by J. N. Darby
We have scriptural authority for regarding Peter and Paul as the apostles, respectively, of the circumcision and of the uncircumcision. Peter and the twelve remained at Jerusalem when the disciples were scattered, and, continuing the work of Christ in the remnant of Israel, gathered into an assembly on earth the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Paul having received the ministry of the assembly, as of the gospel to every creature under heaven (Col. 1), as a wise master-builder lays the foundation. Peter sets us off as pilgrims on our journey to follow a risen Christ towards the inheritance above. Paul, in the full development of his doctrine, shows us the saints sitting in heavenly places in Christ, heirs of all of which He is heir. All this was dispensational, and it is full of instruction.
John holds a different place. He does not enter into dispensations, though once or twice stating the fact as in John 13:1; 14:1; 17:24; 20:171Now 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 unto the end. (John 13:1)
1Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. (John 14:1)
24Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. (John 17:24)
17Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. (John 20:17), nor does he take the saint or even the Lord Himself up to heaven. For him Jesus is a divine Person, the Word made flesh manifesting God and His Father, eternal life come down to earth. The Epistle of John treats the question of our partaking of this life and its characters.
God's Dealings With the Earth But at the close of the Gospel, after stating the sending of the Comforter at His going away, Christ opens to the disciples (though in a mysterious way) the continuation of God's dealings with the earth, of which John ministerially is the representative. He links the manifestation of Christ on earth at His first coming with His manifestation at His second. Christ's Person, and eternal life in Him, is the abiding security and living seed of God, when dispensationally all was corrupted and in confusion and decay. If all were in disorder outwardly, eternal life was the same.
The Destruction of Jerusalem
The destruction of Jerusalem formed a momentous epoch as to these things, because the Jewish assembly, formed as such at Pentecost, had ceased. The judicial act was then accomplished.
Paul; As a Wise Master-Builder, Laid the Foundation of the Assembly.
Christians had been warned to leave the camp. The breach of Christianity with Judaism was consummated. Christ could no longer take up the assembly, established in the remnant of the Jews, as His own seat of earthly authority.
The assembly, as Paul had established it, too, had already fallen from its first estate and could in no sense take up the fallen inheritance of Israel. All seek their own, says Paul, not the things of Jesus Christ. All they of Asia—Ephesus, the beloved scene where all Asia had heard the Word of God—had forsaken him. Those who had been specially brought with full intelligence into the assembly's place could not hold it in the power of faith. Indeed, the mystery of iniquity was at work before this, and was to go on and grow until the hindrance to the final apostasy was removed.
Universal Declension and Ruin
Here, in this state of universal declension and ruin, John's ministry comes in. Stability was in the Person of Christ, for eternal life first, but for the ways of God upon earth too. If the assembly was spewed out of His mouth, He was the faithful witness, the beginning of the creation of God.
Let us trace the links of this in his Gospel. In John 20 we have a picture of God's ways from the resurrection of Christ till we come to the remnant of Israel in the latter days, represented by Thomas's look on the pierced One and believing by seeing.
In John 21 we have, besides the remnant, the full millennial gathering. Then at the close of the chapter the special ministry of Peter and John is pointed out, though mysteriously. The sheep of Jesus of the circumcision are confided to Peter, but this ministry was to close like Christ's. The assembly would not be established on this ground any more than Israel. There was no tarrying here till Christ came.
Peter's ministry in fact was closed, and the circumcision assembly left shepherdless, before the destruction of Jerusalem put an end to all such connection forever. Peter then asks as to John. The Lord answers, confessedly mysteriously, but putting off as that which did not concern Peter who was to follow Him, the closing of John's ministry, prolonging it in possibility till Christ came. Now, in fact, the Bridegroom tarried, but the service and ministry of John by the Word (which was all that was to remain, and no apostle in personal care) did go on to the return of Christ.
John's Special Ministry
John was no master-builder like Paul—had no dispensation committed to him. He was connected with the assembly in its earthly structure like Peter, not in the Ephesus or heavenly one. He was not the minister of the circumcision, but carried on the earthly system among the Gentiles, only holding fast the Person of Christ. His special place was testimony to the Person of Christ come to earth with divine title over it—power over all flesh.
This did not break the links with Israel, as Paul's ministry did, but raised the power which held all together in the Person of Christ to a height which carried it through any hidden time, or hidden power, on to its establishment over the world at the end. It did not exclude Israel as such, but enlarged the scene of the exercise of Christ's power so as to set it over the world. It did not establish it in Israel as its source, though it might establish Israel itself in its own place from a heavenly source of power.
The Assembly and the Revelation
What place does the assembly then hold in this ministry of John found as it is in the Revelation? None in its Pauline character, except in one phrase coming in after the Revelation is closed, where its true place in Christ's absence is indicated (Rev. 22:1717And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. (Revelation 22:17)). We have the saints at the time, in their own conscious relationship to Christ, in reference, too, to the royal and priestly place to His God and Father, in which they are associated with Himself. But John's ministerial testimony, as to the assembly, views it as the outward assembly on earth in its state of decay—Christ judging this—and the true assembly, the capital city and seat of God's government over the world, at the end, but in glory and grace. It is an abode, and where God dwells and the Lamb.
All this facilitates our intelligence of the objects and bearing of the book. The assembly has failed; the Gentiles, grafted in by faith, have not continued in God's goodness. The Ephesian assembly, the intelligent vessel and expression of what the assembly of God was, had left its first estate. Unless it repented, the candlestick was to be removed.
The Ephesus of Paul becomes the witness on earth of decay and of removal out of God's sight, even as Israel had been removed. God's patience would be shown towards the assembly as it had been towards Israel. But the assembly would not maintain God's testimony in the world any more than Israel had. John does maintain this testimony, ministerially judging the assemblies by Christ's Word, then the world from the throne, till Christ comes and takes to Himself His great power and reigns. During this transition-dealing of the throne, the heavenly saints are seen on high. When Christ comes, they come with Him.
Links between John's Writings
The first part, then, of the Epistles of John are the continuation, so to speak, of John's Gospel before the last two dispensational chapters. The Revelation, that of these last two chapters (John 20, 21), where Christ being risen and no ascension given, the dispensational dealings of God are largely intimated in the circumstances which occur. It is shown at the same time that He could not personally set up the kingdom then. He must ascend first.
The two short epistles show us that truth (truth as to His Person) was the test of true love, and to be held fast when what was anti-Christian came in. The free liberty of the ministration of the truth was to be held fast against assumed ecclesiastical or clerical authority, as contrasted with the assembly. The Apostle had written to the assembly. Diotrephes rejected free ministry.