John 4:15-5:5
We have then the truly blessed place of witnesses to the world of the love of the Father in the gift of His Son; would that we occupied it more faithfully. Ver. 15 follows with yet fuller light to guard us against being betrayed into any irreverent familiarity in preaching or speaking. The name of Jesus is not to be used lightly. Though, when sent of the Father into the world, He endured from men every indignity and hid not His face from shame and spitting, though He was reviled by the basest and foulest, He was then, and always, the Son of God. Hence the solemn question for the witness is — Am I confessing that Jesus is the Son of God? Meeting man's need is right and blessed, but we cannot be trusted, we cannot trust ourselves, save as we have in view the Person Whom we preach, and exalt Him. As Paul in Gal. 1:15, 16 says, “When it pleased God... to reveal his Son in me that I might preach him among the Gentiles.” No professed love for souls can palliate failure here, for the power of God is present. “God dwelleth in him” who thus, and at all times, confesses Jesus, “and he in God.” This is to dwell in love knowing and believing (note the order) the love that God hath to (in) us (ver. 16). It is not eloquence we want, but the happy realization, like the returned prodigal, that all is love at home, and God Himself is our dwelling-place. It is this that makes good, if unpopular, witnesses (whether in private or public) of a “good confession “; nothing else will. Finally, the perfection and unchanging continuance of the love of God is declared (ver. 17 R.V.) so that, in view of the coming day of judgment we may have boldness, and not fear; utterly lost as we are by nature and conduct, if God should enter into judgment with us, no man living would be justified (Psa. 143:2). Therefore the perfect love of God has taken us off that ground altogether, and by redemption has put us before Him “in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace” (Eph. 1:6, 7). Not a fear is to torment our soul, not a timid or doubting thought to disturb our mind, “because as He is, even so are we in this world.” This is sure ground for confidence, the boldness of faith in God's word, faith in the blood of Christ, faith in accomplished salvation, in being before God as He is in glory, even while we are still here in this world in weakness and failure.
Faith, then, discovering this perfect unchanging love of God revealed in His Son, draws the affections to Him. “We love (him), because he first loved us” (ver. 19) and loving Him we love those who are dear to Him. The motive is both pure and powerful; indeed, it is His commandment (ver 21). It is not only happy fellowship with Him in His love, but obedience to His will, to love our brother. The ways of some may grieve us, but it is genuine love that feels the sorrow. Abraham loved Lot, and gave proof of it, but he could have no fellowship with him. The severity of ver. 20 is righteous; God would guard us against all hypocrites and all hypocrisy. It is a crushing rebuke where needed, and put in a form that challenges the conscience. “He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” If that which is of God be seen in a brother and awakens no sympathy, no love, how can there be any for God?
The first and imperishable element of true abiding fellowship with one another is formed and found in the faith once for all delivered unto the saints, “faith in Jesus.” “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God; and every one that loveth him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of him (v. 1).” When the woman of Samaria received this truth, her first action commends itself to all who have obtained like precious faith (John 4:21-29). She at once left her water-pitcher to testify of Him to others. We think no longer of her race, her rudeness, or her past immorality. Our hearts are drawn to her more than to the timid hesitating ruler of the Jews (John 7:50-51). But now that Jesus is glorified, and the truth that He is “the Christ” is connected with heavenly glory and power, our faith in Him enlarges our understanding by the Spirit of truth, and fellowship with each other increases. The secret of lack of fellowship in modern times is the result of woeful decline of first faith, first love, and first works (Rev. 2:4, 5). Thus all that believe are not together, and are not of one heart and of one soul, as at the beginning. Alas! this state of division finds apologists, and to go on with one or another of the religious systems, which have established themselves in Christendom, is defended. Solemn and forcible is the protest of the Spirit against this in vers. 2, 3. It is not the fruit of love to God, or to the children of God. “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments.” Plans and systems of man's devising are not the commandments of God, but the actings out of human will, and the giving up of the spirit of obedience. What a rebuke to this is the walk of Jesus!
“If we say that we abide in him, we ought ourselves so to walk, even as he walked” (2:6); and sanctification of the Spirit is “to obedience, and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:2). Self-will is not obedience, and is not consistent with the blood of Jesus Christ. “He was obedient to death, even the death of the cross.” It is thus “the blood of his cross.”
The change in ver. 4 from “whosoever” to “whatsoever” is peculiar and to be observed. The life given of God, whoever may be the recipient of it, is looked at abstractedly, as in John 3:6. “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit,” in contrast with that which is born of the flesh. And each nature seeks its own things: the flesh, the things of the flesh; and the spirit, the things of the Spirit (Rom. 8:5). The desires of the two natures, being opposed, are never in agreement; and the power of the Spirit is on the side of the “spirit.” The world is a system ordered by “the prince of the world” to suit the flesh (11-16). “Whatsoever is born of God” —the life given of Him— “overcometh the world,” acting on His judgment of even its best; for “That which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God” (Luke 16:15). Practically and experimentally the victory is gained by faith, and here pointedly called “our faith,” not the faith of the most eminent saint before the cross. There the world was finally judged morally (John 12:31-32), as it will be judicially on the appointed day, by Him Who was hanged on it (Acts 17:31).
The mind of man is set on having the world without God. The apostle grasped this fact firmly, and continually impresses it on us. “Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God” (ver. 5)? For His confession of this before His judges, He was condemned to death; and the Jews, led by their rulers, insisted on His crucifixion; and Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required (Mark 14:61-62, Luke 22:70; 23:24, John 19:7). John was an eye-witness of this, a competent and faithful witness, and (while seeking to maintain us in communion with the Son now risen and victorious, with the Father and on His throne) He would have us, while on earth, in spirit take our place with Him when standing by the cross (John 19:26). Spiritually our history begins there. There God begins with us personally. It is there that we see the love that Christ has for us personally. There we, too, begin to see clearly that our very self, that which is expressed by “I” and “me” was before and on the heart of Christ when He delivered Himself up for us (Gal. 2:20). All vagueness, all uncertainty, all that is confused and mystical, vanishes. Gazing by faith— “our faith” —on the Son of God on the cross, the most sinful can truly say— “He loved ME, and gave Himself for ME.” To use the cross, as it is too often used in Christendom, as a symbol of the Divine sanction of worldly splendor, must be a dreadful outrage, in the sight of God, on the cross of Christ (see Phil. 3:18-19).
(To be continued, D.V.)