John 17
I have it on my heart to say a few words on this chapter in reference especially to the character of sanctification.
At this moment, as we all know, the Lord was rejected. From chap. 13 we get Him speaking on this ground. Jesus knew “that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father.” All through this Gospel from chap. 1, He is unknown to the world, and rejected by the Jews. “He came unto his own, and his own received him not.” But from chap. 13 He speaks as going out of the world and ascending on high.
In this chapter, however, what is brought out is, that He came forth from the Father, not from God only; and this involves “eternal life” — “to know thee [the Father], the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” That is where eternal life comes in. Its character is that it is the knowledge of the Father; for the Father sent His only begotten Son, that we might live through Him. Of course, therein we know God also, “who by him do believe in God"; but it is in the knowledge of the Father, and Jesus sent by Him, that there is eternal life. And then the character in which we know Him is that of “holy Father"; and this is sanctification. When it is a question of the world, it is “righteous Father.” It is not that grace does not go out to poor sinners in the world to deliver them out of it, but that saints are not of it, and have done with it.
In some places it is a current thought that Christ came into the world to connect Himself with humanity—that He united Himself to man in the incarnation—which is utter falsehood. He was a true man—in one sense more man than we are, for a perfect thing is more than a corrupt thing. The union of God with man—with humanity as it was—is wholly unscriptural; there is none before redemption. Nor is it ever said that God, or a divine person, united Himself to us. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, true man in the flesh, but no union with us; and to maintain that there is, is totally false. I refer to it, because it is very current amongst Christians of all shades and forms. The doctrine of scripture is that we are united to Christ after redemption is accomplished—to a glorified Christ. “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone” —entirely and totally alone.
We have here a most important point practically, because “the friendship of the world is enmity with God.” Whenever I let the spirit and associations of the world in, I am associating myself with that which has rejected Christ. It may seem harsh, but it is not so harsh as the world rejecting Christ when He was here in grace. So the judgment of God is connected with it. He says, Righteous Father, I have manifested Thee, and the world has not known Thee. So when it comes to the Holy Ghost, it is, “Whom the world cannot receive,” because it does not know Him; it is only the believer who can. The world is a judged system, “Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out.” The Lord laid the foundation of an entirely new state of things, as to which He says, “Holy Father.” As to the world, it is said, it “hath not known thee;” and you cannot present God better to the world than Christ did.
You will find as things go on in these last days that this question will come up. Faith sees by the Holy Ghost what God's thoughts about it are, and our part is to get hold of them. When the Lord comes, it will be too late for the world; that is the day of judgment.
“If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” The Father has a world of His own which He has given to us, to which He has taken Christ to be the center—the new creation. The world, as it is, rejected Christ when He came into it, and now all that is over. He came in grace; God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself; “He came unto his own, and his own received him not.” And now we are to walk by faith as to these things, and not by sight, for the whole thing we belong to is a new creation. “Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.” That is what a Christian is; and we have to keep hold of it in our walk and in our testimony. I do not know what good we are if we go along with the world that rejected Christ. It is true we have the treasure in earthen vessels, but we belong entirely to the new creation; the treasure is not in its natural associations as to its surroundings here.
It is a solemn thing to say, but it is the truth, that we are begotten by the word of God. Plenty of creatures He had before; you might call Adam a kind of firstfruits if you like; but the saints now are the firstfruits of a creation that is not manifested at all, except as they live according to it here. We have to show it out in our bodies until Christ comes.
We read also, “By the which will we are sanctified, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once.” In Hebrews it is always sanctification by the blood—on the cross. There was a complete breach between God and the world, and the believer was set apart to God. Here there is a double ground of sanctification—God's will, and Christ's offering. And thirdly, which is the practical part of it, we get the Holy Ghost as Him who actually works it, the immediate agent of the work in us. “Elect... through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.” There is the communication of a new life in Christ: “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” It is the spiritual life, of course, he is speaking of; a man has not got life at all if he has not got the Son.
But, you say, Do they not all know this? No. The common doctrine is that you are born again, but this is viewed as a change of the old man. They say that you were spirit, soul, and body before, and that you are only spirit, soul, and body after, only in a changed state, and that it is an exaggeration to speak of anything more—of two natures—of any new nature added. But it is a totally new thing—Christ our life, so as even Adam, innocent, had it not. And this is really the principle of holiness. That which is born of God is a holy thing; we are “born again... by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever,” for the word of God does abide forever. It is a totally new thing; in the unconverted world it is not there at all; and therefore the Lord stops Nicodemus by saying, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God"; he must be born of water and the Spirit. Many, I trust, do know this, but, where there is ignorance as to it, it will work gradually out in some shape; and it makes all the difference whether I distinctly recognize that it is a new man, Christ living in me, by which I live to God.
Christ is that eternal life, which was with the Father, and becomes spiritually our life; it is nothing that is in man or of man. That gives it its true character. “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.” We have seen eternal life in the person of the Son come down from heaven; He was made a man; so in John we read, “The life was the light of men.” It is emphatic there. It is not the light of angels. It is what you call a reciprocal proposition. That is, life and light of men answer completely to each other, and each may be affirmed of the other.
All that which was simple failure at the beginning came out as enmity against God's own Son when Christ was in the world. He displayed divine goodness and power, all that divine grace could be; but this manifested God, and this man would not have at any cost. He says, “They have both seen and hated both me and my Father.” He was rejected in His word, and in His work, as is brought out in John 8 and 9. Thus it was not a question merely of failure and sin; there had been plenty of that before He came; it was that God Himself had been manifested in goodness before men, and because He was God they would not have Him. The world has been tested in this way, and the result is that, fallen man having been turned out of paradise, God, as far as man could do it, has been turned out of the world into which He had come in grace, when it was in the sin and ruin into which man, that was turned out of paradise, had got. And so the world will not now bear a man that is like Christ. It will bear plenty of Christians; an amiable Christian it will get on with; but a Christian is called to be faithful. Remember, the Christian has two natures, and whenever he gets on with the world, it is the Christian who goes to the world, for the world cannot go to the Christian; it has only one nature.
“The carnal mind is enmity against God.” Says the world, We will not have Him. So “He gave Himself to deliver us from this present evil world.” Thus I get the One, the Man that the world rejected, and that God delighted in; and God says, I must carry out My purposes of grace; and to Christ, Come and sit at My right hand till I carry them out. So that is where He is gone, and the world sees Him no more.
Now for the character of sanctification connected with this.
In Israel it was a little different. God was amongst them as a delivered people. He said to them, “Be ye holy, for I am holy"; I will not have you in my camp without holiness. God was there; within the veil certainly; but still He insisted upon it that they were a people whom He had taken to Himself, and that they must behave themselves as such. The veil was there unrent, “the Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest"; this characterizing the whole of God's dealings then with man as to the revelation of Himself. He was sitting within the veil; death to any man who came in; even the beast that touched the mount was to be stoned. God was saying, I am so holy that I cannot let anyone come near Me. I will give you laws and promises, but into My presence you cannot come. It is not so now. When Christ died, the veil was rent, and we have “boldness to enter into the holiest.” What was, was that God did not come out to man, and man could not go in to God. Keep the law, and have human righteousness, but still do not come near Me. All this closed in the rejection of Christ. What is, is that the veil is rent from top to bottom, and that the only place I have to walk in is in the light as God is in the light, and if I cannot walk in the light, I cannot walk with God at all. A Christian's place is not that he ought, but that he must walk in the light as God is in the light, or he cannot walk with Him, or in relationship with Him at all, for now there is no veil. We have a title to be in the holiest by the blood that brought us there, and are fit for it as cleansed from all sin, and there is no other place to walk in with God. But we reckon ourselves also dead to sin, to all that is without. This is the very thing that gives us deliverance. I am not in the flesh at all, therefore I can go in with boldness. We then come to what this sanctification is positively. God has personally accepted man in Christ; the Son of God is in the glory. Our actual condition is never spoken of except as being in connection with the Second man in glory; our only connection with God is in Christ; we are “predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.” This is not a question of our responsibility; it all depends upon the finished work of the Second man; it rests upon what is done. Christ has obeyed even unto death, and is glorified. As the result of His work, we have been begotten again with the word of truth, we have been made the children of God through faith in Christ Jesus, and thus have a new nature. We are heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.
[J.N.D.]
(To be continued)