is. If He is merely the promised Messiah, then the blessings introduced are those which were announced beforehand in the Old Testament "earthly things." But if He is the Son of the Father, come forth from Hint into the world, then the blessings assume the character which we have already seen to be distinctively Christianity, in contrast with Judaism, now set aside because of Christ's rejection. And, as the Lord shows in the Gospel of John, we can only really enter into these, when the Son of man is in His proper place, according to Psa. 8, that is, in heaven, whence He came. The Son of Man must "ascend up where He was before" (John 6:62; compare with this the beginning of chap. 14.); so that what are made ours in Him are, consequently, "heavenly things," and no longer for Israel merely, but for man, as such.
This opens up to us indeed new blessing in the Old Testament scriptures in connection with what is personal to Christ. I do not now speak of His essential Sonship, and the revelation of the Father-for that is not in the Old Testament; but of the salvation of which Peter speaks, as having formed the subject of inquiry and diligent search of the prophets, "who prophesied of the grace that should come to us, searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow; unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into." (1 Peter 1 Similarly, we find that in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the apostle, while developing what properly belongs to God's earthly people under the new covenant, presents, too, what is distinctively "Christian," and belongs to this dispensation only, because the Son of Man, in whom all is made good, is now actually crowned with glory and honor, in heaven; and by faith we see Him there, though we still wait to see all things put under Him. But He is there for us, "entered in once into the holy place," by His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption; and He now appears there, for us, in the presence of God. This gives a new character to "the world to come," as the Jew understood it. For us, it is no longer the day of Messiah's manifested glory upon earth that forms our characteristic hope (however blessed for our souls to look forward to this, too, in communion with Him), but we find in Himself what is infinitely more blessed, a personal object for our hearts, as well as a positive present portion in the place in which He is; while looking forward to the day of His appearing the second time to accomplish God's "salvation" in " bringing many sons unto glory "(Chapter 2:10;9. 28). This in no way excludes the blessing promised to the earthly people under the new covenant, the blood of which has been shed (Matt. 26:28); but our peculiar hope is heavenly, not earthly, as Peter says too (1 Peter 1:4), writing to believers amongst the Jews. We enter into God's eternal rest, not Canaan; and the blessings of the" world to come "are, for vs, in heaven itself. We are" partakers of the heavenly calling;" and, to find out our blessings, now transferred from earth to heaven, we are exhorted to" consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus." It is in Him that we find it all; and now, in the place in which He is.
The peculiar value to be attached to the "new birth," or rather what it ushers into, depends then upon the way in which Christ is to be personally known. When, after being manifested as the Son upon earth, and having been raised from the dead, He is glorified in heaven, then the life of faith is "eternal life," as we find it indeed in the Epistle of John. There is no other way of knowing Christ now, but as so dead and risen. "This is He that came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood, and it is the Spirit that bears witness, for the Spirit is the truth." It is the love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God. The revelation of the Father constitutes Christianity; and so the Lord, in John 20, says "I go up to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." His redeeming work was then accomplished; and from that moment it is true, that "we are sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus." (Gal. 3:26.) To them that receive Christ, believing in His name, is given the right to be children of God. Such are "born of God." (John 1:12, 13.)
Here we may remark another thing; that in His answers to Nicodemus, the Lord says nothing about the blessings promised under the new covenant; but insists upon the moral and spiritual character of the new birth, as contrasted with the natural one: "that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spine The kingdom is God's, and it is only by the new birth that it can be seen. A man must be born anew. But there is more: the Lord says that to enter into it, a man must be born of water and of the Spirit. Now this, Nicodemus, as a teacher of Israel, was bound to have gathered from the spiritual sense of the Old Testament scriptures as a moral principle, apart from the earthly blessings promised. We find two lines of truth, that in Ezekiel, and that in Isaiah. Both refer to the future day of promised blessing when "the sure mercies of David" will be realized for Israel.
In Ezekiel, the water is presented as purifying, and the work of the Spirit as giving power to hear and to do God's ordinances and commandments. (Ezek. 11:18, 19; 36:25-29.) In Isaiah, the water is fertilizing and life-giving, and the Spirit is given in connection with the blessings flowing from the Redeemer's work.
Let my reader notice this; for it is of the deepest importance as to principle. “Thus saith the Lord that made thee and formed thee from the womb, which will help thee; Fear not, O Jacob, my servant; and thou, Jesurun, whom I have chosen. For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring: and they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the water courses. One shall say, I am the Lord's; and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel. Thus saith the Lord the King of Israel, and his Redeemer the Lord of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God."(Isa. 44:2-6.) And compare this with chapter 59:20, 21, where, after describing the hopeless condition of the people, and the efficaciousness of the Savior's work alone for their deliverance, the Spirit adds:" When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him; and the Redeemer shall come to Zion and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord, As for me this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord: My Spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and forever. "In this passage the" water" of chapter 49:3, is replaced by "my words;" thus shewing what the "water" signifies. The appropriateness of this appears more vividly, when we consider that between the two comes the wonderful chapter 55, which explains in detail the figure as it is employed in this prophet.
One would fain linger over these precious passages, so full of rich instruction, did our present purpose permit. While commending, therefore, the whole chapter 55 to my reader's careful attention, especially verses 3 and 6-9 (where we have a beautiful statement of repentance in its double character,—as to past evil, and as to the actual thoughts of the Lord which are to replace our thoughts), I will confine myself to quoting verses 10, 11: "For as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth, (cf. Deut. 8:3): it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. "Here, then," the waters "of chapter 44:3, are distinctly stated to represent the word which, proceeding out of God's mouth, is to accomplish that whereunto He sends it. Joy and peace and fertility are the effect of it; and this is to" be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign which shall not be cut off" (ver. 13). The blessings stated are the immediate result of the word coming down from heaven, and being poured out upon the earth. It is it that is life-giving, and the result is "everlasting." But this, as a moral principle, goes beyond the limits of Israel, as we find in the next two chapters (56. and 57.): "Thus saith Jehovah, Keep ye judgment and do justice; for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed: blessed is the man that doeth this and the son of man that layeth hold on it." The blessing is extended to man, as such; it reaches the "son of the stranger," who should “join himself to the Lord, "he who was disposed to say, The Lord has separated me from his people. Such are encouraged by the promise that the Lord would bring them to His holy mountain, and make them joyful in His house of prayer; for His house is to be called "a house of prayer for all nations." Peace is proclaimed to him that is afar off, as well as to him that is near (57:19; and compare Eph. 2:17).
I need hardly remind the reader that the present application, in the person of Christ, of the truths set forth in Isaiah, does not interfere with their dispensational accomplishment during His millennial reign, which is the more direct object of the prophecy—"the sure mercies of David," that have their own value as such. But then we must remember that "no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation" (2 Peter 1:20); that is, as has been explained, "it is a part of God's mind," and "must be understood by, and according to, the Spirit that uttered it." This is confirmed by the use made of verse 3 of this very chapter by the Holy Ghost, in Acts 13:34, where it is referred directly to Christ personally, and to His resurrection from among the dead, in connection with Psa. 16:10, 11: "For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt show me the path of life: in thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore."
As to the particular effect produced by the word, everything depends upon the word that produces it. This is illustrated in the parable of the sower, which introduces the kingdom practically. The Lord was rejected; He was no longer seeking fruit from Israel; but He brought in what was wholly of God, and absolutely perfect. This divine seed received into the heart was what could alone bring forth fruit for God. Matthew presents it dispensationally as "the word of the kingdom," bringing into prominence the 'Sower, the "SON OF MAN." Mark insists upon the work of the perfect servant, sowing THE WORD; Luke, upon the character of the seed sown, and received into the heart—"the word OF GOD.”
To arrive, then, at a true estimate of the life, and of the fruit which God seeks from it, we must consider what the word is that is sown in the heart.
Now in the Gospel of John, the One who is the subject of the divine testimony is the Eternal Son of the Father. The Word is "the Word of LIFE" (1 John 1:1), stated to be "that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us." The revelation made, is of God as "the Father," to be known in this relationship to the Son—"His Father." And He who makes the revelation is not a mere human prophet charged with words from Jehovah (Heb. 1:1), or even an angel sent from heaven to signify it,—"but the Son of man who is in heaven" in the divine fullness of His person, and who has Himself come down from heaven, whither no man had over gone up. This fact of His coming down from heaven gives the character of the revelation He was about to make to Nicodemus, and which He describes as "heavenly things.”
The Lord was speaking of what He knew and had seen, and which consequently went further than what the prophecies had spoken of. But there was a moral truth of which Nicodemus had to find he was ignorant. No education or improvement of the flesh could avail; God had shown it already to be fruitless in Israel (Isa. 1:2-6; 5:1-7): "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit; marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again." This met Nicodemus where he was, met his conscience and the state of his heart, his thoughts and affections, with truth that had already been indicated in the scriptures he professed to teach to others, "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." The word purifies what it meets with in us, by the application of death to the flesh; for the "water" came from the side of a dead Christ, and he that saw it bare record (John 19:35). And by the word, the Spirit communicates a new, a holy, life,—a nature which, as led of the Spirit, is capable of walking with God in holiness. For the Spirit is given in connection with the Redeemer's work. The Spirit will also be poured out upon those who will enter into the millennial blessing. But the nature of the life, and the affections and relationship with God, and the consequent responsibility which it expresses, depend upon the divine revelation made,—the testimony borne to Christ personally and to God in Him. The millennial saints will know Him as "the MOST HIGH." The Christian knows Him as FATHER, so revealed in the SON.
Hence, we need hardly say, there is no such thing as two quickenings. A man cannot be quickened in one way, and afterward in another. Believing, he has life, he is "born of God." Nor have we to seek to explain that which the Lord Himself states to be beyond human intelligence. "Thou caps! not tell" may well seal our lips, and put an end to the working of our poor minds,—while our hearts are filled to overflowing with adoring praise, as we are led on by the Spirit to find out in the Person of Christ, what is the "eternal life" which is communicated to us: "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”
I do not deny the working of God in a man previous to its being manifested that he has passed from death unto life; nor do I attempt to call it by any name or explain it. I believe this to be included in what the Lord says cannot be told. The new birth is plainly stated in the chapter itself to be an absolute necessity. The same "must" attaches to it, as to the Lord's own being "lifted up" upon the cross. The life given is also stated, over and over again, to be not after believing, but in believing. He that believes on the Son HAS it; and it is "eternal life," life in the Son.
Again, it is the Son that quickens (John 5:21), "even as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them;" and the Lord states, that the time in which the dead heard the voice of the Son of God and lived, began then (ver. 25), without a hint as to its having taken place before: "The hour is coming and now is...." This is a truth perfect in itself, which we have to keep distinct from the coincident truth which we find in Ephesians and Colossians, of God's quickening us together with Christ, and which is presented in connection with a different line of truth from that in John; in no way opposed, I need not say, but different. And we have not to bring them together, and to try to form a consistent historical whole, by making one take precedence of the other in the ways of God with each individual soul, during this dispensation. All like efforts are systematizing, and are to be rejected as such. God has chosen to present to us different phases of the truth, in different parts of His holy word. We shall have presently to glance at the doctrine of the tract as to this other character of "quickening," and so say no more about it hero.
In John's Gospel, the "life" itself is ever presented as of the nature of Him from whom it comes. "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit." It is not "is the Spirit," for that would mean an incarnation of the Holy Ghost; but it is spirit, is of the nature of Him who originates it. And so we find the Lord presents it to the woman of Samaria in chapter 4. In verse 14, He says, "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life;" and then in verses 23, 24, "The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth." Again, at the feast of tabernacles, in chapter 7., "In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spoke he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified " (vers. 37-39). In both cases it is the result of coming to Him to drink of the water which Es gives. The Spirit's energy is displayed in worship, in, chapter 4.; in testimony for God in the world, in chapter 7 living streams flowing down from Jesus glorified, and out from the believer, carrying blessing and refreshment to those around. The Gospel of John supposes all through the rejection of Christ, and the consequent setting aside of Judaism: "He came to his own, and his own received him not." This is shown too in the beginning of both these chapters. In chapter 4, as Mr. Darby has remarked, the Lord would not by baptizing link His disciples with a living Christ, though for them faith could thus express their personal reception of the Messiah. In chapter 7, He would not go up openly to the feast, for "his hour was not yet come;" and when He did declare His divine invitation to those whom the Jewish feast and its outward joy could not satisfy, it was in contrast with it, on "the last day" of it—the eighth day—the beginning of a new order of things.
But we must not leave this subject without a word more as to the way in which the revelation of the life and its communication are made, in the scriptures we have been looking at in John. All through it flows from love, the love of God, now for the first time made known, and made known in the Person of the Son, become Man in this world. This is of the deepest moment. The more the scripture is examined from this point of view, the more its importance will be seen, and that, not only for the heart, but for the conscience too. The Word, made flesh, dwelt among us, "full of grace and truth.
“The glory seen in Him was “a glory as of an only begotten with a Father" (1:14); and in verse 18, we read, "No man hath seen God at any! time; the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the; Father, he hath declared him." This is He, who when confessed by Nathanael to be the Son of God, declares Himself to be the "Son of man" (ver. 51). In chapter 3:15, as: we have seen, the source of the eternal life, received is believing, is the love of God manifested in the gift of His, Son—the Son of man, who according to the previous, verses "must be lifted up." So again, at the end of the chapter, verses 35, 36: "The Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into his band: he that believeth on the Son hath eternal life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him."
In chapter 5:20, the love of the Father to the Son is the groundwork of all that follows. What a point this gives to the Lord's solemn word in chapter 8:42: "If God were your Father ye would love me; for I proceeded forth and came from God" I The place love has in chapter 10. is all the more blessed, from the infinitely delicate way in which it is concealed. As has often been remarked, it is the only time in which the Lord applies to Himself the epithet "good" (ver. 11); it is the love unto death of 15:13: "Greater love hath no man than this."
But it is as if the Lord would here avoid using the word in speaking of Himself, in order to bring out into greater prominence the love of the Father to Him, which found a cause to call it forth, in His laying down His life for the sheep (vers 16, 17). The Savior,—who even in His devoted obedience unto death would hide Himself in the expression of His Father's love, to make this love known to us, giving to us the glorygiven to Him by the Father,—says, "that they may be one, even as we [the Father and the Son] are one,"—"made perfect in one, and that the world may know that thou hast me, and hast, them as thou hast loved me." (Chapter 17:22, 23.) But what shall we say of these wonderful chapters 13.-17., the beginning and end of which alone we are able to quote here? It is all love from first to last,—love into which we are brought now, carrying us on to the glory in which Jesus is, Son of man and Son of God, where alone we can know it in its fullness.
The Holy Spirit is given to lead us into these things, which while filling the soul with joy unspeakable and full of glory, make us feel our own insufficiency and littleness, the smallness of our vessels to contain even a drop of this measureless ocean. And yet faith knows we are eternally the objects of it; but the yearning to learn more and more—itself an indication of the life flowing out from it—is satisfied and stimulated at one and the same time, in finding it all treasured up in the person of CHRIST. Oh, may the earnest cry of the apostle be ours too—and for one another—to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that being strengthened with might, according to the riches of His glory, by His Spirit "in the inner men, Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith.” Surely He would have us follow on with pure hearts, conscious of His presence, with our shoes off, as treading upon holy ground.
These blessed chapters are introduced thus: "Now before the feast of the Passover when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own which were in the world, he loved them to the end...." And their con elusion is in His own prayer: ".... O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee, but I have known thee, and these have known that thou halt sent me; and I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it, that the love wherewith thou hag loved me may be in them, and I in them." What a portion indeed is ours! "Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God." God is love. "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him: herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 3:1; 4:9, 10) LOVE, the love of GOD, who is love, is the source of the communicated life. It is "manifested" in the Person of His "only begotten Son" sent into this world that we might live through Him, who is the propitiation for our sins.
"It does not say, 'as the Father loved them,' but as he loved me' (as a man); for however Christ may bring us into the same place with Himself, if we elevate ourselves to an equality with Christ, immediately we shall be above Him; and it is ever the case that the more a saint enters into his elevation, as being brought into the same place with Christ, the more he adores Christ as God over all blessed for evermore."-Collected Writings, vol. xvii. p. 418.
"Allow me to add one correction of a thought fundamentally just, and one correction of an error of expression or copy. The latter is in page 418. Read," It does not say, 'as the Father loves me,' but, ' as he loved me. '"That is, it is not the infinite and eternal delight, but the Father's love to Christ, as one walking down here."(Ib. p. 430.)
But now a deeply solemn truth comes out. It is in connection with the manifestation of this love in the Person of the Son who gives eternal life, that the true state of the human heart, the awful condition of the world under the power of Satan, comes into full relief: "The world cannot hate you, but me it hateth," (Chapter 7:7;15. 18-21,) "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin: he that hateth me, hateth my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin; but now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father." (Chapter 15:22-25.) This total rejection of Christ is characteristic of the Gospel of John; just as, in the Epistle, in contrast with the love manifested in the believer as the effect of the eternal life received, we find the hatred of Cain who slew his brother because his own works wore evil and those of his brother righteous: "Whoso hateth his brother is a murderer; and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him." (Chapter 3:11-15.) The manifestation of the love brings into evidence the hatred which characterizes the darkness; for God is light. (Chapter 1:5, 6; 2:10, 11.) The terrible discovery is inevitable, a consequence of the light coming into the world (John 1:9). Now, if once the eternal life for man (inseparable from faith, of course), is systematically represented as a universal truth, deduced from the fact of life existing in the Son eternally, then the consequence of its introduction into this world is necessarily divorced from it. I do not say that those who accept the system deny what is stated in the Gospel of John. They cannot do so. But this connection, of the truth is gone practically in their souls, as to its moral power over the conscience. The delicate tenderness which the conscience ought to manifest toward God and His truth, is-imperceptibly no doubt, but-infallibly destroyed; and, as a consequence, the respect for truth for its own sake is diminished, and tends to be obliterated. Let those who profess to receive the system as of God beware, lest, when too late, they should find out the bitterness of being blindly led of the blind. In giving up the distinctive revelation of the "eternal life," light is also lost in measure to the soul, for "the life was the light of men." So God presents it in His word. Besides this, the door is opened to worldliness in its diverse forms; for what keeps it out for us, is the love of the FATHER, and that is only known in Christianity, when truly apprehended. I would earnestly commend this to the consciences of my brethren, and invite them to study afresh this matter; comparing the way the world is presented in the Gospel of John, with what we read of it in the Epistle, and particularly the apostle's word to the "young men.”
Let us now resume a little what has passed before us, and as briefly as we may. The revelation of the "eternal life" is found almost exclusively in John's writings; given to him as one of the last eye-witnesses of the Lord's glory (Acts 10:39; 2 Peter 1:16), before he was removed from the world,—as one too, who more than any other, enjoyed, in the freedom of holiness, the love of which he was consciously the object; I do not say more loved than the others, but he lived in it more, in spite of what Peter thought of himself. The place on the Lord's bosom being open to His own, John was the one who ventured to take it. Comparing this with what is said of the Lord as the revealer of the Father, in chapter 1:18, we see how blessedly appropriate to the peculiar service committed to him, was the vessel chosen and formed by the Lord to communicate to the saints the revelation of the eternal life. Five times over in the Gospel, he speaks of himself as "the disciple whom Jesus loved." He does not say "who loved Jesus," however truly he might have done so. It is the nature of true love not to think of itself. The inspired expression speaks volumes as to the suitability of the instrument raised up of God. In the Gospel, we find the life in its manifestation in the Person of the Son, that we may be partakers of it. In the Epistle, we see its communication, and its effects in those who have received it,—the way those who "have" it, manifest it.
When the communication of it is first spoken of, in John 3:14-15, it is introduced by the cross—the necessity of the Son of man being lifted up; and that after the Lord had first intimated His going up to heaven—having come down from it—and had stated that what He had to speak of were "heavenly things," distinctly and positively contrasted with "earthly things,"—even those of the new covenant, when Christ will reign over the earth. And yet, to have part in these, man must be "born again;" showing plainly, too, that if we use "born again" as being the same thing as "eternal life," the distinction between the earthly and heavenly things is blotted out. Surely man has to be born again to have part in "the heavenly things;" but in this case, the life given of God is "eternal life," as John develops it. And hero notice how full is the expression of the work in the soul of him who looks to the Savior, as set forth in the figure of the brazen serpent, to which the Lord refers. It was Israel's sin which had given occasion to it; sin, which under God's judgment, met with immediate death, of which the serpent was the agent, and against which they had no power, no remedy, but in God's gracious provision for them. Such was what the believing Israelite was to contemplate; and this we find in the cross; so that when we are on the other side of it in the Lord's resurrection, we find the deliverance from sin and death, from Satan's power and God's judgment. (Compare John 8:34-36; 5:24, 25 and 11:25, 26; 12:31 and 16:11; 5:22-24.) The judgment is passed. The believer is passed from death unto life, and shall not come into the judgment. He is "free indeed," made so by the Son; and the world, in which he is left for a while, and of which Satan is the "prince," is "overcome" by the Lord.
The One who quickens is the Son of God, and that as incarnate, and ever maintaining in this respect His mediator ship, as given "to have life in himself" (as the connection with verse 26 shows); beginning this special work when He was there on earth (ver. 25), so that those who believed passed, in believing, from death unto life. He is the same, who as Son of man in death, is the food of the life, in chapter 6. He is the Good Shepherd, in chapter 10, who lays down His life for the sheep; who came that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.
We have seen too, that the effective communication of "the eternal life," the life that is characterized by the "Holy Ghost" (John 4, 7), presupposes in principle the Lord's death, and His actual place in glory, as Son of man in heaven, "ascended up where He was before." His first message to the disciples (conveyed by Mary Magdalene, after His resurrection, when for the first time He calls them "brethren," and brings them into the double relationship in which He stood as Son of God and Son of man), begins with the words, "I GO UP." Then follows the full statement of the relationship which is seen in Him, and revealed to faith by the Spirit: "to MY Father and YOUR Father, and to MY God and YOUR God." That is, the present realization for us of "eternal life," flows from the fact of the Son being with the Father. Life, as described in 1 John 1:2 ("that eternal life which was with the Father"), and seen in Him, when He was here on earth, is now, as the result of redemption, and by the witness of the Spirit, true in us. (1 John 2:8; 5:6-11.) His words to Mary, who wanted Him with her on earth, were, "Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father." 'John 17 is based upon this. And we have seen the same (pp. 26, 27 above) as to chapters 13., 14., which open with the statement: "When Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father;" and (ver. 3), "Knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands (cf. chap. 3:35), and that he was come from God, and went to God." Again, we find the two sides of His personal glory as Son of God and Son of man, as in chapter 3:14-16. The revelation of divine righteousness is based upon the same fact in chapter 16. If the Holy Spirit's presence upon earth is the demonstration of it before the world (ver. 8), the special reason attached to it by the Lord, in verse 10, is, "Because I go to my Father and ye see me no more." The "must be" of chapter 3. is, so to speak, transferred for us now from the cross to the glory, where it is seen in righteousness in the Person of the Son, with a yet fuller divine meaning, as we learn what were "the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow." The Lord says too in Luke 24 "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory?" In this point of view, and actually in His Person, the cross and the glory are inseparable. This fully appears in John 17. To Him, as the Son "glorified" (consequent upon His work of glorifying the Father on earth), all power is given, that thus exalted "he should give eternal life" to as many as the Father has given Him.
How unspeakably blessed And how we find in the scriptures the eternal life, as communicated, so bound up with what is now seen by faith in the Lord's Person and place, that a soul which simply receives the truth finds itself placed upon a rock that nothing can touch, and nothing can shake. It has not merely received a doctrine it finds itself in presence of a divine fact in all its length and breadth, and height and depth, and eternal meaning, and a divine PERSON in whom it is all realized. And it is thus brought into the same relationship as the Son, with His God and Father: "Mine," He says, "and yours." And the Spirit is the witness, because the Spirit is the truth. "He that hath the Son hash life. God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.”
Notice too, how the Lord opens this up, as to be seen in principle in Himself personally when down here. (Chapter 1:49-51.) Nathanael had believed in Him and confessed Him according to His millennial glory (Psa. 2), as "Son of God and" King of Israel. "Then the Lord says to him," Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig-tree, believest thou? Thou shalt see greater things than these. And he says to him, Verily, verily, I say to you, Henceforth ye shall see the heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man." Heaven was opened upon Trim, as Son of man, when the "eternal life" could be seen, looked on, handled, in His blessed Person here on earth, by such as owned Him to be the Son of God. It is opened to us when He goes up into it, Son of man and Son of God and by His presence there prepares a place for us in the many mansions of His Father's house. How precious for us now to know that our place is there, already prepared,—seen in Himself where He is,—while we wait for Him to come, that we may be with Him there!
Life for us, then, is based upon the cross. The Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, from the Father,-by Jesus who is exalted and glorified with Him,—makes it good in our souls, giving us both the knowledge and the enjoyment of it. For He fixes our thoughts upon Jesus Christ as the Revealer of the Father, the Accomplisher of His work, the One in whom God's righteousness is manifested, as well as the fullness of His love,—the One who, in His ways, His words, and His works, "declared" God to men, and exhibited in His own blessed Person what "a man" was to be, for and towards God, according to God's purpose when He created him: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." His Person is before us, Son of God and Son of man; His work in its extent, and present and eternal results; and His actual place in glory. And hence, too, John speaks about "eternal life" in its future and complete manifestation, as well as being the present possession of the believer. (Chapter 5:39; 12:25; 14:2, &c.)
And let us add that the Lord has made a double revelation of His Father's will in respect of "eternal life—or merely that everyone who beholds the Son and believes on Him should have it, but that the Son should Care for them as the good Shepherd, and raise them up at the last day. In chapter 17 the Lord speaks of His work in these two aspects. And as to both, we find the expression of His oneness with the Father: as to giving life, chap. 5:17, 19-21; as to keeping His own, chap. 10:28-30. Both drew out the desperate enmity of the Jews, because as they said, "Thou, being a man, makest thyself God" (5:18; 10: 31-33). We quote here the wonderful passage (chap. 6:37-40): "All that the Father gives me shall come to me, and him that comes to me I will not at all cast out. For I am come down from heaven, not that I should do my will, but the will of him that has sent me. And this is the will of him that has sent me, that of all that he has given me, I should lose 'nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. For this is `the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son, and believes on him, should have life eternal; and I will `raise him up at the last day." (New Trans.)
Mr. Grant's Doctrine
We must now turn back to glance at the system which occupied us at the beginning of this paper and which 'separates between these things that God has indissolubly connected, divorcing the Lord's work from His Person, as to the communication of eternal life and shepherd-care of His own—and still more markedly so as to the seal of the Spirit, stating this to be in connection with faith in His Person, not His work. And it separates both these things necessarily from His present place in glory; for this is sought to be presented in connection with "life in Christ," as distinguished from "life in the Son.”
We shall have to examine what the scripture says as to this; but before passing on to it, a few remarks as to the system will find their place here in connection with the scriptures which have passed before us.
According to Mr. Grant, life from the beginning was "in the Son," speaking of its communication; for "' in the Son' means life in the Son," and "to be in the Son was to be identified in life and nature with the Son " (p. 14); so that if the words have any meaning at all, the Old Testament saints had the knowledge of the Father: for that is how the, Lord explains the eternal life in John 17:3, attaching tot' it the personal knowledge of Jesus Christ, whom the Father had sent,—another truth, by the way, entirely and necessarily ignored by the system. So that on every point it is as perversion of the scripture, even as to "facts,"—on which' its author likes to insist at the expense of dispensational truth (p. 24). But the moral harm done to unwary souls: is deeper yet; for the truth they think they receive separated from the divine word which conveys it, being deduced from reasoning, instead of being received in the connections in which God has given it.
If the saint's life were "in the Son" in Old Testament' times, or even under the new covenant, then the Psalms are the expression of the exercises of heart which correspond to it. But the knowledge of the Father is not in the Psalms, nor does it form a part of the blessings promised under the new covenant. (Jer. 31 &c.; quoted at length in Heb. 8.) It is not even in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which treats of another line of truth. So what becomes, in the experiences of the soul, of our highest Christian privileges They are lost practically for one who adopts this system. The writings of John, Gospel and Epistle, are drowned, so to speak, in the Old Testament; and we are reduced for all dispensational advantage to the fact that life now is "in Christ" (p. 13); and the essential glory of the Person of the Son, who was not then manifested, is represented as characterizing the life the Old Testament saints had. Or else—and this is the other horn of the dilemma—you may have life in the Son, you may "be identified with the Son in life and nature," and yet not know the Father at all;. not even know that it is possible that such a relationship could ever exist for mortal man I But that is just this system; which boldly asserts that the fact of even the Spirit's presence in man does not "of necessity infer their freedom from the law of sin and death" (p. 72)! It divorces the truth presented from the experience of it in the soul, reducing it to a lifeless heartless dogma; and this is excused by complaining that "experiences are brought in to supplement Christ" in a legal way, "and by saying that" having Christ you have all.”
This theory, in giving "Life in the Son" an anticipative value in a way scripture does not, separates the knowledge of the Father from it; so that we have it presented to us shorn' of its relationships, affections, knowledge, and responsibility; and based upon no revelation of God. Consequently, it is; not a life of faith at all; for it can exist—did exist according to this system—for four thousand years without these things. Faith too, practically separated from it, is reduced to believing something about man, professedly suited to his misery no doubt, so as to bring him out of that, but into what?—A life, which for his soul has no reality at all, so far as relationship with God and responsibility are concerned. The effort to apply to Abraham what he had not, just results in keeping out of sight what he had—what is indeed the point of all his history, as divinely given in the scriptures; for he was called "the friend of GOD." Mr. Grant's explanation of his faith, and the way he was justified, proves this (see above, p. 22). Abraham is in view all through, and the germ and development of his faith. God' is accessory, so to speak.
Justification too, in the soul of the believer, is separated from the life (all theoretical and imaginary as it is); at any rate it was so for Abraham. So that, in fact, the very truth so loudly proclaimed, and which we are expected to find "help" in, vanishes when we think we are grasping it. The basis and principle of the gospel, as stated in Rom. 1:3, 4, is set aside in its two parts, to say nothing of the "justification of life," in chapter 5. The gospel is not about us (indeed there is no good news to tell in this respect), but concerning God's Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. And He was declared to be the SON OF GOD in power, according to the Spirit of holiness "by resurrection of the dead." Now Mr. G.'s theory really contradicts this; for the believer's life was "in the Son" before, according to him. We do not mean to assert that Mr. G. denies the work of the cross as the basis of all divine life communicated to fallen man. But he makes the life, when faith was in a promise, to be the same thing as life by faith in God's testimony to the death and resurrection of Christ, and to His personal glory as "the Son." The attempt to cover this by insisting on the life then given being divine is altogether beside the question. Was it "life IN THE SON" ?—The universal testimony of scripture answers, "No.”
His system is palatable to the human mind, because it leaves out the deep exercises of heart the word of God produces, and tells us that God appropriates everything to us in Christ, and if we only knew it, we should enjoy it. One would have thought that the history of the deliverance of the people of Israel from Egypt, with all the anguish and deep exercises of heart they went through, as portrayed in the scripture, should at least have taught Mr. Grant to be more cautious.
And as for repentance, what shall we say I The word is in his tract, and there is a definition on page 42 ("the taking true ground before God in the confession of sins"), which may mean a great deal or nothing at all, just according to what "the true ground" is explained to be. According to his system, it is practically reduced to very little, on account of the way in which the living word is methodically separated from the effect produced by it in the soul. We lose the truth that "the goodness of God leads us to 'repentance" (Rom. 2:4). And the solemn warning to those who do not repent is rendered well nigh meaningless.
Luke's Gospel, as well as John's, is deprived of its life and power.
One turns with relief from speculations which make everything visionary, to the realities of the living word of God, which shows us what is revealed, and what is not. Hero we do find peace and joy, meted out to us in divine fullness, while the workings of our poor minds are put to shame.
The rest the Lord gives to the laboring and burdened soul is offered, be it remembered, on that holy ground whore Jesus could praise His Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that He had hid these things from the wise and prudent, and had revealed them to babes; where the soul's supremest delight in learning the Father, as the Son is pleased to reveal Him, finds its term in the undisclosed glory of the Person of the Son; an impassable limit—if limit that can be called which is of itself an eternal, boundless, holy, joy—on hearing from Himself that "no one knows the Son but the, Father." Does it not carry our souls on to what alone can satisfy us, "the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which in its own time He shall show, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen nor can see; to whom be honor and might eternal! Amen" I (1 Tim. 6:14-16.) We learn now the infinite grace which has brought us so near, brought us to where God reveals Himself in the Son according to His own nature, light and love,—near enough to Him to learn that there is unapproachable light beyond.
There, only to adore
My soul its strength may find;
Its life, its joy, for evermore,
By sight nor sense defined.
But what puny thoughts are ours I We are utterly at fault, and have to confess our inability to understand, even in presence of the wonders of creation in the midst of which we live, so that we have to cover our faces, like Job, even at the tale of an infinitesimal part of them; and shall we allow ourselves to speculate upon the glory of the Person of the SON, the Creator of all, or upon the manifold wisdom and counsels of the FATHER, of whom every family in heaven and on earth is named!"We know in part." When the time comes for us to know as we are known, we shall find untold delight in what will be revealed then; just as in what will yet be still expressed in those blessed words: "No man knows.... no man can see...." But at the present moment we are brought into the light of the personal knowledge of God (2 Peter 1:3), by the One, who as Son of God and Son of man, could say to Nicodemus, "We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen." Let us look to it, that in prying with carnal curiosity into what is unseen, we do not find ourselves deprived by the enemy of what is revealed. This is his double work with the saints now.
"The Lord sends His disciples into the world, having confided the Father's word to them,—this revelation, not of God's dispensations in His government of the world, but the revelation of the Father in grace,—a revelation, not of God's counsels for the future in Christ, but which makes known the Father Himself, as having sent the Son, and putting us in relationship with God according to His nature, which will be the eternal blessing when there will no longer be any dispensation. Now this is what drew the world's hatred upon them. "But of this" eternal life "we are practically deprived by a system which renders it nugatory in the soul; and necessarily detaches it from what scripture shows to be inseparable from it, as it is revealed—" communion with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ." The "eternal life" is declared to us, the apostle says, that we may have this communion, and that so having it, "our joy may be full." Are we prepared thus to allow ourselves to be cheated by Satan out of our highest and most sanctifying blessings,—the full present value of the Name in which the Father keeps us? "HOLY FATHER, keep them in THY NAME, which thou Nast given me, that they maybe one as we.”
May the Lord preserve us, too, from losing sight of the fact, that when the revelation of eternal life is made to us in the Person of the SON, then is made known also the presence of the Holy Ghost upon earth, consequent upon accomplished redemption and upon the Lord's taking His place as Son of man in glory; and this not merely as the power and source of knowledge, but as also characterizing the life communicated, as we have already seen. These again are things which God has put together, but which Mr.' Grant's system separates. "Little children," that is, new born babes in Christ, are characterized as "knowing the Father," have eternal life, and have also the Holy Ghost. We learn in them what characterizes CHRISTIANITY. It is said to them: "And ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things; I have not written to you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth ... .And the unction which ye have received from him abides in you, and ye have not need that anyone should teach you; but as the same unction teaches you as to all things, and is true and is not a lie, and even as it has taught you, ye shall abide in him." (1 John 2:20, 21, 26, 27.) And we read in Gal. 4:6-9: "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into; your hearts, crying, Abba! Father;" and a verse or two after, their condition is described by the apostle as having "known God, or rather being known of God." The whole Gospel of John, from beginning to end, insists upon this blessed truth. He in whom the life is, and who is the life, is the One upon whom the Spirit descended and abode; and it is then made known to John that He it is who baptizes with the Holy Ghost; and he saw and bare record that He is the SON OF GOD. (Chapter 1:32-34.) "He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God, for God gives not the Spirit by measure." (Chapter 3:34.) We learn in His Person what the life is in its fullness, both as to the knowledge of the Father, as to its true spiritual character through the presence and operation of the Holy Ghost, and as to the complete separation from the world, and testimony against the world, which distinguishes it.
The SON OF MAN who gives to us the food which endures unto eternal life, is He whom the Father—God—hath sealed (chap. vi. 27). And consequently, if in the earlier part of the Gospel we find the Lord insisting upon the character of what is born of the' Spirit, we learn at the end that He sends down the Comforter from the Father, as soon as He goes up to where He was before. These two things are thus kept together by the Lord, and given to us in the same gospel. When God gives the "eternal life," He gives the knowledge of it: He sends His only begotten Son, and makes Himself known as FATHER, for the first time so revealed, And He sends down the Holy Ghost, that He may witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, and that He may cry in us "Abba, Father!" This is Christianity.
I do not say that every soul apprehends this. Alas there was no truth that sooner became a dead letter in Christendom. And how many Christians now-a-days, through the effect of theological traditions, really know nothing of it! But we have to do with the way in which scripture presents the truth, and not with the diluted or false doctrines to which imperfect or corrupt teaching has reduced it.
Had the Old Testament saints this? We all know they had not, as the passage in Gal. 4 distinctly states. Their life was not this, not in any sense what is called in John's writings "eternal life," nor had they the Holy Ghost who is given to those who have it. But we do find in Abraham's history blessed instruction as to what the life of faith is, in separation from the world, and with a heavenly hope before the soul, because of having to do with God. Ought not this to lead us to think and speak more about faith in GOD, and guard us from indulging in theories as to what "life" is? The admission of a human "How THEN I" here, is but to accept, in another form, the tempter's old question, "Yea hath God said: Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?”
Besides, would not all the Old Testament saints be members of the body of Christ, just as logically as they are said to have "life in the Son" I What is to hinder our putting a "how then" in here I The author of the system can perhaps explain this difficulty. But let us look it in the face. Mr. Grant, not scripture, states that they had life in the Son—were identified with the Son in life and nature. He, not scripture, reasons that they who had life before in the Son, have it now in Christ, "because the Son is Christ." But Christ is also the Head of the body. Step by step we are irresistibly led on; where are we to stop? Is there one single scripture which applies the possession of "eternal life" to those of whom it is not equally true that they are living stones of the church, and Members of the body of Christ? Christ's actual place in glory as Son of God and Son of man, in virtue of His death, is the foundation of both these things. (Eph. 1) The Son of man, confessed to be the Christ, the Son of the living God, is "the rock" on which the church is built; and the stones of which it is built are such as so confess Him, having received the revelation from His Father in heaven. Peter was a specimen "stone." The divine moral basis of it is given too in the same passage,—laid in His suffering and death. And the hope before the soul of him who denies himself and takes up his cross, to follow Christ, is the coming of the Son of man in the glory of His Father. (Matt. 16:13-28.) Again, the same wondrous truths come before us that we have already found to characterize the communication of the eternal life, in John 3:12-18,—the glory of His Person, as Son of man and Son of God, the "Word made flesh," His death and the fact of His going up to where He was before.
Surely it is not for us to seek to define what the life of the Old Testament saints was, or what it will be, when scripture is silent on the point. God will make it known. "He is not ashamed to be called their God;" but He does not say "their Father." "Friend of God," and "friend of the Bridegroom," betoken surely places of unspeakable blessing; but the Lord had said, in speaking of the greatest of those born of women belonging to the bygone dispensation "The least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”
The Spirit will be poured out in the millennium, but it in no way follows that saints blessed upon earth then, will know THE FATHER. The Spirit will not then testify to the exalted Christ seated on the Father's throne, Son of man and Son of God in glory. God's millennial name is "the Most High," which carries with it quite a different relationship from that of FATHER. Christianity fills up the parenthetic interval between Christ's going up, and His coming forth; and is wholly heavenly in its source, its character, and its end. Human reasoning on these things results in depriving Christianity of its heavenly character: the "eternal life" now given is reduced from a distinctive truth to what is universal, applying just as much to those who, during the millennium, have an earthly portion, as to those who have a heavenly one. Christianity in its essence is undermined. When we keep like little children to what God has written, all becomes simple for faith.
The important thing then for us to learn is how "eternal life" as a present possession from God, is spoken of in the scripture. And when we come to examine it there, we are struck by the way in which knowledge is insisted on in the writings of John. But Mr. Grant states that saints had eternal life and did not know it, nor know what it was; and thus distinctly sets aside the characteristic of the life, as given in the word of God. The gospel which alone sets forth the eternal life, insists upon the personal knowledge of Jesus, in every chapter; and the epistle is written to those who believe on the name of the Son of God, "that they may know that they have eternal life." It would carry us far beyond our limits to go through the Gospel with this view, but while commending it to our readers' careful study, as a subject fraught with blessing, we would quote a few passages only.
“This is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes on him, should have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." (Chapter 6:40, Now Trans.)
"I am the Good Shepherd; and I know those that are mine, and am known of those that are mine, as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep," (Chapter 10:14,15, New Trans.)
"Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip 4 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." (Chapter 14:9-11.)
"Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you." (Chapter 15:15.) (Compare also 16:13-15, 27; 17:3, 8, 25; 18:37; 19:35; 20:17-20, 29; 21:1, 14, 24.) John's gospel was "written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through his name." (Chapter 20:31.)
"We know that the SON OF GOD is come, and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true; and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ: this is the true God and eternal life." (1 John 5:20.) Thank God that it is so! Unspeakable blessing both for time and eternity I May He graciously arouse us to a deeper sense of it, and of what the new birth means; leading us on in a growing knowledge of Himself, in the holy intimacy of communion with him, to be "so occupied with Christ as to be forgetful of self."
Having desired to confine my remarks to the way in which "life in the Son" is presented in scripture, in marked contrast with Mr. Grant's system,—I have purposely avoided entering upon the question of sealing by the Spirit, and all the wonderful results to the believer of the presence of the Spirit, in, and with him; all of which has been developed in the "Operations of the Spirit of God," and in similar treatises by the same writer. For I am fully persuaded that the way in which Mr. Grant dissociates faith in the Lord's atoning work from the reception of the seal of the Spirit, is but an outcome of his doctrine as to "eternal life." They stand or fall together. And besides, I believe it to be upon principle disastrous to allow oneself to be drawn into the arena of controversy as to the way in which souls practically lay hold of the truth. This really belongs to the sphere of God's government in which we have nothing else to do than to admire in detail the ways of grace of Him who is "wonderful in counsel, excellent in working." (And see the whole passage, Isa. 28:23-29.) If our rapid examination of the truth presented in John's writings does not suffice to convince the reader of the unscripturalness of Mr. G.'s theory as to life, no similar inquiry would hinder him from accepting his doctrine as to the Spirit's seal. Mr. G. persuades himself he is keeping to scripture, when he is really setting it aside.
He appears to develop his system (p. 58), in great part, by building upon the difference between the possession of privileges, and the knowledge of such possession; a distinction which, of course, no Christian would question or deny the importance of insisting upon in its proper place, when meeting the ever varying states and conditions of souls. But the needs of souls are not met by seeking to explain them; and still less by a system formed in view of them. It is no comfort to a patient to hear his case exactly described by a doctor, if the latter has no remedy which can meet it. It may be a satisfaction to the man of science; but the patient is in no way helped, except to, be more than ever occupied with himself, which is the greatest hindrance to real progress in spiritual things.
When the truths of scripture are cast in systematic molds, its vital elasticity, and divine adaptation to the soul's need, is destroyed. The system must err on one side or the other. If, with the desire of grasping and unifying different dispensations and relationships with God, it be adapted to human intelligence, then "life" is reduced to one single form, and the knowledge of the relationship it expresses is necessarily divorced from it; for the relationship with God varies in different dispensations, and the life, according to the system, does not. This is Mr. Grant's system; and he would countenance it by condemning the other extreme, which would be to stereotype the knowledge as being contained in the life, and, as a consequence, smother or prevent the needed exercises of soul which the word of God produces. But why make a system at all I In neither way is the walk by faith: in the first case I reduce the word of God to the proportions of my own feeble apprehension; in the second, I persuade myself that I have attained to what I really know nothing of. The practical results of the Wesleyan doctrine of perfection is an instance in point: he whose conscience is tender in regard to sin spends his life in uncertainty and doubt, feeling he has not attained "perfection;" whereas, he who persuades himself he has attained it, makes light of sin, which, between his doctrine and his conscience, he is obliged to explain away or deny.
The word of God is living, and when we come to it, we find, at one and the same moment, the discovery of our state such as no mere feelings of ours could give us; and the remedy God has provided, which not only delivers us, but putts us into a new condition, where alone the state out of which He has brought us can be truly estimated. It was in the father's embrace, that the prodigal learned the love of his father's heart and his own vileness,— in his house and seated at his table, that he learned the depth of degradation and want to which he had come in the far country.
The word judges me, enables me to detect the movements of the soul, and thus to find out what my thoughts, feelings, and affections are as in God's sight; and the Holy Ghost, in occupying me with Christ, transforms me into His image, and gives me thoughts, feelings, and affections which are of a new order. I learn the end of myself, and of all that is of me, in death, and find a full satisfaction of the yearnings of a divine nature in Christ, who is thenceforth become the object for my heart. I am thus purified by the word, and grow by the knowledge of God (Col. 1:10). Still the mortifying of my members, which this implies, may find my heart rebellious, and hindrance to spiritual growth will be the consequence. The scriptures can meet this too in living power. But what if they are practically replaced by a system which tones them down to my feeble state? I have lost the power furnished of God for growth and self-judgment, and inevitable worldliness is before me.
It has been sought by someone (signing himself J. J. S.) recently, to uphold Mr. Grant's theory, by stating that "John 3:36 proves plainly that it is either eternal life, or the wrath of God; John 6:53, 54, that it is eternal life, or no life. "It is so now of course, as a consequence of the rejection of the Son revealed on earth in grace. But what saith the scripture? Such arguments only prove how the" form of sound words," according to the scripture, has already been given up; and this is the direct fruit of imbibing Mr. G.'s system. Does nothing depend then upon the way in which God chooses to reveal Himself in different dispensations? And is the life which is by faith in the revelation, always precisely the same in its character and manifestation, notwithstanding the difference of the revelation made? When I say that the life of a plant is not the life of an animal, do I thereby assert that the plant has no life? Or again, does saying an animal has not the life of a man, militate against scripture which calls them both "living souls "? And so, to go further, when we find divers forms of spiritual life in the various "families" in heaven and on earth which are named of the Father, can it be asserted that there is no difference between them? It is sad though not astonishing to find that in the last short paper issued by Mr. Grant himself the distinctions between "eternal life" as used in the synoptic Gospels, and as used in the Gospel of John are ignored. The thought of eternal life is really limited to its unending duration, covered by the statement that it is "divine." (See Appendix.) Saints accustomed to read the scriptures, one would have expected to refuse at once such a superficial and lowering representation of the truth. Has John 6:57 lost its meaning for our souls? The blessed Lord says "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me even he shall live by me." The great point of the truth I would desire to insist on is hero. He lived in His own divine nature, manifesting the Father down here,—living because of what the Father is, and by reason of His living. We, in order to live, need to eat, to feed upon Him. But there is more than this. God did not need to send the Son in order to reveal Himself as the Almighty, or as Jehovah. When He wills to be known as Father, then He sends the SON: none but the Son could make the FATHER known. And this is the life that constitutes Christianity. The life of the Old Testament saints, blessed as it was in communion with God, and unending as it will be, in the still greater enjoyment of what He is, was not this. The Son sent from the living Father lives by Him, because of what He is, and so reveals the Father to us. We feed on Him, and live by Him. In Him we learn who and what the Father is; and only so can we learn it. This is Christianity. "No man hath seen God at any time;" but the One who reveals Him now, is "the only-begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father," and He says, "We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen." He says too: "I know that his commandment is eternal life: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak." (John 12:50.)