These first six verses form a very serious portion of Scripture. Another subject commences at the seventh verse, and between the two is a close and beautiful moral connection. Here I would say, what I meant by calling the Lord Jesus the moral representative of God, was, that He was the representative of the Divine character. He was God incarnate, and that in every characteristic. We talk commonly of the likeness of two persons. When we say that they are like in face, We mean that there is a physical likeness; but if we say they are like in character, that is the moral likeness; now, we see both in Christ. He is the express image of God’s person, and morally, He is God, as to His character, while He is God Himself too.
Verse 7. —We have now another subject, which is not another. But the change is, that from speaking of the person of Christ, the Apostle passes on to speak of His nature, His Divine nature. This is the way you would describe a man, and (this is the way) thus the Spirit describes Christ, in whose person we first reach God, and find that He is love. We reach one of whom we may say with Wesley, “His nature and His name is Love.”
Turn back now to the twenty-fourth verse of the third chapter, “And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit that he hath given us,” and then in the first verse, chapter four, “Beloved, believe not every spirit.” These verses are closely connected. When the Spirit is noticed, He is characteristically described. It is not merely the Spirit, but the Spirit in you and me, and His character as producing a true confession of Christ. The Holy Ghost has indeed other characteristics. We have Him as unction, earnest, and zeal, and in you and me He makes intercession as the Spirit of adoption, crying, “Abba, Father.”
Amongst other characteristics is this blessed one, that He makes confession that Jesus Christ is come in flesh. Could you part with this? In Romans you have the truth thus put, “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” Here you live the Spirit in you, characterized by the confession that Jesus is the Christ.
The Spirit of God has made you His dwelling place, in fulfillment of the words of the Lord, “He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” And now, if the Spirit of God be dwelling in you, let me ask, Is He there in inactivity? No! in action! And if in action, He shows what you are in His character of unction, from the Holy One; as earnest, He shows what you shall be; as the Spirit of Adoption, He teaches you to cry, “Abba, Father;” as Intercessor, He pleads for you and in you with groanings that cannot be uttered. By necessity the Spirit is active, He could not be otherwise by His very nature, and thus we are taught to know He is in us by His energies.
One of them is a sound confession of Christ. Now, if I meet anyone who will turn aside from this confession, even suppose him to be a saint, he is not therein moved by the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost knows Christ, and He lets the saint know Christ, and what He teaches of Him is, that He is perfect. Perfect in His manhood, perfect in His Godhead. One whole person, God and man, one Christ. This is the grand fact that links you with God. No other victim could have done, but the Man—Christ Jesus. The person and work of Jesus have opened the way for me to return to God. How important was that confession of Peter: “Whom do men say that I am?” “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” “Blessed art thou, for my Father hath revealed it unto thee.” How blessedly simple this is! God Himself has provided a channel by which the waters of life may flow even to me! And this they never would have done had not Christ come in the flesh. Let us look full in the face of this verity of the Godhead and the manhood. This is the channel for the water of life or atonement. If I touch either His manhood or His Godhead, I have broken down the altar and destroyed the only channel for the water of life. Is it not well to repeat it? Everything hangs on the person of Christ, and it is a glorious acting of the Spirit in the individual, which produces a sound profession of Christ.
To talk of human things. If I wanted water to be brought from Wicklow, I should carry it all the way. How should I be served if the channel reached but half the way? Nay, it must come every bit of the way from the source to myself, in order to serve me. I use this figure to express my meaning. There are many human errors, many of us have been guilty in this matter. I, myself, have before now. Not that there was the least question as to the glorious Person, but in speaking we slip aside at times from true expression of feeling and of truth. In Jesus we have God and Man. As one has said, “He laid His hand upon both; and by His own person He raised a living arch to join the two forever!” And now, if I look upon the altar, I see justice satisfied; as we have been singing:—
“No victim of inferior worth
Could ward the stroke that justice aimed;
For none but He—heaven or earth—
Could offer that which justice claimed.”
But now I am as righteously restored as before I was righteously condemned. It is as righteous of God to bring us back as it was to banish us. When Adam heard and believed the promise from God to the seed of the woman, he was then as righteously in the presence of God, as he was before behind the trees of the garden. Once you get this victim on the altar, all question as to righteousness is over, and now we speak of life flowing through Him as a channel. Is the channel, then, long enough to reach to me in my lost and distant condition? Yes, it is cast up, cast up before me, for the Son of the living God is this Jesus of Nazareth! All is eternally settled. My person is justified, life is secured to me. Mighty mystery! Is it any wonder that, with such results depending, that I find the Spirit a sound Confessor? Is not everything hanging on the person of Christ? And look how the Spirit follows in the steps of Christ when Christ was where He was, full of activity for you, and now the Holy Ghost has come down, and is full of activity in you. You know well enough what it is to have the intellect or affections active. Do you know as well what it is to have the Spirit active? Is He crying, “Abba, Father!” in your heart? Is He testifying by a sound confession of Him?
Verse 4. —Here we have another blessed characteristic of the Spirit—that of Overcomer of the world. Do you believe that? And mark again how He follows Christ. The Son was Conqueror here; the Spirit in the saint is Conqueror here. Jesus conquered the deceiver in this world; in you and me the Spirit does the same. It is blessed to see the person and the divine nature thus working together and gaining victories. Now, if any one touches the person of Christ, do you gain the victory? If anyone touches the verity of the manhood as of the Godhead, do you not shrink by that instinct that makes you shrink at the least touch? And well you may, beloved, for greater is He that is in you than He that is in the world.
Verse 6. —Wonderful passage! Ah! well might such truths as these put your souls in the temple! Not into the school to discuss a question, but into the sanctuary to worship! Well may it set you to rest on this conclusion, that everything rests on the person of Christ. Well may you exclaim, “As for me, as far as I’m concerned, if Christ Jesus be not God and Man, the fount of life has not begun to flow.” Ay, it might, but for this glorious person, have flowed on forever and ever, and never have reached me. Well can we understand that upon this rock the Church is built, with a power that shall withstand the gates of hell. And can we think with patience that the deceiver should so far prevail as to find ONE who could consent to call Peter “the rock”? What thought can such have of their own sins? The rock is the person of Christ; Peter confesses Him, and Jesus says, “upon this rock,” etc. Ah! I feel that we are dealing with a fact that is immense. This is the One who went to the altar to make an atonement for my soul. The God-man went and satisfied the Throne; and surely when the Throne is satisfied, you ought to be so. The victim has opened the whole road from the living God to the sinner. You have only to look at the wondrous fact and breathe, “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.” “He will never leave me nor forsake me.”
Verse 7. —We now find the Spirit, without changing the subject, ascending from the person of Christ to His divine nature. Gently leading you along, the Spirit, having taught you to look at the concrete person of Christ, now bids you look at His abstract nature. And is it not blessed to find it all gushing from a fountain which is the nature of God Himself —a scheme set up before the foundation of the world—and all because “God is love.” Again, we have the test of knowing God. And have you been introduced to Him? Have you found rest in Him? Do you know that the source of all your blessing is the divine nature? You are a debtor to divine love; go, practice it! If God has thus brought you back to life, go show the family character. Is this unreasonable? Could you be asked less than this? You are in God’s family, show it. You fail, you say; to be sure, you do miserably! Selfishness comes in; yes, it does; but tell me, how do you treat it? When it comes, do you treat it as an intruder, as a trespasser in the divine nature?
Now, verse 8 lets you know that there is no such thing as knowing about God without the Spirit. What does the beast of the field know about you? “No man knoweth the things of a man,” etc. Where is the fellowship of nature between the beast and you? Neither is there any fellowship between you and God, but love. “He that loveth,” etc. Love is the only moral capacity for understanding God, in His own nature. No intellect can ever find Him out. Verse 7 shows the intrinsic necessity of the correspondence between love and God. I bless Him for introducing these thoughts to me—thoughts of the person of Christ. I have no need to fear, as a worshipper, though I may well fear to meddle, with a careless hand, with these glorious truths. And now let us bless God that He has taken up this glorious Person; that He has sent Him from the throne of heaven to wear our manhood, to take it up, to be, as an old writer has said, “The eternal ornament and admiration of His creation.”