(Read John 19:28-37; 1 John 5:6-14.)
THE writings of the apostle John are remarkable in this way, they are occupied with presenting to you, very sweetly and fully, the Person of the Son of God, and the wonderful blessings that accrue to the soul that is connected with Him. In the Gospel of John, the great blessing of eternal life is unfolded; but that blessing is in the Son of God. In the Epistle, likewise, he shows that the believer has eternal life; but all hangs on our relationship to the Son of God. He has come into this world, in order to communicate to us that which we have not, and also in order to take away from us that which we have,— i.e., God proposes in the gospel to take away our sins, and to communicate to us that which we have not, namely, eternal life.
In the nineteenth of John, the Holy Ghost gives us some aspects of the death of Christ. What a wonderful thing to think of, ―the death of Christ! The death of the Son of God! Does it not sound strangely in your ear, ―the death of the Son of God?
If I spoke of your death, of my death, it would be in nowise strange; but the death of the Son of God,—the fact that God’s Son was in this world, and that God’s Son died in this world,―that is marvelous indeed!
The fact is, there was no way by which life could be communicated to you and me, except by the death of God’s beloved Son. Man was a sinner; you and I were under sentence of death, with judgment hanging over us, and after that the second death.
Yes, my reader, if you are without Christ, you have only this before you. Death and judgment are before you. You will leave your friends behind, and your pleasures behind; but you will carry into eternity with you, your sins and your conscience. And oh, remember, if you pass into eternity without Christ, your eternity will be fixed, and you will know then the meaning of a word you may have scoffed at now,― Lost. Oh, face it now, my reader; face the fact that you are a lost soul now, if you have not Christ.
Did it ever strike you why Christ died? He died in the full blessed grace of His heart, to deliver you and me from the state we were in; and therefore the inference is most conclusive, that there is no way for your soul to be delivered from the state you are in, save by the death of the Son of God, and your interest in that death. How much, then, hangs for you upon that death!
Here, in this chapters 19, we see the Messiah dying. The Jewish nation had refused Him. It was Jehovah Jesus who hung on that cross, cast out and set aside by all. Pilate trembled; but he set Him aside, set the murderer free, and condemned Him whom he knew to be guiltless. The people clamored for His blood; they set Him aside. Man did his worst. At the same moment God showed His love, and man showed his hatred, to the very full.
Verse 30, ― “When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished; and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.” You have here Jesus presented as the Son of God; and, therefore, with all divine calmness and dignity, He did what no one else could do, —He gave up His spirit. Oh, that your eyes, my reader, may be opened to see the glory of this blessed Being, to see the glory of His Person, Whom He is, and what He is; and, if your heart has never been attracted to Him before, may it be attracted to Him now, and forever.
Christ was able, in the moment of His death, to say, and say truly, that all that God would have done was “finished.”
You may ask, what do those words mean? They are inexhaustible. Whether it be the expression of the heart and love of God to man; whether it be the perfect glorifying of God, and vindicating His righteousness; or the fulfilling of Scripture; or the doing of a work, whereby sin is put away forever; or the showing out of the life of a perfect Man upon earth, ― “It is finished” is an answer to all.
I do not ask you to fathom those words. I only ask you to believe them. They are unfathomable. They reach right up to the heart and throne of God, on the one hand; and they reach right down to the sinner’s need, on the other. They are wondrous, unfathomable. You cannot explain them, or know their greatest depth but you can believe them.
They are a legacy left you by the dying Saviour, and if you only accept that legacy, everything that could trouble your heart would be divinely met. Do you receive it?
The Saviour dies, His work finished. Then Satan sets to work to try to mutilate His blessed body, but God intervenes. Satan would have had His legs broken, but Scripture had to be fulfilled, “A bone of him shall not be broken.” He was the antitype of the paschal lamb that we have in the Old Testament, which was to be roasted whole.
When the soldiers came to break Jesu’s legs, they found that He was dead already. Christ passed away before the two dying by His side, and no bone was broken; but, again, Scripture is fulfilled by their piercing His blessed side, and “forthwith came thereout blood and water.”
Why is this recorded? First of all, it was the most unmistakable and positive proof of the reality of His death. The Lord had not been long gone to Heaven before there sprang up the idea that His body was not real, and His sufferings not real. But God has anticipated and met all this folly and unbelief by His Word. Never until death has taken place could there come out blood and water.
Do you believe that out of the side of the dear Saviour there came blood and water? If you believe it, what was the necessity for it? There were two things which were needed, and which nothing but His death could accomplish. God needed atonement, ―expiation for sin; and that is what the blood gives. We needed purification from sin; that is what the water effects. God needed the expiation; we needed the purification; and both flow from the pierced side of the dead Saviour.
In the epistle of John we get a third witness to the glorious redemption He has wrought, viz.: the Spirit.
What the blood teaches is atonement. In the gospel it speaks about the blood and water, because the gospel of John takes up the matter in its God-ward aspect, and God must have the blood, before you and I can know the cleansing effects of the water.
The epistle of John, which speaks of the blessed fruits of this redemption, speaks of the water first, the purification that the guilty soul knows.
Do you, my reader, think that anything but the blood of Christ can make an atonement for your sins? The very fact of the Lord Jesus Christ dying proves to me I must be in a dreadful state, or He would not have died. Oh, what love there was in His heart, to make Him come down here and pass through death, that He might do a work whereby you and I could be taken out of the condition in which we were, and placed in association with Himself in the heights of everlasting glory.
In this fifth chapter of the Epistle of John we read, “Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” You are in a spot where, if you belong to Christ, everything is against you, and therefore where, if you do not overcome, you will be overcome. The only thing that will deliver your soul from the world, and from the judgment that is coming on the world, is believing on the Son of God.
Do you say, How will that deliver me from the world? Because the soul that really believes that Christ died for him, will take his stand with the One who died for him, and to whom the world is an adversary.
“This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood;” that is, Christ has died. Men do not object to acknowledge that Christ lived, and to acknowledge that His example is good, even that He sealed His doctrine with His blood; but there is a complete shirking of the question of sin, and the necessity for atonement.
Do you, my reader, believe that the Son of God died for you? Is it a real part of your soul’s; existence before God today, that the Son of God died to deliver you, to take you out of your lost state, and put you before God, and have your heart for Himself down here?
The water and the blood came from the side of the dead Saviour, but where did the Spirit come from? It came from the hand of a living Saviour, The One who died, who was seen ten times after He rose, passed into glory, and then ten days rolled by and the Spirit came down.
The blessing of redemption comes from the death of Christ; the knowledge of the blessing comes with the reception of the Spirit. The Holy Ghost delights to tell of Christ, and He links with Christ in glory everyone who believes in Christ.
It is blessed the way this third witness comes out. The historical order is, ―the blood, the water, and the Spirit. As to the knowledge of it in the soul, this is the order of it, ―the Spirit, the water, and the blood; because, when you have been led to believe that Jesus died on the cross for you, the Spirit comes to dwell in your heart to let you know you are redeemed.
“He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.” If you believe on the Son of God, you have the Holy Ghost in you. He is the witness. It is not some feeling, it is the Holy Ghost. If you are led by grace to believe on the Son of God, you have first the witness to you, and then the witness in you.
There are two ways given in this Epistle in which man may make God a liar. In the first chapter there are those spoken of who do not believe in original sin. Such make God a liar, for he says, “All have sinned.” Ah, let God be true, and every man a liar. “The heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked;” but God is true, and He says, “All have sinned.”
There is another way of making God a liar, and it is a very specious way. “He that believeth not God hath made him a liar,” &c. What has God witnessed to us? That He has given unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. The person spoken of in this verse, who makes God a liar, is one who believes in a certain sense the truth of the Gospel, and the fact that he is a sinner; but when called upon to believe the whole truth, he draws back; and the reason, I think, is, because he is occupied with his own feelings and experiences, instead of being occupied simply and only with Christ.
Perhaps you say, “I do believe simply on the Son of God, but I cannot venture to say I have eternal life.” God does not ask you to say it. God says the one that believes has it; and you have only to take God’s word for it. You receive the witness of men; surely the witness of God is greater; and His witness is, that He hath the Son hath life.
Eternal life is your portion and possession, if you believe on Christ; and there are three things witness to it to you, ―the blood has made atonement, the water has brought purification, and from the glory the living Saviour has sent down a witness the Holy Ghost―to dwell in your heart, that you may know and enjoy the blessing He has given.
Let your eye drop for a moment on that charming 13th verse of this chapter, ― “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life.” In the last verse of the 20th chapter of the gospel of John it says, “These are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.” In the epistle he goes a little farther. He wrote in the gospel to inspire faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that they might get eternal life. He writes in the epistle, that they might know they had it, because they might have had a doubt.
The only thing God looks for, is simple, child-like confidence in Christ; and the moment there is that confidence, He says, “These things have I written ... that ye may know that ye have eternal life,” ―that you may have full assurance.
The moment you believe, you and Christ share together all that He has, and the Holy Ghost comes down to give you the assurance of it. Oh, who would have a doubt when there is such a word as this to rest upon? “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life.”
“‘Tis eternal life to know Him,
Oh! how He loves;
Think, O think, how much we owe
Him,
Oh! how He loves;
With His precious blood He bought us,
In the wilderness He sought us,
To His fold He safely brought us,
Oh! how He loves.”
W. T. P. W.