Life is a sacred thing. God is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. Life belongs to God. Man lost it at the beginning, through disobedience, and it then returned to God. Adam as soon as he lost it, was taught to know that he could' never, of himself, regain it. Cherubim with flaming sword were set at the gate of the garden, to keep every way the way of the Tree of Life. He received life through the word of truth, the Gospel of a bruised and yet victorious Jesus, a dead and risen Savior; but in himself he had it not, and of him-self he never could regain it, and as surely never transmit it to us. It returned to God-and we who have it, have it by gift from Him through the Lamb who has put away sin, and whose is the Book of Life.
The same mystery of forfeited and irrecoverable life, is afterward told to Noah, but by another ordinance than that of the cherubim guarding the way of the Tree of Life.
Flesh was given to Noah to eat; but the blood was not given him with the flesh. The blood was the life; and by this prohibition, man was still taught to know that he had forfeited life, and could not recover it (Gen. 9). And this same ordinance, that blood was not to be eaten, was continued under the Law, and to the same intent (Lev. 17).
We therefore, as either in Adam or of Adam, ought to be full of thoughts of death in ourselves. But the Lord Jesus Christ is to be full of thoughts of life in Himself. He must be so. And the Gospel by John gives blessed proof that He was so.
In chap. 1 The Spirit in the Evangelist recognizes this; for, speaking of Jesus, He says, "In Him was life."
In chap. 2, the Lord Himself recognizes this, saying, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up"; and He spake of the temple of His body.
In chap. 3, He anticipates His being lifted up on the Cross, for the end of imparting "eternal life."
In chap. 4, He takes knowledge of Himself as the One who carried for sinners the very fountain of eternal, everlasting life.
In chap. 5, He speaks of Himself as working in the track of the Father, as the source and communicator of life.
In chap. 6 His thoughts are all about life. It is His subject throughout His discourse to the people.
In chap. 7, He stands, as at the head of the river of life, ready to turn its abundant, overflowing streams through the bellies of all thirsty ones who will come to Him.
In chap. 8, He declares Himself to be the Light of life, and announces the victorious character of that life which He carries and imparts; saying, " If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death."
In chaps. 9 and 10, which close His public ministry, commenting, as it were, on what it had been, He says, " I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."
In chap. 11, a retired scene of service, after His more public work and testimony are over, we find the same mind in Him, expressed, too, under very striking circumstances, and in a very striking and fine manner.
All around are full of thoughts of death. It was at Bethany, and the grave of Lazarus. Disciples, Martha, Mary, the friends of the family, all alike are talking of death. But Jesus has no thought but of life. This is in full, fine character. In order to display the life that He carried, He had remained two days in the place where He was, till the sickness at Bethany had ended in death; then He goes (as God Almighty to Sarah, in Gen. 18) as the Quickener of the dead, and both declares Himself and shows Himself " the Resurrection and the Life."
This surely crowns the evidence of what I suggested, that all through this Gospel by John (i.e., in His ministry as recorded there), the Lord Jesus was full of thought of the life He carried in Himself for us sinners. And so, in consistency with this, at the end of the Gospel, the Evangelist (speaking again, under the Holy Ghost, as he had at the beginning), speaks of life connected with Jesus. " These things are written," he says, at the end of chap. 20, " that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through His name."
Life is, indeed, the Lord's great subject in this Gospel. And, in further proof of this, we may observe, how in every chapter (which we have already considered), He presses through every hindrance, which the spirit of the world, the ordinance of Israel, the law, flattery or enmity, or anything else which He finds in action and energy around Him, puts in His way, in order that He may bring forth this Life, and dispense it to sinners. Thus:
In chap. 2, the mother, in a worldly spirit, would have Him show Himself; but He refuses.-In chap. 3, Nicodemus would honor Him as a Teacher; but Jesus again refuses.-In chap. 4, He passes through partition-walls which ordinances had set up, that He may carry the waters of life beyond them.-In chap. 5, He again breaks down a standing witness, or a pillar, in the city of the Jews, revealing (though the Jews were seeking to kill Him), that the hour had come when the dead should hear the voice of the Son of God and live.-In chap. 6, He presses through the offers of the multitude, refusing the crown at their hands, that He might give Himself to them as the Bread of Life.-In chap. 7, He resents the spirit of the world in His brethren, as in chap, 2, He had resisted it in His mother, but takes His place as the Lord or the Giver of Life.-In chap. 8, He passes by Mount Sinai, refusing to act in judgment, for He was the Light of Life.-In chaps. 9 and 10, He takes His place outside the camp, telling us that all His people are to be found there also, there finding life in its abounding. -In chap. 11, He passes through His personal love to Lazarus, that He may allow death to do its work with him, and then display Himself as Life in victory.
Thus He urges His way through all kinds of hindrances, attractions and flatteries, fear and enmities, the spirit of the world, ordinances and partition-walls, all are set aside, that He may be known in the one character, as He who came to do the work of life in a world whose sin was reigning unto death.
God, coming into this world, where death is thus reigning, has come as the Living God, as the One who purposes to overthrow the power of death, and to give life again, life in victorious strength, to those who had been the captives of that power.
Accordingly, the faith that apprehends Him, the faith that reaches Him, the faith that is of the operation of God, knows and receives Jesus the Son of God, in that character, as the Giver of Life.
Peter represents or utters this faith in Matt. 16.16, and the Lord at once seals him as taught of the Father. And this is "the Rock." The Rock is God in victorious life, and the Church is built upon Christ as such Rock, as the Lord of Life in victory over all the power of death, and, therefore, the Church is unassailable. The gates of hell cannot prevail. They have been already broken asunder by Him who is the Church's Head and the sinner's Security. Life in Adam was to be tested. It was tested, and yielded to him who had the power of death. But the life that we have from our Rock has been proved to the uttermost, and stood triumphant in resurrection-strength. So that the life we get is eternal infallible life. It is a life which cannot be reached by any assault from the power of death. The murderous stones may disfigure Stephen's present tabernacle, take it down roughly, or tear it in pieces: but his life in Christ is untouched by all that-his spirit takes its journey homeward-there to await a clothing worthy of itself, eternal like itself, the house not made with hands, the building of God.
But, again, I say, we have life constantly kept before us, in this Gospel by St. John. But it is variously, as well as constantly, presented; presented in different attributes or conditions. Thus:-
1. It is shown to us as being the fruit of sin put away.
2. It is shown to us as leading into light.
3. It is shown to us as abounding or overflowing.
4. It is shown to us as in victory.
5. It is shown to us as being imparted (in its full or final power) to the body.
6. It is shown as leading us into relationship.
7. It is shown as enabling us, if the Lord please, to remain here till He returns.
These are fine attributes or conditions, in which the life, received from Jesus, the Son of God, is presented to us.
1. That life is the fruit of sin put away is a necessary truth; but it is shown here by this, that He who carries it for us, is " the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world." (1)
2. That this life leads into light is declared in the words, " in Him was life, and the life was the light of man"; and it is illustrated in every soul that is quickened in the course of this Gospel; for each of them finds his rest or his home in the divine presence, and that is " the light."
3. That this life is abounding or overflowing, the Lord declares himself, "1 am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." (10)
4. That it is life in victory is seen in the empty sepulcher.
5. That it is imparted to the body, we have from the words, " I am the resurrection and the life."
6. That this life takes us into relationship, making us sons of God, or giving us to know God as our Father, is clear from those words, " because I live, ye shall live also—at that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in Me, and I in you." (14)
7. That this life might continue in our present body, till the Lord return, is implied in His words to Peter concerning John, "if I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee." (21)
What fine attributes of the life we receive from the Son of God, are these!
It is, surely, a life imparted, a gift of sovereign grace, made communicable to us by the sacrifice of the Cross, which put away sin; but being imparted, it is thus blessedly and preciously conditioned. But it is a gift. The Cherubim, at the gate of Eden, as I have alluded to already, had a flaming sword to keep every way, the way of the Tree of Life. Adam, at that moment, was a pardoned sinner. He had heard and received the word of salvation, and the Lord God had clothed him with a coat of skin, made by Himself. But all this did not give Adam either title to the Tree of Life, or power of him-self to reach it. The flaming sword, as thoroughly stopped up Adam's way to the Tree, as it did Cain's. Man, as man, is on one side of the sword, and the Tree of Life on the other. Life is no more within the reach of one man, of himself, than of another. All are alike in that respect—dead in sins, and children of wrath by nature. Therefore, the Lord says to His disciples, in John 13, " As I said unto the Jews, whither I go ye cannot come, so now I say unto you." That is though they were disciples, and at that moment, sure of heaven, yet of themselves they could no more go where He was then going, than a reprobate unbelieving Jew could.
Now, this word of Christ was like the sword of the Cherubim, keeping an Adam as surely apart from the Tree of Life, as a Cain. Jesus would go and prepare a place for His disciples—as chap. 14:3, tells us- but they could no more reach that place, by title or power of their own, than the Jews, who had rejected Him. We are to receive of the Tree of Life (Rev. 2:7); but we have no power to press our way back to it.
The Lord Jesus, however, was the very opposite of this; His condition was not what ours is, in this great matter. The same passage, in John 13, tells us this. " Now is the Son of Man glorified," He says there, "and God is glorified in Him. If God be glorified in Him, God shall also glorify Him in Himself, and shall straightway glorify Him." Be speaks of Himself as One that is to be straightway glorified, glorified at once, needing no preparation to be made for Him. With Him, there was both title and power; life and glory, were His, by personal right, and by moral title. He had never forfeited the Garden of Eden. He walked as one that was actually outside of it, all His days; amid the thorns and briars, the sorrows and privations, of a self-ruined world. But this He did in grace. He took such a condition upon Him, but He was not exposed to it. He was not on one side of the Cherubim, and the Tree of Life, or the Garden of Eden, on the other. In His history, there is no sword in the hand of an angel to keep the way of that Tree, as there is in man's or Adam's history—but, on the contrary, when He had accomplished His temptation, angels came and ministered to Him (Matt. 4:11). He stood where Adam had failed and fallen—so that angels came with services to serve Him, and not with a flaming sword to withstand Him.
This is precious, as honoring and distinguishing Jesus, the Son of Man. But my present subject is not so much His excellencies, as the life we get from Him. May we prize it more, and learn to love the blessed Giver!