THERE is another part of John's gospel that we may look at; two verses in chapter 10. "If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not; but if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him." And again, " the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world."
We have been hearing something of Christ's present interest in the church on the earth. If we look a little at what is anterior to this, we get the infinite circle in which the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are, by divine counsel and operation, calling out the elect. In eternity the Father had His counsels as to these, and in a future day Christ will present to Himself the church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. And in this period the operation of the Holy Ghost is in calling out and uniting to the Head in heaven the members of the body of Christ: they are " baptized by one Spirit into one body."
Let this marvelous fact that it was a purpose in the Father's counsels, take hold of us. It is blessed to go back there. I do not think we can ever be in our full and proper place as to communion, if we do not. Before ever there was a created light, God Himself dwelt in light, and that light was Christ. " Then was I by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him." And so He asks, " Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest: because I said, I am the Son of God?"
It is our delight to take up from this height the way in which Christ introduced Himself, so that He might give life, eternal life, to as many as God the Father had given Him. Where are we as to it all? Not in the circle of this historical world; nor suited to the fall and ruin below; but left down here that we may shine as lights in it, holding forth the word of life; left here that we may be consistent with the place in which He has set us above, through the riches of His grace.
In this tenth chapter, the shepherd character of Christ is beautifully introduced in connection with the ninth; for suppose I am cast out by the authorities of to-day like this blind man was? I am only cast into the arms of Christ, the rejected One l And do not our hearts bound, as we hear the good Shepherd's words? It is impossible to be unmoved as we look at God thus sending His Son into this world. We cannot be near His hand of power, without finding out His heart of love. We have peace with God through Jesus Christ.
And not only that; I get His care too-the Shepherd's watchful eye; His goodness and fostering care. I cannot protect myself; but I am responsible to hear the Shepherd's voice, and He protects me from every external foe. What a comfort and sustainment to hear Him say, " I know my sheep and am known of mine, as the Father knoweth me, and I know the Father"! And then: " I and my Father are one." As it has been often said, we get here the double interest that is taken in the sheep-the interest of the Father and of the Son. The Father loved the sheep, and gave them to the Son. The Son loved the sheep, and laid down His life for them. What counsels are these! and before the world even was! Take away the Shepherd, and that oneness cannot be manifested. The blind man in this intimacy with Jesus, goes forth with the confession that He must be the Son of God. He said, Lord, I believe, and worshipped Him.
Well, it is all very familiar to most, so I pass on to another text. When Christ had to defend Himself from the charge they brought against Him-when they said " Thou blasphemest," He simply answered: " If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not; but if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him." And so in the present day. If truth connects us with the person of Christ and the true confession of His glory, we shall certainly have to meet the enmity of the world, and then we have nothing to do but to submit to reproach and rejection with Him, for the testimony of our Lord.
The Father sent the Son to gather out the sheep, these beautiful sheep white from the washing, and not a spot upon them as He sees them, brought up by the Shepherd.
I would just like to add, for another purpose, that many years ago at Plymouth I was visiting a brother who was ill, and had a paralytic stroke, which gave occasion for the hymn we sometimes sing, " Not a cloud above, not a spot within." I said to him, " Skelton, how are you? " and looking upwards he answered, " Oh! not a cloud above, not a spot within; " and trying to raise his poor palsied arm, said, " Ala 'sir, he will do no more mischief." A proof that though the outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. Our losses are our gains, in this school of God, and come out in a psalm.
I will also add one word on chapter xvii. which has already occupied us. The Lord says: "I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil." This is what the Son says to the Father, after He had perfectly fulfilled the work that had been given Him to do, and on putting us back into the hand of His " Holy Father" to be kept.
This chapter is to me the great basis of divine responsibility. The Lord says: " I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." This is the acquittal and seal of all responsibility as to what God required. Everything that God claimed is brought out and fulfilled up to the height of the glory of God Himself. So it says, at that hour " Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven and said... Thou hast given him power." Power for what? " That he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him." But what is this eternal life? "And this is life eternal. that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." And he adds: "I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do." He has acquitted Himself of the infinite responsibility that hung upon Him. He has done these two mighty things: glorified God on the earth, and finished the work He gave Him to do. There is nothing that gives this fallen creation its true charm, except as you connect it with what Christ was in it in His life, and ways, and walk. His delight was to glorify His Father, and to finish His work by death and resurrection on high. He has acquitted Himself of all the responsibilities that hung upon Him, and the Father has begun to glorify the Son, by exalting Him at His right hand in the heavens.
In verse six He says: " I have manifested thy name." What name? Do not think you have got to the marrow and fatness of a single name or glory of the Father, or of Christ as yet. Dwell upon it, under the anointing of the Holy Ghost, that He may open it out to you. "I have manifested thy name." Think of the mission of the Sop. " No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him"-that wonderful mission which reveals the Father. He says to Philip: " Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, show us the Father?" " And the word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth." Who beheld that glory? " We " beheld it! He had glorified the Father on the earth; He had gone about glorifying Him every day; every step He took God was with Him. Think of it! Anterior to the calling out of the church, God was with man upon the earth; and it was this very Man (the Son) who has glorified God!
Again, as to sanctification He says: " Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth." Thus our sanctification is connected with Christ Himself. Never separate truth, any one truth, from Christ. If it is a question of access to God, He says, " I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." How easily our lips may utter a verse like this, but not attempt to weigh it in the Holiest, where God dwells! He was the revelation of the Father; in Him the Father was seen opening out His heart. What was in the bosom of that love? This Son! And He came " to seek and to save that which was lost," and to make that which was lost familiar with Himself. At the cross of Christ I learn how I want all that Christ was, whether in life or in death. I want His life for living to God, and I want His death for what I was as a sinful man. I want His death for communion and boldness before God too; God's righteousness, His holiness as to sin, His love, His mercy, the very attributes of God are all glorified by that blessed One upon the cross. He says, I can bring holiness and sin together in myself on the cross, but not to reconcile them; that could not be. The Son has accomplished His mission on the earth: He has opened the Father's house to the sons of God, as He says in chapter 14.; and now He adds, "For their, sakes I sanctify myself." He first overcomes the world for Himself, and for His people, and then He goes out of the world and sets Himself apart for our sakes.
Time would fail me to say anything about the consequent mission of the Holy Ghost; I only mention further that we get the mission of the Son in the first part of this Gospel, and the mission of the Holy Ghost in the middle. And what a mission! We are brought into the blessedness of the Father's love and the Father's house by the Son, if we follow the first part of the Gospel; and we get the Father and the Son having communion with us by the Spirit as the Comforter if we follow the last. Chapter 13 opens with "Part with me" where Christ now is. I do not believe you can emphasize it too much. He goes to the Father; all things are His; and He sends the Holy Ghost down to His own, who are in this world.
The first object of the Holy Ghost's mission is, however, to glorify Christ. Whatever else He may do, God must have Christ glorified, and that by a competent witness, and on the earth too. Do not talk to me for the moment of the solar system; it is nothing to us, in the light of these heavenly glories, whether the earth goes round the sun, or the sun round the earth. I know another system altogether, one of which God's Son is the center; one in which, though He can charge His angels with folly, He cannot charge His saints with sin! It is impossible that He should. This is the new stand point of the risen, blessed, glorified, Christ, with whom we are, by grace and glory, one!
Here we can join on to that of which our brother has been speaking to us, and can see how the Holy Ghost carries on His present mission. He gathers together the members of Christ, purchased and redeemed by the blood of the cross, He baptizes them into one body of which Christ is the Head, and He takes of mine, as Jesus said, and shows it unto you. Thus are carried out upon the earth the purposes of God, as to a people for His name before even the world was, and thus comes out the glory of the person of the One whose work has brought us into all these counsels of God for His Son's glory, which were and are from everlasting to everlasting. Well may Paul pray " That ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints."
(S. E. B.)