Our All-Suffering Source of Blessing. 1 John 1.
THE fitting moment was come, beloved brethren, for the saints that the Apostle was thus addressing-and there is a moment when it comes to us, too, with peculiar appropriateness―to find the fullness of the blessing that grace has given us in the Son of God.
There are dealings of God previously, incomparable communications of His own grace and truth, and in due season; but if we are to be kept bright, and with joy full to the end―if we are not to be drawn aside and swept away by some current of error―the time will come when we must know that which alone suffices for the God of glory, and which equally―I will not say suffices, for it is far more than this―which lifts us to Himself, above all the tendencies, the snares, the difficulties, the delusions, which are around.
For none are so much tried as those that are Christ’s; none has Satan such a desire to make instruments of grief to Him, instruments of dishonor to His name. What have we not seen, what do we not know of danger to our own souls? We have not passed through that which God has led us through in His grace without some such sense. Would to God that it were one that showed that our souls are conscious of the perfections of His grace, and of His most faithful care.
For I speak now to those who are members of Christ’s body, and who have passed through the attacks of His enemy in so many ways. I am persuaded He will make it felt by us what a fullness there is in the Lord Jesus Christ, and in this way, “fellowship.” I am not speaking of the fellowship of saints now, but of the soul, brought out of all that is subordinate, and all that tends to drag down, and even to misuse the most precious things God has given.
We need a power to lift us above it. The saints of old passed through the same in principle. Something more with us. We have had to find the way to get out of confusion, which they had not. They were brought out of that which is false in heathenism, and the merest region of death in Judaism itself; but we have had to face the effort of Satan to corrupt and destroy in a thousand forms. We have been brought out of these confusions, brought to God Himself: God Himself, and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; and the great effort of Satan is to take advantage of all traces that remain, all weaknesses, all the things that assault, assail, and which have grown up in this scene of difficulty, as well as what each carries along with himself, what each has practically learned but little to judge. For we have each with us that which increases the difficulty of all.
Now it is a most precious thing that God has provided, and that too in our Lord Jesus Christ, for here it is not merely the meeting of need, though need there was, and danger too, but the positive delight of God Himself in His own Son, and the delight too of the Son in the Father. And where is it that we find this? In Himself.
I believe that “Eternal Life” as it is here presented, is not at all as we find it in the beginning of the epistle to the Romans. “Eternal Life” there comes in more in its triumph over death― “Grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord;” but here it is not so much that. That was most thoroughly in its own season, and I do not believe souls will be able to appreciate the way in which the Holy Ghost presents it here, unless they have already been founded in what the Holy Ghost has given in the epistle to the Romans and elsewhere.
Here it is quite another way, not so much looking at us and our need as at the Father and the Son. Here the Holy Ghost regards Christ. Christ as He was seen; Christ as He was heard, too; Christ as He came in contact with the commonest things here below; but with all that a Christ that led into the deepest enjoyment of the Father in Himself, and the deepest enjoyment of the Son also in His Father; for I believe this is precisely what is meant by “fellowship.” It is “the eternal life” which was in our Lord Jesus Christ; the ground of it, that is, eternal life made use of by the Holy Ghost.
In speaking of the “fathers,” it is particularly to this point. “I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known Him that is from the beginning” (ch. 2) Which of us but has often considered where could be the especial force and beauty, where could be the blessedness referred to, for it is evident the Holy Ghost had a great practical purpose in it, “that your joy might he full.” This, where there was everything to assail, everything to distract and grieve.
Now the saints ought to know what grief is. None knew it as Christ; but no grief He passed through― no feeling the state of the people of God―interrupted the joy He had in God Himself. It is well to be fully sensible to things around. We ought to have the ability to look in the face of everything to estimate and weigh it according to God. If so, we shall know what deep grief is, but know it according to God. Nothing so easy as to enfeeble one another, to be feeling the trial, the difficulty, the distraction, and merely to go about speaking of it, and thus adding to the difficulty of the saints. To Christ there was the perfect appreciation of it all, for there was this power of measuring, judging, feeling all things according to God.
There was a heart that unwaveringly turned to God, and which found its rest and delight in Him. What was that to the Father? and was it less because He was a man? Unspeakably more! For the first time there was one man that in everything met his heart.
Well now we have that very same eternal life. It is true we have ii not in ourselves apart from Him, but we have it in Him not less really, nay, more blessedly. This is what he starts with. We are privileged to see it as perfect in Himself in the Gospel. Here it is filling the saint with the joy of knowing this very thing. Not apart from Him. God forbid; that would be to do the greatest dishonor to Him.
Now we have it a great deal more blessedly still, — this “fellowship,” that which answers to His own thoughts and feelings in the midst of ruin. Are we then to be the spreaders of our own fears, our own anxiety, to damp comfort, to dress souls?
Then, beloved, may God be with us in comforting our hearts. There was a time when we could not have appreciated it. Some cannot enter into it. There is a ripeness, a maturity, where it suits; this I think I see in the connection of it with the “fathers,” but we should profit by all God has given. In the wreck around, in all that rises up so to burden, so to fill us with anxiety and fear, it is what Christ had in all its perfection; it is what Christ is, for the very life that is in Him is the very life we have now; fellowship with the Father, and with the Son; and all made known that our joy may be full, and surely where the joy is full we do communicate, and we communicate according to that joy.
We strengthen instead of weakening. We turn the heart to Christ, instead of occupying it―with what hinders―with evil things and Satan here. It is not less felt, but there is power above it, and a power that nothing can touch. I think I see a peculiar fitness and sweetness in this to meet our souls in all that surrounds us now, comparing the state of the Church when the apostle was wring with what is the need we find today. “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Sor Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full” (1 John 1:3, 43That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full. (1 John 1:3‑4)).