Part 4. Chapters 18-21

I have followed this Gospel in its order, down to the close of the 17th chapter, having distributed it so far into three principal sections;—the first, introducing our Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the Stranger from heaven, and giving us his action and reception in the world; the second, exhibiting him in his intercourses and controversies with Israel; the third, giving him to us in the bosom of his elect, instructing them in the mysteries of the heavenly Priesthood, and in their standing as the children of the Father. And now we have to consider the fourth and closing section, which gives us all that attended on his death and resurrection. May the entrance of the Lord’s words still give light, and bear with them to our souls a savor of that blessed One of whom they speak!
But while in labors like these, beloved, we seek to discover the order of the divine word, and are led to wonder at its depths, or admire its beauty, we should remember that it is the truth of the divine word we must chiefly consider. It is when the word comes with “much assurance” that it works “effectually” in us. It will not profit if not mixed with faith. Its power to gladden and to purify will depend on its being received as truth; and as we trace out and present to one another the beauties, the depths, and the wonders of the word, we should oft-times pause and say to our souls, as the angel said to the overwhelmed apostle who had seen the lovely visions, and heard the marvelous revelations, “These are the true sayings of God.”
The place in our gospel to which I have now arrived, presents our Lord Jesus Christ in his sufferings. But I may notice that it is not his sufferings that occupy him in this gospel. Throughout it, he appears to stand above the reproaches of the people, and the world’s rejection of him. So that when the last passover was approaching, though in the other gospels we see him with his mind full upon his being the Lamb that was chosen for it, saying to his disciples, “Ye know that after two days is the feast of the passover, and the Son of roan is betrayed to be crucified,” yet in our gospel it is not so. He goes up to Jerusalem at the time; but it is to seat himself in the midst of an elect household. (12: 1.) And so afterward; when he is alone with his disciples, he stands above his sorrows and the world still—he does not tell them of the Jews betraying him to the Gentiles, and of the Gentiles crucifying him—he does not speak of his being mocked, and scourged, and spit upon, as in the other gospels. All this is passed by the many things which the Son of man was to suffer at the hands of sinful men lie untold here. But, on the other hand, he assumes the hour of the power of darkness to be past; and as soon as we find him alone with his elect, he takes his place beyond that hour. (13: 1.) Gethsemane and Calvary are behind him, and he apprehends himself as having reached the hour, not of the garden, or of the cross, but of the Mount of Olives, the hour of his ascension; our evangelist saying, “Now when Jesus knew that his hour was come, that he should depart from this world unto the Father:” these words showing us plainly that his mind was not upon his suffering, but on the heaven of the Father that was beyond it. He spreads before them, not the memorials of his death here, but of his life in heaven, as we have seen; for he washes their feet after supper. And all his discourse with his beloved ones afterward (14-16) savored of this. It all assumed that his sorrow was past; that he had finished his course; that he had stood against the Prince of this world, and had conquered; that he had continued in the Father’s love, and that all was ripe for his being glorified. His words to them assumed this, and, on the ground of this, he strengthened them to conquer as he had conquered. Instead of telling them of his sorrows, his object is to comfort them in theirs. He gave them peace, and the promise of the Comforter, and of the glory that was to follow. And when, for a moment, as urged by their state of mind, he speaks of their all leaving him alone in the coming hour, it was not without this assurance, “And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.” And in like manner, when he was separating Judas from the rest, we read that “he was troubled in spirit;” but as soon as the traitor was gone, he rises at once to his own proper elevation, and says, “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him.” Thus, if his soul pass through a groan or a trouble, it is but for a moment, and just to lead him into a fuller view of the glory that was beyond it all.
It is just the same as he descends into the deepest shades of his lonely way. Even here it is still strength that accompanies him throughout, and glory that appears before him throughout. And thus, whether in labor, in testimony, or in suffering, he is still in this gospel in his elevation as Son of God. He walks on in the consciousness of his dignity, he takes the cup as from the Father’s hand, and lays down his life of himself.
17, 19. —We may remember that in the 17 chapter we saw our Lord as the Advocate in the heavenly temple making his requests. From that place he now comes down to meet the hour of the power of darkness. In that chapter his heart and his eye had been full of his Father’s glory, of his own glory, and of the Church’s; and forth from all this, thus in spirit set before him, he comes out to endure the cross.
In the other gospels, he meets the cross after the strengthening that he had received from the angel in Gethsemane; but we have nothing of that scene here, for that was the passage of the Son of man through the anticipation of his agony, his soul being exceeding sorrowful even unto death, with the strength of God by an angel ministered to him. But here it is the Son of God descending as from heaven to meet the cross; and his passage through the whole of the hour of the power of darkness is taken in the strength of the Son of God. He seeks no companionship. In the other gospels we see him leading aside Peter, James, and John, if haply he might engage their sympathy to watch with him for an hour. But here there is none of this. He passes all along through the sorrow. The disciples, it is true, go with him into the garden, but he knows them there only as needing his protection, and not as yielding him any desired sympathy. “If ye seek me, let these go their way.” As the angel does not strengthen him in the garden, neither do his disciples stand with him there for any cause of his. He comes down as the Son of God from his own place on high, to walk (as far as man was concerned) alone to Calvary. Though his present path lay to the cross, it was still a path of none less than the Son of God. The lowliness of the Stranger from heaven is marked here as it had been all through this gospel.
And let me add, (a reflection that has occurred to me with much comfort,) that there is a greatness in God, in the sense of which we should much exercise our hearts. There is no straitness in him. The Psalmist appears to give himself to this thought in the 36 Psalm. All that he there sees in God, he sees in its proper divine greatness and excellency. His mercy is in the heavens, his faithfulness unto the clouds; His righteousness is like the great mountains, and his judgments like the deep; His preserving care so perfect, that the beasts as well as men are the objects of it; his lovingkindness so excellent, that the children of men hide themselves as under the shadow of his wings; his house is so stored with all good, that his people are abundantly satisfied with its fatness, and his pleasure for them so full, that they drink of them as of a river. All this is the greatness and magnificence of God, not only in himself, but in his ways and dealings with us. And, beloved, this is blessed truth to us. For our sins should be judged in the sense of this greatness. It is true, indeed, that sin is exceeding sinful. The least soil or stain upon God’s fair workmanship is full of horrid shapes in the eye of faith that calculates duly on God’s glory. A little hole dug in the wall is enough to shew a prophet great abominations. But when brought to stand, side by side, with the greatness of the grace that is in God our Savior, how does it appear? Where was the crimson sin of the adulteress? where the sins that had, as it were, grown old in the Samaritan woman? They may be searched for, but they cannot be found. They disappear in the presence of the grace that was to shine beside them. The ‘abounding grace rolled away the reproach forever. God, who taketh up the isles as a very little thing, and measures the waters in the hollow of his hand, takes away our sins far off “to a land of separation.” (Leviticus 16:22.)
“I hear the accuser roar
Of ills that I have done;
I know them well, and thousands more—
Jehovah findeth none.”
(Continued from p. 150.)
(To be continued.)
Operations of the Spirit of God
The first of these chapters (John 3) closed proper Jewish intercourse, showing that they must be born again to enter into the kingdom of God: and so was every one that was born of the Spirit, the cross, or the lifting up of the Son of man, closing all present earthly associations, and introducing heavenly things as yet unknown. In the second (John 4), the Lord, having thereon left Judea, going into Galilee, passes through Samaria, and there, with one of the most worthless of that reprobate race, spews the gift of God, and the consequence of the humiliation of the Son of God—thereon introducing the Father’s name, and spiritual worship by grace. Thus, the gospel dispensation is introduced by it, and its worship, sonship, and joy. In the third (John 7) we find it flowing forth, from filled affections, to the world, the witness, though not the accomplishment, of that day when Jesus shall appear in the glory witnessed of, and it shall be as life from the dead: —and that, indeed, through his then unbelieving brethren here below. The fourth chapter—that is, the second of those alluded to—is more large and general, as the power of all living communion with God, and thus is specially the saint’s place. It identifies itself more especially with the present prayer of the third of Ephesians, founded on the title, “Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” though that goes further. The seventh chapter—or the third here alluded to—identifies itself more especially with the former part of the prayer of the first of the Ephesians, the portion of the Church also, it is true, but more its hope than its communion, and founded on the title, “God of our Lord Jesus Christ,” looking at the Lord as the head of the body—the first-born among many brethren, the first-born from the dead, the head of the body the Church, as is plainly seen in the testimony of the Apostle which follows—not in the nearness of the divine nature as Son, but in appointed, though righteous, headship as man, the appointed heir of all things: both indeed hanging on his being the Son, but one connected with his nearness to God, even the Father, which is indeed oneness; the other his manifestation in glory, according to divine counsel, when He takes his place with the Church toward the world; though, of course (and necessarily) the Head of it—she the body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.
That I may not omit the intervening chapters of John, but that we may see what a summary of divine theology it is, as a testimony to the person of the Lord Jesus in its height above all dispensation, I would here observe, that the 5th contrasts the entire incompetency of any restorative power connected with the law (because it required strength in the patient, which was just what the disease of sin had destroyed, as well as his righteousness which would not have needed it)—in a word, the entire futility of all remedial processes—with the absolute life-giving power of the Son of God in union with the Father; and shows, in addition, on his rejection (the rejection of his word, for so that power wrought), the judicial power put entirely into his hands as Son of man, to execute judgment on all that rejected Him, that all men might honor the Son, even as they honored the Father.
The 6th chapter shows what was proper to Him—his place and that of his disciples—as rejected. First, it showed Him (who fulfilled that word, Psalms 132:13 - 15, “He shall satisfy her poor with bread” —the Jehovah of Israel’s blessing in the latter days, when Zion shall be his “rest forever”) as Prophet, refusing to be king, and thereon going up to exercise his priesthood of intercession apart on high. In the meanwhile, the disciples were toiling alone on the sea, and the wind contrary, aiming but not attaining. Immediately on Jesus (who could all walk on in the difficulties) rejoining them, they were at the land whither they went. This blessed little picture of the order and circumstances of the dispensation having been given, the humiliation of Jesus, as the portion of the Church during his priesthood, is then shown, as affording its food and strength of life. First, his coming down and incarnation—the manna, the true bread that came down from heaven; next, as sacrificed and giving the life He had thus taken as man—believers thereon eating his flesh and drinking his blood, thus living by Him; then closing by the question, “that and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was before?” This, as we have seen, is followed by the instruction of the 7th chapter, where the time for the manifestation of the Son of man to the world was not yet come, and the gift of the Holy Ghost as the intermediate witness of his glory as Son of man is spoken of. This point has been spoken of in the former part of these remarks; I revert to it now, merely as spewing the beautiful order of the instruction of the Spirit in the Gospel of St. John.
There is another point connected with the operations of the Spirit of our God, which remains to be touched upon—his corporate operations, or his operations as acting in connection with the body of Christ, both as maintaining, and the very center of, its unity; and also as ministering in the diversity of His gifts; and also the distinction between this and His individual presence in the believer.
This last difference will be found to be important, and to flow from, and be connected with, the whole order of the economy of grace, of which the Spirit of God is the great agent in us, and, though not received there, still, in a certain sense in testimony, in the world.
This difference depends on the relative character which Christ stands in: first, with the Father, as Son, and us by adoption made sons with Him: and secondly, with God, as the Head of the body, which is his fullness, the Church. We shall find the scriptures speak definitely of both, and distinctly. In one, the Lord Jesus holds a more properly divine relationship with the Father, and introduces us by adoption into something of the enjoyment of that nearness. In the other, a relationship (though all be divine) yet more connected with his human nature and his offices in that, and therefore God is spoken of as his God. The distinction and reality of these two things is expressed by the blessed Lord Himself going away. Having accomplished the redemption, which enabled Him to present his brethren along with Himself as sons to the Father, in his (the Father’s) house, spotless, and sons by adoption, and to assume his place as the Head of the body, the Church, He did not yet allow Himself to be touched and worshipped as in bodily presence in his earthly kingdom; for He was not yet ascended to his Father, so that He could bring forth the fullness of his glory, and that kingdom should be manifestly of the Father, and have its root and source in that higher glory: but, putting his friends, and that for the first time, into the place of sons and brethren, He says them (thus setting the saints, and Himself for them, in their place), “ Go, tell my brethren, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, to my God and your God;” thus establishing these two relationships, and his disciples along with Himself in them.
Then the Lord ascended up on high for the accomplishment, in power, of what He now spoke of, in the truth and efficacy of the work which He had accomplished, and the value of his presented person before the Father, as well as the blood by which sin was put away.
On this statement in John hangs, in fact, the distinction to which I have alluded, followed up in scripture by many other passages. It is the definite revelation of the characters in which Jesus Christ was going away, and which lie was to sustain in our behalf on high; placing us in fellowship with God and the Father in them. There was another point, however, connected with this, involved, in the position which Christ assumed: He is the, displayer of the divine glory—his Father’s glory— “He that bath seen me hath seen the Father,”—He shall appear in the Father’s glory. He was on earth “God manifest in the flesh,” seen, too, of angels: again, “the brightness of God’s glory, the express image of his person.” His glory too was Sonship, as of the only begotten of the Father, ὡς μονγενοῦς παρὰ πατρὸς: as again, “the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared. Him.” In Him all the fullness was pleased to dwell: and, as afterward stated, in fact, as in good pleasure, “In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” Thus, we see the person of the Lord Jesus, the place in which divine glory is in every sense manifested. But He is now hid in God: that is the position which He has now taken; and thereon the Holy Ghost is sent down into the—world, to maintain the witness and manifestation of his glory (not brought out yet visibly on earth, but personally accomplished on high, “crowned with glory and honor”), and to be the earnest and testimony of his title to the earth. The Church on earth is the place and depository of this: “He shall take of mine and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father bath are mine, therefore said I, that He shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you.”
Now the Holy Ghost, as thus sent down from heaven, is the witness of what Christ is there for us towards the Father; and what his title is as of God towards the world; and specially therein, what the power of the hope of the calling and inheritance of God in the saints is. The enjoyment and testimony of these things may be much blended in the operations of the present Spirit; but they are distinct. As for example—the display of my portion in Christ as the Son before the Father, may fill my heart and make me a witness and a testimony of it, to the blessing and comfort of the Church, if the Lord accompany it with the suitable gift of communication; and the power of it in my soul in joy is intimately blended with the thing to be expressed; because so the Holy Ghost acts in this work. It is therefore said, “Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” Still they are quite distinct: for a man may have these things shown to his soul, and enjoy them, and yet not have the gift to communicate them to others; though they be the deep (possibly, I suppose, the deeper) joy of his own: so that, though connected when both are there, they are distinct things. I suppose that those who have gift of testimony, have often found as much (or more) joy in hearing the blessed things of Christ, as in uttering them; though the sense and joy of the blessed things may have ministered to their capacity of utterance. I would speak then distinctively of these two points, though their blending, if the Lord will, may be noticed.
In the earlier passages in John, and the remarks which were made upon them, the Holy Ghost, who is sent, was spoken of as the power of life; the power of communion; the power of communication. In the latter part of John and other places, the sending of the Spirit is specially spoken of, because the absence and going away of Christ was brought before their minds as a present fact; and hence the Spirit is shown as the sustainer of the relationships induced by the mystery of Christ being thus hid in God, and another Comforter sent. Life-communion with God the Father and the Son, communications concerning the glory of the Son of man, were all distinct and blessed things; but they were not the revelation of the dispensation in which they were ordered, nor the display of the relationships which those dispensations brought to light, though to the instructed soul they might imply them. This is taken up first in the close of John’s gospel. We shall also find it brought out on other ground later in the close of Luke.
It is introduced in John by the statement made to his disciples, “As I said unto the Jews, so now I say unto you, Whither I go, ye cannot come.” In the earlier part of the subsequent chapter, the Lord introduces their comfort: that He was to be the object of faith as God was; that He was not going to be alone in blessedness, and leave them here to themselves in misery, but going to prepare a place for them; and that He would come again and receive them to Himself; that where He was they might be—a far better thing than his being with them in the condition they were in. But meanwhile they knew where He was going, and the way. This resulted, as He explained to them, from their knowing the Father (to whom He was going), in knowing Him; for He was in the Father and the Father in Him. Thus, the great scene into which they were brought, in the knowledge of the person of the Lord Jesus, and his oneness with the Father—He in the Father and the Father in him was introduced: the scene of associated blessedness, into which the disciples were brought by the living knowledge which they had of Jesus, was declared: but the power in which it was known and enjoyed was not yet. But the knowledge of the Father, through the Son, as the object of faith, was now declared, and the subsequent display of his glory in the world, by reason of the exaltation of the Lord Jesus, spoken of. The Lord, then, urging obedience to Him as the way of receiving blessing, takes the place of Mediator to obtain the Comforter for then, —another Comforter, who should not leave them as He was doing, but was to abide with them forever. This it was that was the power of their association with that of which they had heard before—the fellowship of the Father and the Son: first, of the Father with the Son, and the Son with the Father, and then of them with both, in that it was by the Holy Ghost dwelling in them—the Comforter now sent. Thus, though they could not come there, they saw Jesus, and He came to them, and with the Father made his mansion with them, till He came and took them into the mansions of his Father’s house.
This 14th chapter, then, gives us the blessedness—the knowledge of the Father and the Son, by the Son; the order of it, obedience to the Son; the power of it, the presence of the Comforter obtained through the mediation of Christ: but thereon (consequent on this presence) their knowledge that He was in the Father, they in Him and He in them—a blessing far beyond mere mediation, but consequent on the presence of the Spirit obtained, by mediation. This also is added as a consequence that the Father and the Son would come and make their abode with them. Still, in this chapter, whatever the effect of the mediation in their knowledge was, Christ does not go beyond the place of Mediator here, and therefore He tells them that the Father will send the Spirit in His name, and He (the Spirit) would recall all the Lord’s words and instruction to them.
This chapter settles the ground of our present blessing on its basis, as to the place of the great objects of it—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
It is quite distinct front the subsequent chapters. The person of the Lord as the object of faith, and his mediation, are spoken of in it. In the 15th chapter we see that, even here below, Israel was not the true vine, but Christ. Of his life below, they were to be the personal witnesses, for they had seen it: of his exaltation as Head on high, the Holy Ghost, sent down, thereon, by Him.
Hence, in this passage, it is not the Father who is spoken of as sending the Holy Ghost in the Mediator’s name, but the Lord Jesus who sends the Comforter from the Father, in connection with his glory, to testify of his glory, proceeding from the Father. It is to be remarked here, that, while much of this latter part connects itself very closely in detail with the operations of the Holy Ghost, given in connection with the Lord Jesus, as calling God his God as well as ours; as the man who, through grace, places Himself in association with us in need as in glory, yet He never, in this part of Scripture, puts Himself out of the place of Son paramount to all dispensation. Though He may take the lowest place in service and obedience, still, it is on a principle paramount to all dispensation; or, though the acts alluded to may have their place in connection with dispensed power (as the testimony of the Spirit will be found to have), yet still, Christ holds the place here, in which He sends Him for that purpose, as paramount to the associations revealed by the Spirit, so sent, in those acts. He testifies that all that the Father has are his, as Son (though the acts by which He may do it may be the witness and consequence of a union with Christ), putting, by grace, ourselves and Him, not merely as SONS’ before THE FATHER individually, but as a body with its head before GOD.
This distinction will be found to be important; because the exercise of the dispensed power may depend on the condition of the body through which it is dispensed—the testimony of the sent Spirit to the glory of the Head, who sent it, never can.
And this is what is peculiar in the state of the Church. Its standing in Christ is above all dispensation; it is as sons along with Him with the Father. Its manifestation in time may be by dispensed service; and here it partakes of all the responsibility of a dispensation on earth, as of deeds done in the body. Thus, this gospel begins anterior to Genesis, which recounts the creation of the scene on which dispensations have been displayed: there, “In the beginning God created;” here, “In the beginning was the Word,” by whom all things were created. And the Church derives its existence and heavenly fullness from this sovereign source: the purpose of it being effectuated consequent on the rejection of the Son of man, who would have been the righteous crown of all natural dispensation; but who, as risen, associates the redeemed Church with Himself, in a position paramount to it all—even his own association of Sonship with the Father, in the privilege of the same love: and the Holy Ghost is here sent down of Him, the witness and power of this, and therefore in his own action paramount to all dispensation, but this only in the fact of his testimony to Him as so exalted; and this is the point John here takes up. Now the manifestation of his (Christ’s) corporate Headship to the Church, in which He says, in our behalf, “My God,” as He had said so in blessed title of righteousness when the Pattern of our place below, depends (and hence the present manifestation of the Church’s glory as united to Him) on the obedience of the Church, and its suitableness to be made an instrument of display here; quite a distinct thing from the certainty of its union to and the known and infallible glory of its Head on high. This is a permanent revelation; not a responsible manifestation Which partakes of the nature of a dispensation on earth, though the glory testified to in it may be above all mere dispensation, for its head and for itself. The joy, moreover, and sense of glory, may also depend on obedience and consistency, not the permanent fact that the Spirit testifies of his glory, in the Church. Thus, in John 15 it is written, “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.” There could clearly be no doubt of the Son’s continuing in the Father’s love, but the dispensation of this on earth hung on the obedience on earth, in Him infallibly perfect, and therefore so its consequences; in us continual failure and its consequences also.
We have seen that the testimony of the Spirit is to the glory of Jesus Christ. Sent by the Father in the Son’s name, He is the power of union and communion with both; associating the disciples in the fullness of blessing with both, and the presence of both manifested thereby to the believer. Sent by the Son—the exalted man—from the Father, He is the witness of his glory, and that all that the Father has, is that Holy, but rejected, One’s also.
From the remarks I have already made, it will be seen that in the 16th chapter of John, the Spirit and his testimony, as there presented to us, are the indefeasible portion of the saints, the necessary testimony of the glory of Christ. It forms and sustains the Church, instead of depending on the Church’s obedience, although the extent of the Church’s enjoyment of the blessing may hang upon that obedience. He is the witness of the acceptance by the Father of the obedience of Christ, the perfect Son of God, and of the glory of his person: thus, establishing our present standing with God, and our Father, and the place of the Church, owning this by his operation through grace, in contrast with the world, who rejected Jesus as the Son of God.
Hence, although the obedient disciples of the Lord Jesus were the instruments of the testimony, yet these are dropped as regards the testimony in the first instance; and the subject spoken of is, the Comforter’s testimony in a conviction of the world. He is present as the witness of the glory of Christ; that is, as the abiding power of the dispensation, the necessary character of the testimony of his very presence in the world was this—that He was come in condemnation of the whole world before God; for it had rejected the Son whom the Father had sent in love to it. He had said, “I have yet one Son,” and they had cast Him out—not merely Jews were in question, the world had done it—man had done it: “He was despised and rejected of men.” Every grace of God, every righteousness of man, had been shown in the Son of God; they had seen no beauty in Him that they should desire Him. Nay more, as the Lord had distinctly shown of the world, they had both seen and hated both Him and the Father—hated Him, blessed and perfect in his ways, without a cause!
It is on this solemn ground the Lord appeals to his Father, in the 17th chapter. For the children, He had called for the Holy Father’s care. As to the world, He appeals to his righteous Father’s judgment.
He and the world now were entirely contrary the one to the other: “O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.” The presence of the Holy Ghost, sent down on the departure of the blessed Son of God, proved the world to be in irreparable sin in not having believed on Him. Nothing else was seen in the world. It lay in wickedness. Righteousness there was none. The only righteous One had been rejected, and cast out and slain. God had not interfered to prevent it, nor Jesus resisted it; for deeper purposes were in accomplishment. But the evidence of sin was complete, irrefutable, and in itself in the world irreparable, in the accomplishment of its highest act—an act showing hatred to the gracious presence of the Lord, as well as contradictory of the righteousness of man before Him. Righteousness thereon was not looked for on earth in man; for sin had been proved. It was found only in the reception of the righteous man—the Son of God, on the throne of God on high, and the condemnation of the world in seeing Him no more as so come. This also was testified by the presence of the Holy Ghost, sent down as a consequence of Jesus being there. The judgment (not now executed) was proved as against the world; because he who, in leading them against Christ, had been now demonstrated by the world to be its prince, was judged: the rest would follow in its day. Thus, the presence of the Holy Ghost, convicting the world in these things, formed the testimony to Christ’s glory there his witness against the rejecting world.
To the disciples He was in blessing: in leading them into all truth, truth which they were unable to bear till He came, truth connected with Christ’s glory, and the consequent breaking down of all they then knew and clung to; and not only leading Ahem into all actual truth, but showing them things to come; the portion of the Church—their portion and God’s future dealings with the world too. In this He would glorify Christ, taking of his and spewing it to them; and all that the Father had was his. This then the Holy Ghost did, as against the world and with the disciples, in the testimony of Christ’s glory. If by grace a man received the testimony as against the world, and was subdued by it, and gave up the world and followed Christ with his disciples, he became the happy subject of that further service of the Holy Ghost; guiding, showing, glorifying Christ as the possessor of all the Father’s. This is the office and service of the ever-abiding Comforter (in whatever degree enjoyed), for the need of Christ’s glory, till the Church be caught up to enjoy it there, and the world be actually judged; so that there shall be no need of testimony to either on these points, though the Holy Ghost may be to the Church the perpetual power of enjoyment in them, and God’s glory by them.
The presence of the Holy Ghost implies and involves this—the need, before God, of Christ’s glory. In this He acts as a Servant, as it were, not speaking of Himself, but what He hears, that speaking. Whatever the means instrumentally used, this is the subject and the power. The Holy Ghost is faithful in this service. He must be so; for Christ is to be glorified. And this secures the witness of Christ’s glory, in whatever measure, according to its faithfulness; this is the Church’s delight.
In all this, the Holy Ghost is spoken of as being on earth, and being sent in lieu of Christ, who is gone on high, in distinctness of person: and the glory of the person of Christ, the great subject of the gospel, is still treated of in its aspect to the world who rejected Him, and the disciples who by grace received Him.
It appears to me, that the communication of the Holy Ghost, as noticed in the 20th chapter of this gospel, is as to the place it holds there of the character already spoken of. The whole of that chapter is a sort of picture of the dispensation in brief. It is not the Head and the body, but Christ in his personal title to send, as the Father sent Him; and giving them, in His risen power, capacity to execute the mission, the abiding essential service of those now called to it, whatever measure of power it might be executed in. But Christ has not only gone to the Father, and been seated in the glory which he had with him before the world was, and sent the Comforter, the witness of that glory, and the assurance to the saints of their sonship and fellowship with him in it—his Father and their Father—but lie takes a Place as head of the body (is its Lord indeed and source of supply, but also its head), and to receive for it that which he sends forth and ministers to it. Christ has a double character in this—Lord, and head of his body united to himself: But the Holy Ghost—is, in all operations, from creation downwards, the proper and immediate agent.
As head of the body, the Lord Jesus displays the Church with himself in a common glory; but in all this he is spoken of as the subject of God’s power. (See Ephesians 1:19-23.) And even where spoken of as Lord, still as a recipient and as made so: though while this is true, because he humbled himself and became a man, so that God also bath highly exalted him, that he should have a name which is above every name, every believer finds the very basis of his faith in that he is the true God and eternal life.
The 2nd chapter of Philippians is the full statement of this great truth—this blessed truth (having all its value from his being truly and essentially God), that he humbled himself, that, as a man for our sakes, and as obedient to death, he might, as man, be exalted to the place of Lord, due to him in glory. As my subject is the presence of the Holy Ghost, I do not remark further on this passage, than that it seems to me a special contrast with the first Adam, who, being man, sought to exalt himself, and became disobedient unto death, or under death by disobedience; whereas the history of the second Adam is, that he made himself of no reputation in becoming a man, and death to him was the highest, fullest act of obedience and confidence, then, as man, in his Father: and therefore God highly exalted him such as sinful man was by his disobedience cast down, who sought to exalt himself and to be as Elohim. In this, then, we have the great doctrine of the exaltation of Jesus as the new man, the second Adam, the head of a new race—the depositary of power; in whom man was, according to the 8th Psalm, “set over all things.”
The divine power in which he could sustain it, and the title of Sonship in which he held it—for, indeed, he was the Creator—is not now my immediate subject. This point may be seen in Colossians 1, and the double headship, resting on it, of creation and of the Church. At present, it is the connection of this with the gift of the Holy Ghost that we have to speak of. It is not, perhaps I need hardly say, as if there were two Holy Ghosts, or the Holy Ghost given were not so given at once, whatever the results: but that the place and power of the Spirit, so given, are distinct. In the one, he is the pledge and power of Sonship with the Father: in the other, the effectuator of the Lordship of Christ, and the animating energy of every member according to the measure of the gift of Christ, and the power of unity to the whole body. We do, however, see that Christ risen, but not yet glorified, could communicate the Holy Spirit to them; though, till glorified, he could not send it down as witness of his Lordship. We have seen, that while (as individually blessing us) he fits the soul for the exercise of whatever gift is bestowed, he may bless in fullness of communion when no gift is in exercise—so that they are distinct; the former point, its connection with the apprehensions and enjoyment of the soul, being the difference of habitual Christian gift from the previous workings of the Holy Ghost: that, before it was put: “ thus saith the Lord,” and individually the prophet might find he ministered to another. In the exercise of it by a real Christian, though he might minister it without actually realizing it in communion at the moment—he ministers the things which were his own, and known as such through the earnest of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.
I would now trace some of the scriptures connected with this point. In this the Holy Ghost is a Spirit of power, not a Spirit of Sonship; though, it may be, the sons, having the Holy Ghost, have the power, according to his will, by his presence working in them. This presence of the Holy Ghost is withal corporate presence, that is, his operation, though, as the body, it works by individuals, of course, but by them properly as members of the body, working in power, not in communion. Consequently we see, if the gift was not available for the body (where the edification of the body was the intent of the gift), it was to be suppressed in its exercise, even though confessedly the gift of the Holy Ghost: for the particular gift of the Spirit was to be subjected to the title and rule of the Holy Ghost in the whole, as the member to the mind of the whole body, for the glory of Christ (though power was entrusted to the individual for that use of the whole body, for that glory), and the glory of the body with him; for no power was rightly used out of the objects of the grace that gave it.
This train I have been led into by the first scripture I would refer to, Luke 24 There Christ is looked at as exalted in glory, and the world and all flesh alike here below. It is not there, “Go, disciple the Gentiles,” as in Matthew; but repentance and remission of sins to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem, merely the first place here below amongst them. This commission Peter was accomplishing in his early sermons in Acts, though Paul carried out farther, as regards the Gentiles, not beginning, however, at Jerusalem. The word of the Lord in Luke was first, “Ye are witnesses of these things;” then, “And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but tarry ye in Jerusalem, till ye be endued with power from on high;” and afterward he was parted from them and carried up into heaven.
In the first sermon of Peter, we have precisely this “This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.” He then quotes the testimony of the 110th Psalm, and says, “Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.” The rejection of this testimony set aside the form of the commission in Matthew, in which Jerusalem was made the formal center of organized evangelization, according to her ancient standing, the Gentiles being treated as Gentiles.
But the Character in which the gift of the Spirit is here presented, as given to believers and forming the Church, is very distinct. Jesus sends the promise of the Father. It is the same great common truth. But in what character is it sent? It is to endue with power from on high. It displays itself in exhibition in the first instance—to the world, not in communion of sons with the Father—though, of course, the very same and only Holy Ghost which was the power of this. Its primary testimony is to the Lordship of Christ.
We have seen the identity of the expressions in Luke 24 and Acts 2, let us observe the terms in which the Spirit, by the apostle, bears witness to Jesus.
“Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles, and wonders, and signs, which God did by him. This Jesus bath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.... Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made this same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.”
Now, in the whole of this passage, it is clear that our blessed and adorable Lord, who had humbled himself to become so, as we have seen from Philippians, is spoken of as man: As man he is made Lord and Christ. This we shall see to be directly connected with consequent operation and power of the Spirit, but yet not the whole of the principles connected with it. The corporate character of the scene of its operations was not yet developed. We have already, then, this first point distinctly brought out the testimony, through the medium of the disciples, as the Spirit gave them utterance, to the Lordship of Christ as man, before the world. But whatever the rumor occasioned by the facts, the word of preaching to the Jews is all of which the effect is related. They were to be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus for the remission of sins, and they would receive the gift of the Holy Ghost; for the promise was to them and their children, and to all afar off, even as many as the Lord their God should call. Whoever, then, received the word gladly, was baptized, and there were added about three thousand souls.
The assembly of God was now formed, and the Lord added to it daily such as should be saved.
The testimony had been given to the world—beginning at Jerusalem, by these witnesses, chosen of God, to the Lordship of the man Christ Jesus. The Church had been formed by it, and then the Lord added to the Church such as should be saved—the remnant of Israel.
In this we see the operation of the Spirit, founded on the exaltation and Lordship of Christ, by chosen witnesses; but antecedent to the Church, and forming it. Of this character is all preaching.
When the assembly is gathered, then the Lord adds to it daily such as should be saved. The highest privileges of the believer are then known, in the revealed portion of the believer brought home to his new man, by the Spirit of adoption—the Holy Ghost given to him, the seal of the faith wrought in his heart by God.
The work of the Holy Ghost is then pursued in abundant testimony of Christ’s power, proposing (Acts 3) the return of Jesus, and the times of refreshing on the repentance of Israel, the opposition and rejection of the testimony by the rulers, the disciples confidence—his power, and blessing, and judgment within the Church—the determined opposition and rejection of the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus, and constant testimony thereto of the apostles as his witnesses: as is also, say they, the Holy Ghost which is given to them that obey him. We have, then, (Acts 6) the exhibition of the energy of the Holy Ghost providing for the circumstances even of partial failure in the Church. Then, on the renewed testimony, in his own prerogative power in Stephen, “full of the Holy Ghost,” the judgment of, the Jews’ rejection, nationally, of the Spirit is pronounced, and the Jewish history closed with that which introduced the Church, as so witnessing, into heaven, on its rejection, as full of the Spirit, in Jerusalem the center of God’s earthly system; and actually the spirit of the saint in the intermediate state there. “They stoned Stephen, calling upon. God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit;” and with intercession for the unhappy people, as Jesus on his rejection, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.” Thus the Spirit, so acting, recognized the Lord Jesus; as Jesus, as the Son had commended himself—his Spirit—on his rejection, to the Father.
This broke up, as has been frequently observed by those familiar with these truths, the earthly scheme and center of the Church. Matthew’s commission, as has been remarked, in its original form dropped; for the Jewish people, by their rulers, having nationally rejected the testimony by the Spirit to the exaltation of Christ, as they had rejected the Son of God in his humiliation come amongst them as Messiah, Jerusalem ceased to be the center from which the gathering power thereto was to flow.
Thereupon accordingly, the Church was scattered, except the Apostles. I would remark, in passing, on the very distinct manner in which the personal presence of the Holy Ghost is presented to it in all this history. Ananias lies to the Holy Ghost—tempts the Spirit. The Apostles were witnesses of the resurrection and exaltation of Christ, and so also was the Holy Ghost which was given to them that obey him. “Filled with the Holy Ghost,” as the Lord had promised, was the power and source of their speech, as we see on every occasion. Thus, the Holy Ghost as that other Comforter, present with them personally, was clearly before their minds. As the Son had been with them once, so, according to promise, the Holy Ghost was with them now. The Son had brought the love of the Father (now indeed yet more clearly apprehended by the holy Ghost as the Spirit of adoption), and the Spirit now fully revealed to them the Lordship of the man, Jesus; who had been slain land rejected by the world.
But another great frame-work and form of the dispensation was now to be introduced.
Saul, through the instrumentality of a simple disciple, Ananias, receives the Holy Ghost on his conversion, and begins to testify of Christ in Damascus.
The Gentiles then receive the Holy Ghost, and are admitted through the instrumentality of Peter. The reading of the 11th, 12th, and 13th chapters of Acts will distinctly spew what prominence this presence and power of the Holy Ghost held. There is, in addition, the service of angels, in the Apostle of the circumcision; but the gift of the Holy Ghost is just the sign of acceptance.
But in the calling and conversion of Saul a new and blessed principle was presented, as identified with that, to his mind: “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” In a word, the unity and identity of the Church with Christ, of which the apostle thus called—irregularly called, as one born out of due time—became the eminent witness and teacher. Indeed, though there may be kindred truths in the other epistolary writings, we never definitively read of “his body, the Church,” save in those of Paul. He seems specially to call it his gospel. In this (the power, in whatever form, of the glory of Christ, the knowledge of or unity with him) the Holy Ghost is found to operate and unfold itself. Not, clearly, quitting the ground of the Lordship of Christ, but withal working as the power of unity in the whole body and diversity of operation in the particular members. In each, at the same time (for this highest and most blessed character of it, I need hardly say, was not lost), “ the Spirit of adoption crying, Abba, Father;” but this was a distinct individual operation, though of the same Spirit; a joy true to the individual saint, were there but one, though enhanced doubtless by communion, and which contemplated our joy with the Father, as sons along with the blessed Son of God, Jesus the first-born among many brethren.
The corporate witness of his Lordship and glory, and of the union of the Church with him as Head over all things, is a distinct subject. The ground of this, in union, as well as the Church’s blessing and portion by virtue of that union, is specially found in the Ephesians, and is there therefore looked at as regards the blessing and profit of the Church. Its administration, and, therefore, the general order of it in its principles and exhibition before the world, is found in Corinthians, the epistle which affords the apostolic directions for the management of the Church in its internal economy here below.
But before I enter on the formal economy of the Spirit, as presented in these chapters, I would turn to the doctrine of the word relating to it, as the ordinary portion of the Church in general, as there are one or two passages of Scripture which speak definitely of it in this light. The resurrection had marked out Jesus to be the Son of God, according to the Spirit of holiness. He might be of the seed of David according to the flesh, but he was the Son of ‘God according to entirely another life, spirit, and energy. Of this his resurrection was at once the proof and the glorious character; for it was triumph over death, of which, according to that life and holiness which was in him, it was not possible (though he might imputatively take sin) that he could be holden. In this resurrection and power of accomplished and triumphant liberty—liberty of perfectness and sanctification of man to God in a new state of life, in which man had never been he became the Head of a new family, the first-born from the dead, the Head of the body, the Church, having in all things the preeminence, and the Son, taking his place now, as such, in resurrection, Thus our justification became, in fact, identified with our position as sons, and as risen (i.e., with holiness, according to its character in resurrection) before God as children. Therefore it was that, if the apostle had known Christ Jesus after the flesh, henceforth he knew him no more; for he now knew him in this character in resurrection, the Head of the new creation—the new family of God—the Second Adam, and so to us the quickening Spirit, when our living souls had spiritually died in the first Adam in sin—the head of a new family of men, with whom, in the close, the tabernacle of God should be.
The justification of the Church having been first reasoned out by the Spirit, the apostle turns to this; first as regards death and resurrection, in the 6th of Romans; then, as regards the law, in the 7th; i.e., first, “ nature” or “ the flesh,” in se: then the operation of the law on the question into which spiritual understanding and a new will brought the conscience:—and in the 8th he takes up the presence of the Spirit in moral operation and witness. Having stated the source of this mighty change and holy liberty, in “ the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (the breath of life to our souls being the very same power in which Christ was raised from the dead, and our partaking in all the consequences of that resurrection; God having done what the law could not do, i.e., condemned sin in the flesh, and that in atonement, in grace to us), the apostle proceeds to instruct us what the power and the character of the Spirit in this new nature is.
It is the Spirit of God, as contrasted with man in the flesh. It is the Spirit of Christ, in respect of the form and character of this new man. It is the Spirit of Him that raised up Christ from the dead, according to the power and energy in which it works full deliveran6e in result. Thus, its moral character and operation were unfolded, as a Spirit of power, and deliverance, and character IN us; in answer to the question, who shall deliver us from the body of this death?
(Continued from p. 178.)
(To be continued.)
On the Gospel by John
With these thoughts we may well encourage our hearts. Our God would have us know him in his own greatness. Set sin alone, and the least speck of it is a monster. Set it beside his grace, and it vanishes. And all this expression of the divine greatness breaks forth in Jesus throughout this gospel. There is everywhere the tone and bearing of the Son of God in him and about him, though we see him even in toil or in suffering.
But this only by the way. We have now followed our Lord over the brook Kedron, and the spot must have been one of sacred and affecting recollections to him; for here it was that David had once stopped with Ittai, his friend, and with Zadok and the ark, as he went forth from Jerusalem in the fear of Absalom. Over this very brook, and up this very ascent of Mount Olivet, the king of Israel had then gone weeping, his head covered and his feet bare, while Ahithophel (who, like Judas now, had once been his counselor) was betraying him to his enemies. (2 Samuel 15) Jesus, we read, ofttimes resorted hither; no doubt with these recollections. But it is the Son of God we have here, at the present time, rather than the Son of David. The brook is passed, and the garden is entered. Not with tears, and without the ark; but more than the ark, in all its glory and strength, are to be displayed now. The Lord comes forth to them, a band of cruel officers and soldiers as they were, with this word, “Whom seek ye?” Thus, addressing them as in the repose of heaven, which was his. And he comes forth in the power of heaven, as well as in its repose; for on his afterward saying to them, “I am he,” they go backward, and fall to the ground. No man could take his life from him. He has even to show them their prey; for all their torches and lanterns would not otherwise have discovered him to them. Every stage in the way was his own. He laid down his life of himself. They that would eat up his flesh must stumble and fall; they that desired his hurt must be turned back and put to confusion. The fire was ready to consume this Roman captain and his fifty. Had the Son of God pleased, there on the ground the enemy would still have lain. But he came not to destroy men’s lives, but to save, and therefore he would lay down his own. It was just seen, that the glory that might have confounded all the power of the adversary was hid within the pitcher; but he would fain hide it still.
And now it was that, in spirit, he sang the 27th Psalm. The Lord was his light and his salvation, whom should he fear? He had just seen God’s glory in the sanctuary (as we saw in the 17th chap.), and according to this Psalm, his longing was to dwell in that house of the Lord forever. It was a time of trouble, it is true, but, in spirit, his head was lifted up above his enemies; and he was soon to offer in the tabernacle sacrifices of joy, and sing his praises unto the Lord. (Psalms 27:1-6.)
Thus, as Son of God, he stood in this hour, and could have stood against hosts of them; but he would take the cup from his Father’s hand, and give his life for the Church. Those who were with him become now, in their willfulness, an offense to him. His kingdom was not as yet of this world; and therefore, his servants might not fight. Peter draws his sword, and would fain have changed the scene into a mere trial of human strength. But this must not be. It is true, the Son of God could have stood. He might again have been the ark of God, with the power of the enemy falling before it; but how then should the Scripture be fulfilled? He rather leaves himself in the hands of enemies. “Then the band and the captain and officers of the Jews took Jesus, and bound him.”
Thus, was it, so far, with the Lord. And as we still follow him, we still trace the way of the Son of God, the Lord from heaven. Whether we listen to him with the officers, or with the high priest, or before Pilate, it is still in the same tone of holy distance from all that was around him. They may do to him whatsoever they list—lie is as a stranger to it. He is not careful to answer them in their matters. He would pass through all in loneliness. The daughters of Jerusalem do not here either yield him their sympathy, or receive his; nor does a dying thief share that hour with him. He is the lonely One all through that dreary way. Peter is found in the way of the ungodly, warming himself among them, as one who had only the resources which they had. Another (perhaps John himself) takes his place as the acquaintance of the high priest, and gets his advantage as such. But all this was a sinking down into mere nature, and leaving the Son of God alone—as he had said to them, “Ye.... shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.”
And his path, I need not say, is without a stain. Let God be true, but every man a liar. So, Jesus is without fault, though all beside fail. He was “justified in the Spirit.” He has no step to retrace, no word to recall. He could righteously vindicate himself in everything, and even reprove his accuser, and say, “If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil, but if well, why smitest thou me?” But even Paul, in such a case, had to recall his word, and to say, “I wist not, brethren, that he was the high priest.”
From the hand of the high priest the Lord passes into the hand of the Roman governor. And here a scene opens full of solemn warning to us all, beloved, as well as preserving before us still the full character of our Gospel.
It is very evident that throughout this scene, Pilate was desirous to quiet the people, and deliver Jesus from the malice of the Jews. It appears, from the very first, that he was sensible of something peculiar in this prisoner of theirs. His silence had such a character in it, that, as we read, “the governor marveled greatly.” And what divine attractions, we may observe, must every little passage of his life, every path that he took among men, have had about it, and what must the condition of the eye, and the ear, and the heart of man have been, that they did not discern and allow all this! The governor’s first impression was strengthened by everything that happened as the scene proceeded; his wife’s dream, the evident malice of the Jews, and, above all, this righteous, guiltless prisoner (though thus in shame and suffering) still persisting that he was the Son of God, all assailed his conscience. But the world in Pilate’s heart was too strong for these convictions in his conscience. They made a noise, it is true, within him, but the voice of the world prevailed, and he went the way of the world, though thus convicted. Could he, however, have preserved the world for himself, he would willingly have preserved Jesus. He let the Jews fully understand that he was in no fear of Jesus, that he was not such an one as could create with him any alarm about the interests of his master the emperor. But they still insisted that he had been making himself a king, and that if he let this man go, he could not be Caesar’s friend. And this prevailed.
How does all this lead us to see that there is no security for the soul but in the possession of that faith which overcomes the world! Pilate had no desire for the blood of Jesus, as the Jews had; but the friendship of Caesar must not be hazarded. The rulers of Israel had once feared that, if they let this man alone, the Romans would come and take away both their place and nation (John 11:48); and Pilate now fears to lose the friendship of the same world in the person of the Roman emperor. And thus did the world bind him— and the Jews together in the act of crucifying the Lord of Glory, as it is written “For of a truth, against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together.”
Still, as I have observed, Pilate would have saved Jesus, could he at the same time have saved his own reputation as Caesar’s friend; and therefore, it was that he now entered the judgment hall, and put this inquiry to Jesus, “Art thou the King of the Jews?” For as the Jews had committed the Lord to him, upon a charge of having made himself a king (Luke 23:2), if he could but lead the Lord to retract his kingly claims, he might both save him, and keep himself unharmed. With the design of doing so, he seems at this time to enter the judgment hall. But the world in Pilate’s heart knew not Jesus, as it is written, “The world knew him not.” (John 1:10; 1 John 3:1.) Pilate was now to find that the god of this world had nothing in him. “Jesus answered, Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?” Our Lord by this would learn from Pilate himself where the source of the accusation against him lay; whether his claim to be King of the Jews was challenged by Pilate as protector of the emperor’s right in Judaea, or merely upon a charge of the Jews.
Upon this hung, I may say, everything in the present juncture; and the wisdom and purpose of the Lord in giving the inquiry this direction is manifest. Should Pilate say that he had become apprehensive of the Roman interests, the Lord could at once have referred him to the whole course of his life and ministry to prove that, touching the king, innocency had been found in him. He had taught the rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. He had withdrawn himself, departing into a mountain alone, when he perceived that the multitude would have taken him by force to make him a king. His controversy was not with Rome. When he came he found Caesar in Judea, and he never questioned his title to be there; lie rather at all times allowed his title and took the place of the nation, which, because of disobedience, had the image and superscription of Caesar engraven, as it were, on their very land. It is true that it was despite of the majesty of Jehovah that had made way for the Gentiles to enter Jerusalem; but Jerusalem was, for the present, the Gentile’s place, and the Lord had no controversy with them because of this. Nothing but the restored faith and allegiance of Israel to God could rightfully cancel this title of the Gentiles. The Lord’s controversy was therefore not with Rome, and Pilate would have had his answer according to all this had the challenge proceeded from himself as representative of the Roman power; but it did not. Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me. What hast thou done?”
Now this answer of Pilate conveyed the full proof of the guilt of Israel. In the mouth of him who represented the power of the world at that time, the thing was established, that Israel had disclaimed their King, and sold themselves into the hand of another. This for the present was everything with Jesus; this at once carried him beyond the earth and out of the world. Israel had rejected him, and his kingdom was therefore not from hence; for Zion is the appointed place for the King of the whole earth to sit and rule, and the unbelief of the daughter of Zion must keep the King of the earth away.
The Lord, then, as this rejected King, listening to this testimony from the lips of the Roman, could only recognize his present loss of his throne. “Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom’s not from hence.” He had no weapons for war if Israel refused him. There was no threshing for his floor now; for Israel is his instrument to thresh the mountains (Isaiah 41:15; Micah 4:13; Jeremiah 11:20), and Israel was refusing him. The house of Judah, and that only, is Messiah to make “his goodly horse in the battle” (Zechariah 10:4), and therefore, in this unbelief of Judah, he had nothing wherewith to break the arrows of the bow, the shield, the sword, and the battle. (Psalms 76) His kingdom could not be “of this world,” it could not be “from hence;” he had no servants who could fight, that he should not be delivered to his enemies.
This present loss of his kingdom, however, does not annul his title to it; for the Lord, while allowing his present loss of it, yet allows this in such terms as fully express his title to it, and led Pilate at once to say, “Art thou a King, then?” And to this his good confession is witnessed. For Pilate would have had no cause to dread either the displeasure of his master or the tumult of the people; he might have fearlessly followed his will and delivered his prisoner, if the blessed Confessor would now alter the word that had gone out of his lips, and withdraw his claim to be a King. But Jesus answered, “Thou sayest that I am a King.” From this his claim there could be no retiring. Here was “his good confession before Pontius Pilate.” Though his own received him not, yet he was theirs; though the world knew him not, yet it was made by him. Though the husbandmen were casting him out, yet he was the heir of the vineyard. He was anointed to the throne in Sion, though his citizens were saying, they would not have him to reign over them; and he must by his “good confession” fully verify his claim to it, and stand to that claim before all the power of the world. It might arm all that power against him, but it must be made. Herod and all Jerusalem had once been moved at hearing that he was born who was King of the Jews, and sought to slay the child; but let the whole world be now moved, and arm its power against him, yet he must declare God’s decree, “I have set my King upon my holy hill of Zion.” His right must be witnessed, though in the presence of the usurper, and in the very hour of his power.
But now we are led into other and further revelations. This “good confession” being thus witnessed, the Lord was prepared to’’ unfold other parts of the divine counsels. When he had distinctly verified his title to the kingdom in the face of the world, he was prepared to testify his present character and ministry. “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth; every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.” His possession of the kingdom was for a time hindered by the unbelief of his nation; but he skews that there had been no failure of the purpose of God by this, for he had come into the world for other present work than to take his throne in Zion. He had come to bear witness unto the truth, and our Gospel is especially the instrument for presenting the Lord in that ministry. As it is said of him, at the opening of it, “The only-begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” He had come into the world that he might say, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” He had come that he might give us an understanding to know him that is true. (1 John 5:20.) He had been manifesting the Father’s name to those who had been given him out of the world, and this was the same as bearing witness to the truth. (John 8:26,27.) Every one that was of the truth, as he here speaks to Pilate, had been hearing his voice. His sheep had heard it, while others had believed not, because they were not his sheep. He that was of God had heard it, while others had heard it not, because they were not of God. (John 8:47.)
Such was the Lord’s present ministry, while Israel was in unbelief. Though King of the Jews, and as such, King of the whole earth, he could not as yet take his kingdom, for his title had been denied by his nation. He must take up other ministry, and the character of that ministry he here reveals to Pilate, and had been presenting all through our Gospel.
Thus, this good confession before Pontius Pilate, recorded in this Gospel, still leads the Lord’s thoughts quite in the current of this Gospel. While standing to it, consenting for a while to answer for himself, he still knows himself in highest and holiest ministry: yea, I may say his divine ministry, a ministry which none but the Only begotten of the Father, none but he who lay in the bosom of the Father, and who was full of grace and truth, could have fulfilled.
This is still striking; and as we follow him on to the cross, we have the Son of God still. We see his title to the kingdom verified with all authority. The enemy would have had it blotted out, but he cannot prevail. Pilate, who before had despised the claims of Jesus, saying to the Jews, “Behold your King,” will now have them published in all the languages of the earth, and it is not in the power of the Jews to change his mind now, as before. The cross shall be the Lord’s standard, and Jehovah will emblazon it with inscriptions of his royal dignity, be the earth never so angry.
But this is the only Gospel that gives us this conversation between Pilate and the Jews about the inscription on the cross; for it savored of the glory of Jesus. And so it is only our Evangelist who notices the woven coat, which was something that the soldiers would not rend—a little circumstance in itself, but helping still to keep in view (in full harmony with this Gospel generally) the holy dignity of him who was passing through this hour of darkness.
Here it is, also, that our Lord lays aside his human affections. He sees his mother and his beloved disciple near the cross; but it is only to commend them the one to the other, and thus to separate himself from the place which he had once filled among them. Sweet indeed is it to see how faithfully he owned the affection up to the latest moment that he could listen to it; no sorrow of his own (though that was bitter enough, as we know) could make him forget it. But lie was not always to know it. The children of the resurrection neither marry, nor are given in marriage. They were not, henceforth, to know him “after the flesh.” He must now form their knowledge of him by other thoughts, for they are henceforth to be joined to him as “one spirit:” for such are his blessed ways. If he takes his distance from us, as not knowing us in “the flesh,” it is only that we may be united to him in nearer affections and closer interests.
And, to look deeper than the circumstances of this hour, if we mark the Lord’s spirit on the cross, we shall still discern the Son, of God. He thirsted—he tasted death, it is true—he knew the drought of that land where the living God was not. But his sense of this is still expressed in his own tone. It does not come forth in the cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” That is given us in its proper place. But here there is no such cry recorded; there is no amazement of spirit, nor horror of great darkness for three hours, neither is there a commending of himself to the Father; but it is simply, “I thirst;” and when he had entered and passed through that thirst, he verifies the fail accomplishment of all things, saying, “It is finished.” He does not commend his work to the approval of God, but seals it with his own seal, attesting it as complete, and giving it the sufficient sanction of His own approval. And when he could thus sanction all as finished, he delivers up his life himself.
These were strong touches of the mind in which he was passing through these hours; and these hours now end. The Son of God was made perfect, as the author of eternal salvation to all that obey him; and the fountain for sin and for uncleanness is opened. The water and the blood come forth to bear witness that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. (1 John 5:8-12.) We have not here the Centurion’s confession, “Truly, this was the Son of God;” we have not Pilate’s wife, nor the convicted lips of Judas, bearing him witness: Jesus does not here receive witness from men, but from God. The water and the blood are God’s witnesses to his Son, and to the life that sinners may find in him. It was sin that pierced him. The action of the soldier was just a sample of man’s enmity. It was the sullen shot of the defeated foe after the battle, the more loudly telling out the deep-seated hatred that there, is in man’s heart to God and his Christ. But it only sets off the riches of that grace that met it and abounded over it; for it was answered by the love of God. The point of the soldier’s spear was touched by the blood. The crimson flood came forth to roll away the crimson sin. The blood and the water issue through the wounded side of the Son of God. Now was the day of atonement fully come, and the water of separation, the ashes of the red heifer, were now sprinkled. This was the Lamb which Abel had offered. This was the blood which Noah had shed, and which had awakened in God’s heart thoughts of unmingled grace to sinners. (Genesis 8:21.) This was the rain of Mount Moriah, and this was the blood which daily flowed round the brazen altar in the temple. This was the blood which is the only ransom of the unnumbered thousands before the throne of God.
But though pierced, thus to be the fountain of the blood and the water, the Lord’s body must not be broken. The paschal Lamb may be killed, but not a bone of it is to be broken. It shall do all the purpose of divine love in sheltering the first-born, but beyond that it is sacred—no rude hand must touch it. Jesus was to say, “All my bones shall say, LORD, who is like unto thee, which deliverest the poor from him that is too strong for him; yea, the poor and needy from him that spoileth him?” And the Church is his body. He is the head, and we the members; and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, and not a bone of that mystic body is to be wanting—all must come unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; for all, from of old, have been written in God’s book, and are to be fashioned and curiously wrought together, even every one of them. (Psalms 139:16.1)
Thus was it with our Lord in our gospel, while he was yet on the cross. In every feature we see the Son of God; and as we follow him from thence to the grave, it is the Son of God still. We do not there see him numbered with the transgressors, and with the wicked in his death; but we do see his grave with the rich. Two honored sons of Israel come to own him, and charge themselves with his body, to spend their perfumes and their labor upon it.
But in all this we have again something to notice. When the Lord’s body was pierced, it not only, as I have observed, allowed God’s witnesses—the blood and the water—to be heard, but it gives occasion to that which was written, “They shall look on him whom they pierced.” And this word, which tells of Israel’s repentance in the, latter day, introduces the action of Joseph’ and Nicodemus, and makes them the representatives of repentant Israel. They come last, it is true, in the order of faith; they had been afraid of their unbelieving nation, afraid of the thunder of the synagogue, and had not continued with the Lord in his temptations, but were only secretly his disciples; they were slow of heart; but still, in the end, they do own the Lord, and are brought to look on him Whom they pierced. They take the body from the cross, fresh with the piercing of the soldier’s spear; and as they lowered it from the tree, surely they must have looked, and looked well, upon the hands and feet and wounded side. And they must have mourned as they looked, for their hearts had been already softened to take some impression from the crucified one. And so will it be with Israel, they come last in the order of faith, and are slow of heart; but in the end they will look on him whom they have pierced, and mourn as one mourneth for his only son.
It was thus with Joseph and Nicodemus now, and thus will it be by and by with the inhabitants of Jerusalem. These two Israelites, as true children of Abraham, claim the body of the Lord, and consecrate it as with the faith of the patriarch (Genesis 1. 2, 26); and, as true subjects of the King of Israel, they also honor it with the honors of a Son of David. (2 Chronicles 16:14.) They spend large and costly perfumes upon it, and lay it up in the garden in a new untainted tomb, on which the smell of death had never yet passed.
Here all closes for the present; here, in the second garden, as I may call it, the second man is now laid in death. In the first, the first man had walked with access to the tree of life; but he had chosen death in the error of his way. Here, in the second garden, death, the penalty, is met. Jesus, without having touched the tree of knowledge, suffers the death. In the first garden, all manner of trees, good for food and pleasant to the eyes, were seen; but here, nothing appears but the tomb of Jesus. This was what man’s sin ended in, as far as man was concerned. But let us wait a little. By all this the Son of God is soon to become the death of death, and hell’s destruction, to bring life and immortality to light, and to plant again in the garden, for man, the tree of life. Let but the third morning arise, and this garden, which now witnesses only Jesus in death, shall see the Son of God in resurrection.
20. Accordingly, at the opening of this chapter, we so find it. Jesus has risen, the bruiser of the serpent being made, through death, the destroyer of him that had the power of death.
This was the third, the appointed day, —the day on which Abraham of old had received his son as from the dead, the day of promised revival to Israel (Hosea 6:2), the day, also, on which Jonah was on dry land again.
But the disciples do not as yet know their Lord in resurrection; they know him only “after the flesh;” and therefore Mary Magdalene is seen early at the sepulcher, seeking his body; and, in the same mind, Peter and his companion run to the sepulcher shortly after her, their bodily strength merely, and not the intelligence of faith, carrying them there. And there they behold, not their object, but the trophies of his victory over the power of death. There they see the gates of brass and the bars of iron cut in sunder. The linen clothes and the napkin which had been wrapped about the Lord’s head, as though he were death’s prisoner, were seen strewing the ground like the spoils of the vanquished. The very armor of the strong man was made a show of in his own house, and this telling loudly, that he who is the plague of death, and hell’s destruction, had been lately in that place doing his glorious work. But, in spite of all this, the disciples understand not; they as yet know not the scripture, that he must rise from the dead; and they go away again to their own home.
Mary, however, lingers about the fond spot, refusing to be comforted because her Lord was not. She would fain have taken sackcloth, and, like another, spread it for her on the rock, could she but find his body to watch and to keep it. She wept and stooped down and looked into the sepulcher, and saw the angels. But what were the angels to her now? The sight of them does not terrify her, as it had the other women (Mark 16), for she was too much occupied with other, thoughts to be moved by them. They were, it is true, very illustrious, sitting there in white, and in heavenly state, too, one at the head and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. But what was all splendor to her now? The dead body of her Lord was what she sought and desired alone; and she has only to turn from these heavenly glories in further search of it; and then seeing, as she judged, the gardener, she says to him, “ Sir, if toughest borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.” She simply says:” If thou have borne him; hence,” not naming Jesus; for, fond woman as she was, she supposes that everyone must be as full of her Lord as she was.
(Continued from p. 198.)
Operations of the Spirit of God
But there was also the doctrine of the relationship which we have in the new man, as well as moral character and power. As many as are led of it are sons; sons, and therefore heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together. Arid here the groaning is not on the question of what we are as to God’s judgment of evil in us, a spirit of bondage to fear; but, our own judgment of it in, its effects because we are sons, and are certain that we are, and know that we are heirs. We take up the groaning of the whole creation, of which we are part, as in the body, and express it to God in sympathy, in the sense of the blessedness of the glorious inheritance when the creation shall be delivered; suffering with, Christ in the present sorrow by His Spirit, and express it in the Spirit to God, even though we have no intelligence to ask for any actual remedy. In this, then, the Spirit has a double office: the witness with us, for joy, that we are sons and heirs, and helping us in the infirmities lying on creation and on us in the body; and when lie, thus acting in us in sympathy, thus groans in us expressive of the sorrow, ff who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for us ACCORDING to God.
The Epistle to the Galatians with less fullness teaches us the same truth, securing the foundation on which it rests. But we see, thus far, the sons joint-heirs—joint-heirs with Christ, and the Spirit at once the seal of the redemption which is accomplished, by which they have it; the witness of sonship in them, and the earnest of the inheritance which they have with Christ: known by the revelation of the glory of Christ and the things to come, connected with His person. Thus, we have it expressed in Ephesians 1:9-14.
There is another very interesting passage as instruction upon this point (2 Corinthians 1:20,22)— “All the promises” belonging to Christ as heir— “All God’s promises are in Christ Yea, and in Christ Amen, unto the glory of God by us.” The promises are of God, and in Christ. God then establishes us in Christ; and then, for our knowledge, assurance, and enjoyment, we are anointed, sealed, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts; knowing it by the anointing, as in 1 John 2:20—sealed, as in Ephesians 1, and having the earnest in the heart so as to anticipatively enjoy the blessing known, and for which we are sealed.
Having spoken of this passage in a previous paper, I do not enlarge on it; but there is another collateral passage which I would not pass by, relative to the knowledge, communication, and reception of the revelations of the Spirit; showing our entire dependance on that blessed Comforter and power of God for all knowledge of these things (1 Corinthians 2)— “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him; but God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit.” Man’s heart never conceived them, but God revealed them to His saints by His Spirit. They had received the Spirit which was of God, that they might know. They spoke by words which the Holy Ghost taught: communicating, as I should translate it, spiritual things by a spiritual medium: and they were, moreover, spiritually discerned; they were known, communicated, and received by the Spirit.
Having noticed these collateral passages, I pass on to the point of corporate operation of the Holy Ghost in the union of the body. The testimony to the Lordship of Christ, and that character of His exaltation, we have already seen in the addresses of Peter to Israel. This of course is never lost: but we have seen the additional truth of the identity of Christ and the Church—the very basis of Paul’s special ministry, brought out in the question to the apostle, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” just as the sin of the first Adam was brought out by the terrible question, “Where art thou?” It is upon this that the grace of the ministration of the Spirit, now, was to have its course. The Spirit had borne witness by certain disciples; and the Church thereby had been gathered. The Church now was to be the vehicle for the testimony and witness of the Spirit corporately. The distinct revelation of tins position of the Church, and its establishment in it, in the intelligence and actuality of its standing, began by the scattering of the assembly at Jerusalem, and by the apostle (having been called, and enabled by the Lord, and having preached at once—and thus laid by in a measure for a time) recommencing the work from Antioch, as a center whence he was separated to the work to which Christ had called him, not by the appointment of Jesus after the flesh, but by the authoritative direction of the Holy Ghost in the disciples. Paul had no part in the testimony mentioned in John 15:27. It was only the Holy Ghost’s testimony, and seeing the glory of Christ, and hearing the words of His mouth. Hence it was not a testimony to the exaltation and Lordship of Him whose companions they had been on earth; that God had exalted Him to be Lord and Christ there; but starting from the point of His Lordship seen in glory, that He was the Son of God, and a testimony and, of course owning it, to the union of the whole body, Jew and Gentile, with Him so exalted to God’s right hand. Hence the operations of the Holy Ghost—always following the testimony concerning ‘Christ, while still declaring and subservient to His Lordship—wrought in the unity of the whole body, according to the operations of God.
Hence, we read in 1 Corinthians 12, “Concerning spiritual things, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led. Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say, Lord Jesus—or, call Jesus Lord-but by the Holy Ghost.” That is, whoever does so (i.e. in Spirit), does so by the Holy Ghost; for it was the Holy Spirit that testified that Jesus was Lord, not an evil one.
There were, along with this testimony, “diversities of gifts; yet not many spirits, hut the same Spirit. And there were differences of administrations (ministries), but the same Lord (not ‘lords many’—Jesus was Lord); and “diversities of operations, but the same God (for the operations were truly divine) that worketh all in all;” there, were not “gods many”—all were the operation of the one true God.
It is not the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) which is here presented to us, though from other scriptures we may know its connection with it, but God, the Lord, and the Spirit, working in the Church upon earth; though, lest we should suppose He was not God, it is afterward said, “All these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He willi0 For as the body is one, and path many members and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.”
We have here, then, these two points, —the Lordship of Christ—and that taking its place as to the services of which the gifts were the power; and the unity of the whole body—in which, as by its members, the Spirit wrought according to their diverse appropriate functions. The operation being all the while God’s operation, but ordered according to the functions of the body, and the purport of the whole; for the members’ service was for the good of the whole body.
From this, I think, we distinctly learn the order of the ministration of the Holy Ghost, as thus presented to us. What additional instruction the word may give us, we shall afterward see.
First, there was the primary testimony that Christ was Lord—more correctly, that Jesus was Lord: that formed the great basis-truth. All was subservient to this. The Holy Ghost as in operation, though Supreme to distribute, was subservient to this: this was the great testimony He blessedly rendered.
He bore it in gracious faithfulness now, as hereafter every tongue shall be obliged to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Upon this hangs consequently the responsibility of every gift. We are servants by them to the Lord Christ: “Ye serve the Lord Christ;” “Such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own bellies:” “Paul, the servant of Jesus Christ.,” is the well-known glory and faithfulness of the apostle. It was to “the Lord, the righteous Judge,” he looked. Thrice he besought “the Lord” that his thorn in the flesh might be removed: “lie that is called, being free, is Christ’s servant.”
These gifts of the Spirit, then, set them in ministries to the Lord, in which they were individually responsible for their exercise to Christ—talents with which they were to trade; but then they were responsible to exercise them within the body, according to the order in which they were set in the body, and in subjection to the mind of the Lord the Head of the body. This preserved entire the full personal responsibility and liberty; for no one was Lord but one, not even an apostle, and yet mutual dependance, healthful for all, even for an apostle; for the Lord’s authority was great over the foot or over the hand, and as exclusive as over, the apostle himself. Nor would an apostle, having still the flesh to contend with, keep his place unless this were carefully held. Though by preeminence of gift he might guide, lead, direct, and, by revelation from the Lord, give a commandment to the Church, he could not, in the smallest degree or tittle, touch the direct responsibility of the least member to Christ the Lord Himself; he would have been setting up himself as the Vine, as lord over God’s heritage, had he done so. The apostles were alone as helpers of joy, and that by authority entrusted for edification, but never as lords over their faith. Authority, however, as a gift from the Lord, increased responsibility; but of this more hereafter. If he, the apostle, counseled any member by the Spirit, woe be to that member if his counsel was despised. Of course, if be revealed a commandment of the Lord, the believer became directly responsible to the Lord for obedience to that commandment. And though he specially, and the whole Church, might judge by the Spirit, still it was always with this remembrance— “another man’s servant.”
But it must be distinctly remembered, this was not for private right or title in the individual. I recognize no such thing as right in an individual. Right, in the human sense of it, is some title to exercise his own will in man, unimpeded by the interference of another. Now CHRISTIANITY ENTIRELY SETS THIS ASIDE. It may be very speciously maintained by dwelling only on the latter half of the definition, because grace does give a title against the interference of another; but that title is in and by virtue of responsibility to God. No man has a right to interfere with anything in which I am responsible to God. But the light which Christianity sheds on this is not my meddling with the will of that other, but my obligation to do the will ‘of God at all cost: — “We ought to obey God rather than man.” And having first done the will of God, then to suffer it; for it is better, if the will of God be so, to suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing; for Christ, in the best sense, has once suffered for sins. If we do well, suffer for it, and take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. But this right in the individual, in the human and common force of it, Christianity cuts up by the root, because it pronounces the human will to be all wrong, and the assertion of its exercise to be the principle of sin; so that we “are sanctified unto obedience” as to “the blood of sprinkling.” Thus, the idea of all having a right to speak in the church could never enter into the Christian mind. It has no place in the scheme of Christianity, which begins its moral existence by the breaking down the human will as evil. The Holy Spirit has the right, which He exercises sovereignly, of distributing “to every man severally as He will;” and hence responsibility subject to the purpose of the Holy Ghost in all. For the manifestation of the Spirit (which gifts are—they are riot the Holy Spirit itself) is given to every man to profit withal. There is purpose in it, to which the power of the Holy Ghost is to direct the use of these gifts for the good of all, as this epistle clearly shews us. The gifts to men or in man (both are used—one refers to Christ, the other to those to whom Christ gives them), are not the Holy Ghost, though they be by the Holy Ghost, and hence are guided by the mind of Christ, for the accomplishment of which they are given. Thus, to display the gift of tongues, or use it where there were none to whom they applied, is described by the apostle to be the folly of childhood; they were given to profit withal. So also, the spirits of the prophets—the highest desirable gift—were subject to the prophets. The not seeing this, and confounding these gifts of the Spirit in man with the Holy Ghost Himself, has led to much and mischievous confusion. And it has been thought impossible that they should ever be restrained, or subjected to even apostolic rule-turning, as every departure from Scripture does, to the license of the flesh and human will, or the even worse delusion of the enemy.
The Holy Ghost Himself dwelling in the individual, and especially also in the Church as such, guides, directs, and orders by the word, the use of these manifestations of His power in man, as He does everything else, I repeat by the word; just as the conduct of one led of the Spirit is ordered and guided by the Word, the power of the same Spirit directing and applying it. It is this that maintains responsibility whatever the power given, and, by that unity, through the Holy Ghost, in the whole body; for power being given, its exercise would be by man’s will else, or it would not be in man at all. This was true in the highest instance, where error or failure could not be. When the Son of God, in infinite grace and counsel of wisdom, became a man, it was not to destroy responsibility, but to fulfill it all in absolute abstract perfection: “He became obedient.” Even in working miracles would not depart from this. He would not make stones bread, without God His Father’s will. It was precisely to this the enemy (Satan) sought to lead Him—to what might be called the innocent exercise of will, and using His power for this. But He was perfect, and the enemy confounded. He was content to do God’s will. He kept His commandments, and abode in His love. And if therein He, a divine person, could show that He loved the Father, and in suffering there was a therefore that the Father loved Him, still He blessedly adds, and this was His perfectness, “And as my Father hath given me commandment, so I do.” And thus closed His blessed and perfect career, with this true word to the Father, “I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” Blessed Jesus! justly art thou glorified in all things—Our Lord!
This difference now, however, exists, that Jesus having taken the place of power— “all power given to Him in heaven and in earth “—His place is not merely the manifestation of perfect obedience in self-humiliation, but the manifestation of exaltation and power. But this, while it has altered the position of Jesus, and the place of His disciples, as vessels of this power, in the testimony of the Spirit of God, has in no way touched the principle of their responsibility, though its sphere may be enlarged by, it; nor has it let in the principle of human will in the smallest degree, because power has been increased; but it has merely introduced the principle of that responsibility into the exercise of the power entrusted, whatever it may be, and connected it with the Lordship of Christ, whose servants they are in it, that they may minister it to His glory, in love and testimony to the world, and in the edification of the Church. And the Word affords the rule for the order of its exercise, as of all things else.
It is a part of this responsibility and reference to the Head of the Church, not to “quench the Spirit,” nor “despise prophesyings,” be they the simplest, or by the humblest in the Church, as to mere circumstance, if God be pleased to use them.
The title and the right are God’s, proving them divine, and therefore good: the responsibility man’s, and the gift only the occasion of responsibility in that; the Lord Christ being He under Whom it was exercised; and by that responsibility necessarily independent of others; for no man could serve two masters: but within the Church exercised according to the mind of Christ, of which the Spirit is the power in the Church, and the written word the guide and standard. It is in this last point the Scriptures hold a, place, which in many respects the apostles held, that is, of revealing the mind of Christ. They cannot have in themselves the place of power, but they do contain the wisdom of God, and, as to this in the New Testament, the mind of Christ. We must distinguish this point of revelation. The other points of apostolic office may be spoken of hereafter.
There are some other points to be noted in this 12th chapter of Corinthians.
Having spoken of the Spirit, and the Lord, and God; the two first sheaving the relationship and power of this service, the last making us understand that it was withal truly God’s power and working; and then in the same language (that the divinity of the Spirit might be recognized, though in a certain sense taking the place of service, as acting in the subject-instrument of Christ’s Lordship) ascribed the power and working to the Spirit: having cleared this point, the apostle takes up the subject in connection with the unity of the body. And here Christ, at least the body of Christ, becomes the subject of divine operations: first is rather the fruit of those operations; for we are by one Spirit baptized into one body—thus is Christ. And the whole is spoken of as the subject of divine counsel; Christ only being the Head, and we in mutual dependence; but the whole sphere is looked at as a subject—scene of operations. It is not merely now, the Holy Ghost bearing witness by which the world was convicted, or individuals convinced, and the Church gathered; but “now hath God set the members, every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased Him.” “God hath tempered the body’ together.” “God hath set some in the Church, first apostles,” &c. They were “the body of Christ, and—members in particular.”
We have thus the operations of the Spirit of God formally established in the corporate unity of a body, in the various gifts of the different members, of which the Spirit itself formed the unity and the power; subservient to the Lordship of Christ, and therefore directing the Church by His mind, whether for its own edification in love or testimony to the world; God setting the members of this body as it pleased Him.
The control of the Spirit, as communicating the mind of Christ, over the exercise of these entrusted powers, is next brought forward—after stating the superior excellence of love to any gift. Love was, and witnessed, God, and was the bond of perfectness in essential blessing. These, the testimony of power; prevailing indeed over evil, but still ministered in the midst of it, and not to continue, therefore, but to pass away or cease. The use of these for the purpose of love this became the true test of grace and the mind of Christ in using them; otherwise, turned into personal display. The edifying of the Church was to be the rule of all used there, and no individual title, for they were to follow the mind of Christ.
This also gave rise to a distinction in the gifts, of those suited to the world, and those meant for the profit of the incumbent of the Church. Thus “tongues” were a sign to unbelievers, not to the Church; this was their use. One gifted with tongues was not therefore to speak in them, unless there were an interpreter; for the Church would not be edified: it would by the subject-matter, if there were an interpreter. So “signs,” or “miracles,” confirmed the word.
The gift of tongues was peculiar, and characteristically evangelical: overreaching the consequences of man’s sin and judgment in Babel, and setting aside manifestly the confining the testimony of God to the Jewish people; constituting an active ministry towards those without, which was distinctively essential to Christianity. It thus became, distinctively, manifestative of the Holy Ghost, on the Jews and on the Gentiles (the 120 and Cornelius), as sent down, the witness of this grace, and of glory and Headship in Christ. Miracles had been wrought among the Jews; even there, however, it was among it those departed from the covenant, or, when at first that national system was established. In Judea the prophets recalled to the law, and let their predictions verify themselves or be owned by faith. Their summons to the law required no verification; its obligation was acknowledged. But tongues were properly applicable to the Christian dispensation as acting on the world, and therefore became the characteristic manifestation of the Holy Ghost sent down as acting before the world that needed this.
“Tongues, miracles, healings,” then, might be exercised by those gifted thereto in the Church, but they were exercised as the witness of the beneficence of Christ’s Lordship to the world, and not towards the Church already alive in heaven by the deeper quickening power of that beneficence. This was their general character. The 11 proper character of the Church’s blessing was edification:— “Let all things be done unto edifying;” or, as expressed in the Ephesians, “ the edifying itself in love.”
This appears to me the true distinction: signs to the world, and edification to the Church, not that usually made between miraculous, and not miraculous; as if God gave no positive gifts to the Church now, and as if miraculous were synonymous with supernatural, and that the Holy Ghost had ceased to act; and thus human powers are practically referred to as the sole agent in the Church. If miraculous be spoken of as meaning those which were signs to the world, I have no objection, provided the direct power and gift of the Holy Ghost be not set aside, in those which are not for signs but for edifying: otherwise great dishonor’ is done to the Holy Ghost.
There is this distinction given us in these gifts by the fact of some being for signs, some for edifying: the former are to act on the senses and mind as applicable to those without’; the latter on conscience and spiritual understanding, and consequently the subject of intelligent judgment and reception. This remark is of importance. The Spirit of God acting in the force of responsibility in us is always paramount to any means of power and gift—even if real; for, thereby the authority of God is owned and set up over ourselves. The true use of gift in the Church is just to enforce this: wherever it departs from this it is clearly false in principle. “I must judge them which say they are apostles”— “let the rest judge”— “the spiritual man judgeth all things.” Self-will, which refuses the enforcement of responsibility by gift, or which would use gift to exalt itself, instead of enforcing it, are alike the: flesh set on by Satan to its own lawlessness. There is no remedy for this but grace, and the power and presence of the Holy Ghost condemning and mortifying the flesh in each. The want of this is recognized as possible, and to come, by the apostle: — “the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.”
I should also remark, that the Holy-Ghost teaches us here, that while He distributes to every man severally as He will, and uses whom He will, so that all openness is to be maintained for His operations, there are distinct permanent gifts whereby men are constituted teachers, prophets, or the like, though their teaching and prophesying may still be in constant dependence on the action of the Holy Ghost Himself. These directions, in fine, as to tongues and interpretations—the number and manner of prophets speaking—women speaking—show the distinct control of the Holy Ghost Himself (thus in its order expressed in the word) over the exercise of all entrusted gifts in the Church, where the Holy Ghost habitually dwelt and guided for the end of edifying all. Liberty and guidance is characteristic of Christianity, and is distinctive of power making willing, and the wisdom of God for us.
This testimony to the world, and edifying of the Church, involves also another consideration, besides the signs wrought by the Church before the world—a principle of service a little modified by the position of the apostle Paul—that the operation of the Spirit in gift, though working in and by, precedes the formation of, the Church.
Gift of evangelizing, though it be in a member of the Church, yet is clearly antecedent in its own character to the existence of the Church; for it is by that the Church is gathered.
The highest form of this was shown in the apostles at Jerusalem, as we have already seen. And though the Evangelist may go forth from the Church, and be aided by the Church, it is a gift exercised not towards the Church, or to its conscience, and of which the Church, therefore, cannot be properly cognizable. It must be exercised on the possession of the gift, and bears its evidence in its fruits by acting in the primary work of God’s Spirit on the conscience of the unconverted; judging it, not judged by it; coming in the grace and truth of Jesus to it. Other gifts, as prophesying, may convince others in conscience, but its exercise is in the Church, and the Church having a conscience taught of the Spirit, is bound—it may be through other prophets efficiently—but is bound to judge but the Evangelist is to the world, and there is no competency of judgment, though there may be holy counsel and advice, as from the Lord. As aiding in grace, temporally, the Church, or rather each individual in it—be it a woman—is bound to have no fellowship with doctrine not according to the word, and the Church should take all needful notice of this, and not be partakers of this sin. The same would apply as to any evil practice; but the exercise of the gift, as such, in its nature, though it flow from the midst of the Church, goes forth out of it, and, not referring to its conscience, does not raise a throne of judgment there, which responsibility to God does, in what is addressed to the Church. The Evangelist is responsible to God for the exercise of his gift towards those without, and becomes manifest in their consciences in the sight of God.
The highest form of this was the apostles on the day of Pentecost. It was a direct authoritative address, as the apostles of Jesus, appointed by Him, and ratified in power by the Holy Ghost to the world, thereby forming the Church, and becoming, in a certain subordinate sense, heads of the Church, to guide, regulate, order, and direct those whom they so gathered, which gave the subsequent character to apostolic office.
(Continued from p. 222.) (To be continued.)
On the Gospel by St. John
To do this in all gentleness, he first answers her human affection, letting her once again hear her own name on his well-known voice. That was just the note which was in full unison with all that was then in her heart. It was the only note to which her soul could have responded. Had he appeared to her in heavenly glory, he would still have been a stranger to her; for as yet she knew him only as Jesus. But this must be the last time she was to apprehend him “after the flesh.” For he is now risen from the dead, and is on his way to the Father in heaven, and earth must no longer be the scene of their communion. “Touch me not,” says he to her, “for I am not yet ascended to my Father.”
I need not, perhaps, observe how fully characteristic of our gospel all this is. In Matthew, on the contrary, we see the women, on their return from the sepulcher, meeting the Lord, and the Lord allowing them to hold his feet, and to worship him: but here, it is to Mary, “Touch me not.” For this gospel tells us of the Son in the midst of the heavenly family, and not in his royalty in Israel and in his earthly glory. The resurrection, it is most true, pledges all that earthly glory and kingdom to him (Acts 13:34); but it was also one stage to the heavenly places, and that is the feature of it which our gospel gives us.
Mary, as we have seen, is entitled to be the first to learn these greater ways of his grace and love, and also to be the happy bearer of the same good tidings from this far and unknown country to the brethren. Jesus says to her, “Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.”
Thus, is she honored, and she goes to prepare the brethren for their Lord, while he prepares to meet them with a blessing beyond all which they had as yet attained. And her tidings seem to have got them all in readiness for him; for on his seeing them, the evening of the same day, they are not amazed and in unbelief, as they are in Luke’s Gospel, but seem all to be in waiting and expectation. They are no longer scattered as before (ver. 10), but folded together as the family of God, and the elder brother enters in, laden with the fruit of his holy travail for them.,
This was a meeting indeed. It was a visit to the family of the heavenly Father by the First-born. It was in a place that lay beyond death and outside the world. And such indeed is the place of appointed meeting with our Lord. Those who in spirit stay here, never meet him. For he is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of strangers and pilgrims. The world is a defiled place, and we must meet him in resurrection, in the kingdom that is not of the world.
So was it here with the Lord and his brethren. He now, for the first time, really meets them, meets them in the appointed place outside the world, and meets them in no less character than his own brethren. Now it was that he began to pay his vows. He had made them on the cross. (Psalms 22) First, that he would declare the Father’s name to the brethren: secondly, that in the midst of the Church he would sing his praise. The first of these he was now beginning to pay, and has been paying all through this present dispensation, making known to our souls the name of the Father through the Holy Ghost. And the second he will as certainly pay, when the congregation of all the brethren is gathered, and he leads their songs in resurrection—joy forever.
Now also is the promised life actually imparted. “Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me; because I live, ye shall live also.” The Son of God, having life in himself, now conies with it to his saints. He breathes on them now, as of old into their nostrils. (Genesis 2) Only this was the breath of the second Adam, the quickening Spirit, who had a life to impart that was won from the power of death, and which was therefore beyond its utmost reach. The brethren are now given to know that Christ was in the Father, and they in him, and he in them. They know the full peace of the cross also. He spews them his hands and his side. Their sorrow is turned into joy, for they were glad “when they saw the Lord.” He was revealing himself to them, as he does not unto the world. The world, in this little interview, was quite shut out; and the disciples, as hated of the world, are shut up within their own enclosure, just in the place to get a special manifestation of himself to them, as he had said unto them. (19: 22-24.) In the world they were knowing tribulation, but in him peace.
All this was theirs in this blessed little visit of “the First-born from the dead” to his brethren, imparting to them the blessing which belonged to them as children. And thus, this little intercourse was a sample of the communion which we enjoy in this dispensation. Our communion with Christ does not change our condition in the world, or make us happy in mere circumstances; it leaves us in a place of trial. But we are happy in Himself, in the full sense of his presence and favor. We are taught, as they here were, to know our oneness with Jesus; and, through Him, our adoption, and fellowship with the Father. As we lately saw the armor of the conquered enemy strewing the distant field of battle, so here do we see the fruit of victory brought home to gladden and assure the kindred of the conqueror.
And these fruits of the victory of the Son of God were now commanded to be carried about in holy triumph all the world over. “As my Father bath sent me, even so send I you,” says the Lord to his brethren. With a message, not of judgment, but of grace, had he himself come forth from the Father. And with a commission of the same grace are the brethren sent forth. They are sent forth from the Lord of life and peace, and with such a ministry they test the condition of every living soul. The message they bear is from the Son of the Father, a message of peace and life secured in and by himself; and the word then was and still is, “He that hath the Son, bath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life”—and the Lord adds, making them, in this, the test of the condition of every one, as having the Son or not, “Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained.”
Such was the Lord’s first interview with his disciples after he had risen from the dead. It has set before us the saints as the children of the Father, and their ministry as such, and given us a sample or first-fruits of that harvest in the Holy Ghost, which they have been gathering ever since in this dispensation.
And though it may draw me aside for a little space, I cannot refuse noticing that the ministry committed to the disciples by the Lord, after he rose from the dead, takes a distinct character in each of the gospels. And as each of the gospels has a distinct purpose, — (according to which all the narratives are selected and recorded), so the various language used by the Lord in each of the gospels in committing this ministry to his disciples is to be accounted for, and interpreted by, the specific character of the gospel itself.
In Matthew this commission runs thus:— “Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” Now this commission was strictly to the apostles, who had been already ordained by the Lord, and associated with him as minister of the circumcision. (Romans 15:8.) It contemplated them as in Jerusalem, and going forth from thence for the discipling of all nations, and for the keeping of them in the commandments and ordinances of the Lord. For it is the purpose of that gospel to present the Lord, in Jewish connection, as the hope of Israel, to whom the gathering of the nations was to be. And accordingly, the conversion of nations, and time settlement of the whole world around Jerusalem, as the center of worship, is assumed. A system of restored and obedient nations rejoicing with Israel will be exhibited by and by; and the risen Lord looks to that when committing ministry to his apostles in the gospel by Matthew.
But in Mark this prospect of national conversion is a good deal qualified. The terms of the commission are these:— “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature: he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” It is not the discipling of nations that is contemplated, but universal testimony with partial acceptance it for Mark presents the Lord in service or ministry; and the case of some receiving the word and some receiving it not is anticipated, because such are the results that have attended on all ministry of the word; as it is said in one place, “ Some believed the things that were spoken, and some believed not.”
In St. Luke, the Lord, after interpreting Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms, and opening the understanding of the disciples to understand them, delivers ministry to them in this way:— “Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things. And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.” This commission does not appear to have been strictly to the eleven, but others were addressed by it. (See Luke 24:33.) And their ministry was to begin with Jerusalem, and not from it. And they are not allowed to go forth in their ministry till they had received new power, thus allowing that what they had received from Jesus, while still on earth, was not sufficient. And all this was a breaking away from mere earthly or Jewish order. This was, therefore, the commission with something of an altered character, suitable to this gospel by Luke, which presents the Lord more abroad, and not strictly in Jewish association.
But now, in our gospel by John, we do not get this commission at all, nor any mention of the power from on high.”
We simply get, as I have been noticing, the life of the risen Man imparted, and then the disciples with that life in them sent out to test, by virtue of it, the condition of every living soul. The Lord gives them their ministry as from heaven, and not from the mountain in Galilee. He sends them forth from the Father, and not from Jerusalem. For, in our gospel, the Lord has left all recollections of Jerusalem behind, and has given up, for the present, all hope of restoring Israel, and gathering the nations.
This variety in the terms of this commission and ministry is very striking, and, considering the different purposes of each gospel, it is exquisite and perfect. The mere reasoner may stumble at it, and the man who honors the Scripture, and would fain preserve its fair reputation, may attempt many ways to show the literal consistency of these things. But the word of God, beloved, does not ask for protection from man. It seeks for no apologies to be made for it, however well intentioned. In all this there is no incongruity, but only variety, and that variety perfectly answering the divers purposes of the same Spirit. And though thus various, every thought arid every word in each is equally and altogether divine, and we have only to bless our God for the sureness and comfort and sufficiency of his own most perfect testimonies.
But this, brethren, by the way, desiring that the Lord may keep our minds in all our meditations, and in all the counsels of our hearts.
We left the Lord in company with his brethren. He was putting them into their condition as children of the Father, and raising them to heavenly places. But he has purposes touching Israel as well as the Church. In the latter day, he will call them to repentance and faith, giving them their due standing and ministry also. And these things we shall have now in order unfolded before us.
Thomas, we read, was not with the brethren when the Lord visited them. He did not keep his first estate, but was absent while the little gathering were holding themselves in readiness for their risen Lord; and now he refuses to believe his brethren, without the further testimony of his own hands and eyes.
And the Jews to this day, like Thomas then, are refusing the gospel or good tidings of the risen Lord, All, however, was not to end thus. Thomas recovers his place, and “after eight days” is in company with the brethren again, and then Jesus presents himself to him. And the unbelieving disciple is led to own him as his Lord and his God. As by-and-by, “after eight days,” after a full week or dispensation has run its course, it will be said in the land of Israel, “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for him; we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” Israel will own Immanuel then; and as the Lord here accepts Thomas, so will he then say of Israel, “Thou art my people.”
But here we are to notice something further significant. The Lord accepts Thomas, it is most true, but at the same time says to him, “Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed.” And so with Israel in the latter day. They shall know the peace of the cross, the full peace of the wounded hand and side of Jesus here shown to Thomas; but they shall take a blessing inferior to the Church. They shall get life from the Son of God; but they shall only walk on the footstool, while the saints are sitting on the throne.
Here the mystery of life, whether to the Church now, or to Israel by-and-by, closes, and our Evangelist, accordingly, for a moment pauses. This was the gospel of Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, which whosoever believeth has life in his name. Many other things might have been added, but these were enough to attest the Son, and thus to be the seed of life. The third witness from God had now been heard. The water and the blood had come forth from the crucified Son, and now the Spirit was given by the risen Son. The three that bear witness on earth had been heard, and the testimony from God, that he “hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son,” was therefore complete; and our Evangelist just 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.
21. Thus have we seen life actually dispensed by the risen Lord to his brethren, and ministry committed to them as such; and we have seen life pledged to Israel in the person of Thomas. But this restored Thomas, or the Israel of God in the latter day, shall (like the Church now) get ministry as well as life, be used as well as quickened. And we get the pledge of this also now in due order.
In the opening of this chapter we see the apostles brought back to the condition in which the Lord at first met them. Peter and the sons of Zebedee are again at their fishing. Indeed, their former labor had come to nothing. Their nets had broken. The Lord had proposed to use them, but Israel in his hand had proved but a deceitful bow, a broken net. But now they are at their toil again, and the Lord appears again, and gives them a second draft. And on this, in company with the Lord himself, they feast; and their nets remain unbroken.
And thus, will it be with the Israel of God in the latter day. Like Thomas, as we have seen, they shall walk in the light of the Lord, and then, as here, the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto them. Waters shall issue from the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, and fishers shall there stand and spread their nets, and their fish shall be of “the great sea, exceeding many.” (Ezekiel 47: 10.) “The great sea,” the wide Mediterranean, as the prophet suggests, and not the narrow lake of Tiberias, shall then employ their nets, and the fish shall be “according to their kinds; “for Midian, and Ephah, and Kedar, and Nebaioth, and all lands shall yield their stores then. And the net shall still be ready for other drafts—the unbroken net. One generation shall tell his praise unto another, and shall declare his power.
Our evangelist notices that this was “the third time” that Jesus showed himself to his disciples after he was risen from the dead. At the first, as we saw, he met the brethren to give them, as the heavenly family, their fellowship and ministry. At the second, he restored Thomas, the representative of Israel’s final conversion and life. And now, at the third, he gives the pledge of Israel’s ministry and fruitfulness unto God.
These three distinct visits give us, after this manner, the full view of the Church and of Israel. But I must particularly notice another acting of the consciousness of love, which is very sweet. Peter knew, in spite of all that had happened, that there was a link between him and the Lord; and Peter therefore is not afraid to be alone with him. The last time they had been together, it is true, Peter had denied him; and the Lord had turned and looked upon him. But Peter knew that he loved his Lord notwithstanding; and now he is not afraid to cast himself into the sea, and reach Jesus alone before the rest of them. And there is something truly blessed in this. Law could never have brought this about, nor indeed have warranted it. The rod of the law would have beaten him off, and made him keep his distance. Nothing but grace could allow this: nothing but the cords of love could have drawn denying Peter the nearest to his slighted Lord after this manner. But there is more still.
(Continued from p. 236.) (To be continued.)
Operations of the Spirit of God
(Thus the evangelist becomes, in a certain sense, independent of the Church, though the man be always subject to it; and though the ministry of evangelization be in the Church, yet the Church is not properly missionary, nor the manager of missions. It is “a city set on a hill,” formed by missions from God.
The sense of this position of the Evangelist I believe to be most healthful to the Church, keeping it in its place, and from assuming the place of God, as if it were the sender. It is gathered, and does not send; God sends; though, in love, those whom He sends may go forth from its bosom. This was clear in the first apostles. “As my Father bath sent me, so send I you,” was the Lord’s word to them.
But this was true of ministers of this character, inferior in rank to the apostles, and of the whole body when under this character—a character assumedly this, as “scattered,” not “gathered;” as “going,” not “sending.” They that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the Word, and the hand of the Lord was with them, and many believed. Nay, before this, Stephen (of whom we may perhaps say, he had gotten to himself a good degree and great boldness in Christ Jesus), full of the Holy Ghost, was mighty in the Word. Philip in like manner was blessed in Samaria, which when the apostles heard they sent Peter and John to confirm the work; but the work was done before even they heard of it.
This is the character then attached to evangelizing in the Word. The weakening of it in individual energy will always weaken that, and the Church too; for God will be independent of man, though he cannot be of Him, nor of his neighbor, in love.
I said this was a little modified in Paul, yet withal clearly sustained in principle. But he went out as one born out of due time—after the body was formed, in a certain sense. This, therefore, was recognized; not in sending him, but in his going forth from it and returning to it, whence he had been commended to the grace of God.
The positive independence of his mission he is most careful to assert. “It was not of man, nor by man.” Immediately Christ was revealed in him that he might preach Him among the Gentiles, he conferred not with flesh and blood, but straightway preached Him in the synagogues. Thus, the character of this ministry was fully maintained.
But after a lapse of time Paul comes from Tarsus, brought to Antioch, and there for a year assembles himself with the Christian congregation, and teaches much people; and then “the Holy Ghost,” certain prophets being there, while they fasted and prayed, said, “Separate me Barnabas and Paul for the work whereunto I have called them.” Thus, while directly sent of the Holy Ghost, they went in obedience to Him, not to the Church; they went from the bosom of the Church, commended of them to the grace of God for the work whereunto He had called them, and returned to the bosom of the Church. Not returning any intermediate reports indeed as responsible to them, for the true apostolic office would thereby have been detracted from; but communicating, for the joy all, what God had done through them. Thus, though it was not a gift exercised in ministry in the Church, its union with the Church was maintained, and the comfort of all sustained therein. The apostle became—authoritatively sent amongst those whom he had himself thus gathered—the apostle of the Gentiles.
I have said thus much of evangelization because, though not a sign to the world, but a ministry flowing in the Church, it was still towards the world, and came in a special place in the distinction of gifts as for the world or the Church. It was, if I may so call it, a moral gift, i.e., a gift acting on conscience, but not as within, but as that of the natural man. It is not actually mentioned in the gifts God has set in the Church. It is amongst the gifts which Christ conferred, on ascending up on high, for profit and the work of the ministry, and the edifying of the body of Christ; as are pastors also; for the special subject of that epistle (Ephesians) is the love towards and blessedness of the body in its union with Christ, and consequent unity. Having completely redeemed it, and filled all things, it being His fullness, He ministers from on high the gifts necessary for its advancement in grace, security from being deceived and led astray, and its self-edifying till it grow up into Him. This was not what the Church was to the world in display of Him, but what it was to and for Himself; though in that, in the number who had that gift, the evangelizing minister of His love, as a helpmeet for Him in grace.
This is the real difference of this epistle to the Ephesians and the Corinthians. There the Spirit is looked at as present, and operating in the body generally, in the power of God— “as God bath set in the Church”—witness of, and subservient to,’ the Lordship of Christ, and therefore including that in which it was the witness of this to the world; and therefore the gift, in its exercise is dependent in many respects on the competency of the Church by its state to stand as a witness, or the wisdom of God in so using it. Here (in the Ephesians) the state of the Church is not adverted to. It is not its internal administration that is the subject, but Christ’s own love to His own body, His spouse; one He cherished and nourished as His own flesh, and thus cherished and nourished for Himself. Hence, we have Christ, who loved the Church, viewed as ascending up on high and filling all things, giving the gifts; and it is said—not the Spirit works as He will in power, but (while the same unity is spoken of, though more of blessing than of membership) “to everyone is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.”
This, then, is not the witness of the power of God above the flesh and its ruin, and the Lordship of Christ, but of the love of Christ and the ministration of that, and of the counsels of God, as to the place He has given the Church with Christ; it had, therefore, a more permanent character; for Christ’s love to the Church is permanent, not resting on the suitableness of the medium to display power, but on the Church’s own need of that gracious and tender love. This love, therefore, we may reckon upon. I do not say that our faults may not hinder the manifestation of the love in plain and happy favor. Surely, they may; still it is always exercise.
Perhaps it may be said that the evil state of the Corinthian Church shows it was not a ministration of gift dependent in any way on that state; for these, so evil, came “behind in no gift.”
It shows, indeed, that our patient God does not withdraw the honor conferred by His goodness at once on shortcoming but the principle is exactly shown by it. The church, still in unity, though having failed in practiced is corrected by the apostle in all points, sheaving the importance of the apostolic energy which still sustained it, that its safeguard was not mere primary position; but while it held its place, though falling into evil, it could be restored by that and all go right, —Satan not be allowed to get advantage after all. But still this was just the evidence, that the state and administration of the Church was in question,not the self-moved tender love of Christ to it, caring for it as His spouse; it stands in Corinth as the responsible witness of His glory, not the fullness of Him that filleth all in all. In Ephesians it is the blessed and holy privilege of grace, not the condition of the Church itself, which is in question as the ground and theater of the display of Christ towards the world. It is what Christ is towards the Church, not what the Church is for Him, or what God has set it, in its Head and body, towards the world around it is “till we all come.” Hence, as the special personal care and love of Christ for the Church, it is not “the Comforter whom the Father will send in my name”—nor, “whom I will send unto you from the Father”—nor even members which God has set in the body subservient to the Lordship of Christ—but gifts which He, ascending up on high, has given, on leading the adverse powers captive. He who fills all things has given these the tokens of the nearness of His love. “That he might fill all things,” and “ He gave.”
This, then, is the portion of the Church in Christ’s love as caring for it, in the midst of His filling all things—as His body, the place of the manifestation of supreme grace. That which is given to the Church, not for His display of Lordship to the world, but the link of the Church as associated with Him, and to lift it up into heavenly places, and to form it in spirit into all His fullness; preserving it from being frittered away in mind into various and strange doctrines, and ministering to its direct growth into the heavenly character and fullness of Christ. This is the character of these gifts here—the link and association with the heavenly fullness of Christ.
The Church is “the fullness of him that filleth all in all.” But He is the head of the body also as exalted over all things to it. The anointed One is set in this place that He may, by immediate communion and gift to it, according to this anointing, associate it through the ministration of these gifts as His body into all this fullness. It is here, not merely the headship over all things to it, but the entrance into the understanding of His fullness as filling all things, as descended into death and ascended on high above all: and by the communication of the gifts as the anointed—the “Christ”—then entering into intelligently and spiritually as—though subordinately, yet really—associated and brought up into this fullness.
This is the portion of the Church. It is a step above and more intimate than the witness, or even partaking of Lordship; though the sphere in which that is held. For indeed this fullness in Christ involves divinity, though fellowship with it be communicated by the anointed man, or, at least, the ministration of that fullness in gift. He “filleth all in all,” and the Church is “His fullness;” but then this is spoken of one whom God— “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ”—has raised from the dead; and this is just the connection of the Church with it. He is in the Father, necessarily, therefore intrinsically, Divine. We are in Him, and He is in us. All the fullness was pleased to dwell in Him—as afterward stated as to the fact, “In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily;” and we are πεπληρωμένοι in Him.
But in the passage immediately preceding the one we are upon in Ephesians (that in the end of chap. 3.), this is pursued more directly as to power in us; because the Colossians treats more of the fullness of the Head for the Church; this of the Church as the fullness of Him that filleth all in all—the corporate fullness, as His body, of Him that is head over and fills all things. We read of “strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man—able to comprehend the length and breadth, and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge; that we may be filled with (ear) all the fullness of God.” Thus, the Holy Ghost becomes in us now the power and strength of this fullness. The second chapter had introduced—after stating access to the Father by the Spirit through Jesus for both Jew and Gentile—the additional truth that they were “builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” This ground having been parenthetically unfolded in its fullness, in the third chapter, the fourth resumes the thread of the second, while taking up the unity mentioned in the first.
We, “strengthened with might by His Spirit,...that Christ may dwell in our hearts,” —thus “ rooted and grounded in love,” “ able to comprehend with all saints” the plenitude of blessedness and glory in divine counsel and fullness, and to know the love of Christ that we might be filled with the fullness. Thus, we find it in Christ; known by the Holy Ghost dwelling in us. Thus, this fullness of God is known, even in Christ, for so are we brought into it. And this is by power working in us, that we may enter into that into which we are brought. “Now unto Him... that worketh in us”—concludes the apostle-” be glory in the Church!” Now all this blessed fullness (of which the unity of the Church united to Christ is the center and scene of development, while it extends to the whole sphere of the display of God’s universal glory), in the love of Christ her head, is ministered to the growing up of the body by these gifts of Christ. They are the ministrations of Christ the head in the body. It is His gift—the edifying of His body—that they might grow up into Christ’s fullness, of which we have seen the character just now. This gives us the character of the gifts. Here there is actually no mention of the Spirit, though doubtless the Spirit was the medium of power, but they are given by Christ, who fills all things, that He may introduce the Church into His fullness; the Church in which the Spirit dwells. His fullness being the fullness of God—in Him all the fullness dwelling—and He filling all in all, and the Church His fullness.
It is then here, Christ according to this blessed fullness giving in love to His members, for the growing up into Him in all things who is the Head, till we all come to the measure of the fullness of Christ: not the display of His Lordship to the world (the Spirit acting as subservient to that display, divinely distributing, “ God working all in all;”) it is Christ giving to the Church to minister on the ground of union—entrance into communion with His fullness!
I would now turn a little to the character of the gifts here spoken of; we shall see they are associated with this special character of giving to the Church, not witnessing by the Church. Having urged upon them, in individual lowliness, which the sense of the excellency of the calling would induce (a calling which had its existence in the unity of the Spirit, and therefore in the suppression of the flesh), to endeavor to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, the apostle proceeds to declare what gifts Christ gave (as gifts, nothing righteously to exalt) to man on His exaltation (that exaltation being of Him that first descended, and that into the lower parts of the earth); as now far above all heavens, so that He filled all things, captivity being led captive;—that is, the powers of darkness having the Church captive were now led captive themselves, so that Christ could freely communicate to the Church, so delivered, communion with His fullness, who in this act displayed how He filled all things, and accordingly gave these gifts for this purpose—apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. These I would now notice. It is to be remarked that all gifts of sign to men as such are entirely omitted, all that dealt with nature, and all even that merely dealt with the flesh in the Church; those only are mentioned that are initiative, and that edify in the Church. Thus miracles, tongues, healings, helps, and governments are omitted: apostles and evangelists, prophets, pastors, and teachers are introduced.
As to apostles, what has been observed will partly lead us to some distinction in this office. Primarily they are no part of the body properly speaking—they gather it. The house is built on them. Thus, the twelve were sent as Jesus was sent of the Father. Paul was sent of the Lord directly. But in another character they had a place in it, in the continual exercise of their functions. In the former character they stood alone, save in one particular, which they possessed in common with prophets. But as authoritative regulators of the Church by revelation, they had a peculiar and definite place. In the one particular of revelation of the mind and will of Christ and of God, the prophets might be associated with them; but these had no authority delegated of the Lord in their office as sent forth. The holy beneficence of this arrangement, I think, is evident. Thus while the Church was regulated and ordered responsibly and authoritatively by an apostle, yet they had to say, “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.” In this sense of revelation, as laying down the foundation, their work is complete and fulfilled. The word of God is written for us. The fruits of their authoritative regulation was left (as every dispensation had been), in the responsibility of man, and men have entirely failed. But the revelation of the will of God is complete, and is there for us to refer to by the Spirit, according to the light of the word in our present condition, not by imitation but by obedience: hence tradition disappears; for at best that is imitation not obedience; a very important distinction, as will soon be found in its application.
But, moreover, it is clear to me that, in a subordinate sense, apostles and prophets had a place beside this. That the apostles expected no continuance of their functions is clear, for the apostle Paul declares the evil that would come in after his decease, and commends them to God and the word of His grace, and Peter says he will take care that they have the things in remembrance; and, indeed, one familiar with the New Testament will see that the character of the Church’s responsibility is founded on the departure of direct apostolic authoritative care. The Church could not leave it to them as the complete competent authority, who had communicated the Lord’s will, and before whose departure the Lord began to act in judgment, if equally authorized communicators were constantly with the same authority present in the Church; the casting a dispensation on responsibility of a given deposit would have been entirely set aside, that is, the whole principle of God’s dealing to the end, and the assumptions clearly taken up by the apostles falsified, and the Bible set aside by a constant succession of equally authoritative communications: for the principle of the office of which we now speak is the authoritative revelation of the will of Christ.
We find then that, in one sense, apostolic ministry precedes the Church, the Church being gathered by it. Its character being, then, gathering by the authoritative revelation of the will of Christ, as the testimony to Christ in the power of the Spirit, whether by themselves or others draws and quickens souls. Under this evangelists came, another testimony of their gift being of God, and that He could in His sovereignty communicate important parts of it to others; but apostolic service found its place also in the Church, where the participated evangelist’s gift did not, i.e., the regulating authoritatively the gathered according to that revealed will.
But, as has been elsewhere stated, a new principle was introduced in and even before the apostolate of Paul, on the dispersion of the order of the Church at Jerusalem, individual agency according to the energy of the Spirit, according to its measure, the operation proving itself and its own efficacy. So even the apostle of this owns: “The signs of an apostle were wrought in me:” “Make full proof of thy ministry:” “Let no man despise thee.” Hence, though subsisting not in authoritative revelation of the will of God, nor power in the Church, yet in a subordinate sense, it seems to me that the gift of apostle and prophet is not passed away. Barnabas was an apostle. Junius and Andronicus were of note among the apostles: and it was praise to a Church that they had tried certain whether they were apostles, and they were not, but liars. Doubtless, these pretenders set up for the highest form of apostolate. But the Church could not have been commended for trying them, if there had been question only of the twelve and Paul. In truth, the word apostle, though now of definite force, has it not properly; it just amounts to one sent, a missionary. The messenger of the Church is called “your apostle” in the original. That which seems to designate the character of apostle, is the being directly sent of Christ, raised up to act on his own personal responsibility to Christ: not merely a gift exercised on such or such occasion subject to Church rules, nor the going forth with good tidings to sinners: but one as sent by Christ, acting from Him on his own responsibility to Christ, having a given errand and sphere in which to exercise his commission. In this sense, while the authoritative primary revelation of God’s will, gathering and regulating the Church, has clearly closed in the scriptural record to apostolic ministry, I do not see but that apostolic service may still subsist, and probably has been exercised, though the name may not have been attached; men raised up and sent by God for a certain mission, to effect a certain result in the Church or on sinners, though with no fresh revelation, but with a special energy in which to fulfill it, beyond the bounds of mere circumscribed gift as members within, but special in its relation to Christ. The faithfulness of its accomplishment, the mixing of other things with it, or the failure in clearly following in particular instances, does not, it seems to me, touch this question. In the same way, prophets, who were associated with apostles as the foundation, because they revealed the mind of God, may, it appears to me, in a subordinate sense, be believed to exist. It is not that they now reveal fresh truths not contained in the Word (or the foundation would not be completely laid—this, I hold, never can be touched), but that there may be those who not merely teach and explain ordinary and profitable doctrine—truths, and guide by the Spirit into present truth, but who by a special energy of the Spirit can unfold and communicate the mind of Christ to the Church, where it is ignorant of it—though that mind be treasured up in the Scripture—can bring truths hidden previously from the knowledge of the Church, in the power of the testimony of the Spirit of God, to bear on the present circumstances of the Church and future prospects of the world, showing the things to come, only that these things are all actually treasured up in Scripture, but they can give them present application and force according to the mind, intention, and power of God, and thus be practically prophets, though there be no new facts revealed, but all are really in the Word already: and thus be a direct blessing and gift of Christ to the Church for its emergency and need, though the Word be strictly adhered to, but without which the Church would not have had the power of that Word. This reference to that Word I hold to be the essence of the Church’s safety, accompanied by acknowledgment of, and dependence on, the Spirit of God, the Comforter. The plain written Word, that of which it could be said, including now, of course, the New Testament, that from a child—scorned by some as knowing it in the flesh—thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus. No tradition can in the smallest degree take the place of this: it is at best the certifying of men’s minds as to the certainty of certain points. But see what the Apostle refers to in assuring them that they should see his face no more; clear evidence, as we have seen, he thought of no apostle or successor to supply his place. “I commend you to God,” says the blessed witness of Christ—that is the first great point: it must always and in a special manner, now he was gone, be found in Him directly—” and the word of His grace, which is able to build ‘you up.” This was exactly what was needed. Let a teacher unfold, a pastor graciously guide by, or a prophet apply in power, this word. This was what was able to build up and give an inheritance. Now, no tradition, however guiding, is a word of God’s grace. It may direct the forms of man, —it may order the rules of the Church, —it might even record a form of correct doctrine: it is not the word of His grace “able to build up.” This makes, I trust, this point and the sense in which there may be, in a subordinate and inferior sense, apostles and (in a nearer sense to their original character) prophets, now clear. Revelation of new, unknown, and unrevealed truths being quite excluded, prophets, as expressing the mind of God, could speak, and did, to exhortation, and edification, and comfort, in thus applying the mind of God to the saints. So did the prophets of highest character of old.
These subordinate parts of the gift we see again participated by others, and diffused in the Church, that unity and deference for all might be maintained. He that exhorted was to wait on exhortation; and so one that taught—not necessarily a pastor-was to wait on his teaching, using his talent.
These might, in a certain sense (that is, apostolic and prophetic ministry), be called extraordinary, coming on special occasions and with special objects into the Church, though always witness of the goodness of God and for the glory of Christ. Evangelists were of another character, the natural and constant testimony to sinners of the grace that was revealed in their good news of God in what we call the Gospel. Any saint had to tell it, but there were those specially gifted to proclaim the glad tidings. Timothy is exhorted to do this, in the midst of his care of the Church, for the Apostle. It is always in such case healthful, and a good sign, that we labor in the sense of the grace of Christ, and generally an evil sign when we do not. None can so deeply understand the basis of love without it. An apostle wrought in this work. The bearing on souls is understood by it: specifically, grace is felt and understood in the heart; we are on the ground our own souls have felt the need of the medium of this. As to this, in its two-fold character, the preposition is changed, and the article omitted: —at with the word, are most closely united and identified; only pastorship includes guidance in holy wisdom and grace, and applying teaching to the state of the saints. We have seen the subordinate part of this distributed by itself— “he that teacheth on teaching”—but the gifts here is guiding as pastor; shepherding and feeding the flock, applying the word in wisdom, watching against intruding heresies, building up by the word, guarding and securing from evil, guiding the feet of the saints into straight paths; in a word, the care of the saints. It is not here, as was remarked, government controlling the flesh, but the ministration of grace nourishing and cherishing, guiding and feeding —some were pastors and teachers medium of this. As to this, in its two-fold character, the preposition is changed, and the article omitted: —extraordinary; the last three (evangelists, pastors, and teachers), the ordinary abiding ministrations of the Church, to build them up in Christ’s known, and thus ministered, fullness; that the body of Christ might be edified, “grow up into Him medium of this. As to this, in its two-fold character, the preposition is changed, and the article omitted: —he pattern of this fullness and into it; but there was a formal and instrumental object as the
medium of this. As to this, in its two-fold character, the preposition is changed, and the article omitted: —
“ πρὸς τὸν καταρτιοσμὸν τῶν ἁγίων, εἰς ἔργον διακονίας, εἰς οἰκοδομὴν τοῦ σώματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ,” for ministerial work, for edifying the body of Christ. This ministerial work was clearly merely ancillary, and the edifying the body of Christ, for the perfect enjoyment of the fullness by the saints, πρὸς τὸν καταρτισμὸν, is the direct and positive object; the other two were the service and form of blessing in which this object was carried on, and to which, therefore, these gifts were directed for the other, till we all come in the unity of the faith, and in the knowledge of the Son of God to full-grown men—to a perfect man—to the measure of the stature, in mind and in blessing, of the fullness of Christ, of which we have before spoken. That we be no more children, nor blown about by every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men, being preserved through these gifts of God.
This leads us to see the blessing and importance of these gifts, definitely committed by Christ, as He sees good in grace, for the good and communication of His blessed fullness to the Church; whereby, fed with what is good, it should be preserved and guarded against hankering after the false trash of deceivers. They are gifts to the Church, not to all, but for all. The development of these in full liberty and openness of ministry is most important. Nor can they be really or rightly developed otherwise. Hence God has commanded—made it a matter of command, and thus guarded the closing of the door by making it a matter of personal responsibility—that he that exhorteth should wait on exhortation, and he that teacheth on teaching; and, “as every man has received the gift, so minister the same as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” So “Judas and Silas, being prophets also themselves, exhorted the people much at Antioch.” By this use of every gift in its place, as the apostle speaks, “the whole body is fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth,” and, “according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body to the edifying of itself in love.” Still observe, these ministrations are all to the edifying and increase of the body, not to the external testimony of Christ’s lordship to the world. They are the fulfilling of His love to the Church in ministering to it of, and so building it up into, His fullness—not the verification of the assertion of His Lordship to the world.
The only other reference of importance, that I am aware of as to distinctness of subject, is in the book of Revelation, which I shall only briefly notice, because its character is quite different. In the first three chapters, the unity of the body ceases to be recognized, and the Spirit is not seen acting in the Church in the power of this unity, of which Christ is the corporate Head; but Christ is seen in a judicial though priestly character in the midst of the Churches, and the Spirit is a Spirit of address and prophetic warning to them, not of gift in them. “He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith to the Churches.” This might be gift in the apostle, but this is the character of the address; and hence every individual with an ear is called upon to hear for himself and judicial witness to the Churches themselves, thenceforward only in heaven as regards the Church in acting on the earth, the Lamb’s power, as the seven Spirits of God sent into all the earth, not as the power of communion and gift in the Church at all. Thence it is seen as in the Church, as the bride directing her aspirations and desires after one object, the coming of the bridegroom: “The Spirit and the bride say, Come:” and this closes the whole scene and judicial witness to the Churches themselves, thenceforward only in heaven as regards the Church in acting on the earth. us. Then as coming paramountly to convict and guide, as shown in John, as the comforter sent and judicial witness to the Churches themselves, thenceforward only in heaven as regards the Church in acting on the earth witness of Lordship in Christ, acting in the members of His body in witness; then as the ministration of his love to His body for its growth up into His fullness lastly, as a prophetic and judicial witness to the Churches themselves, thenceforward only in heaven as regards the Church in acting on the earth.
Such are the operations, as fully developed, of this blessed agent of divine power in us and towards the world. The chief topics, I believe, are noticed: I pretend to nothing more. Those who seek to search Him out, must do so by His own aid in the word itself; and may they, while dwelling on it here as a subject of thought, be led to refer to that Holy One Himself in His presence and personal power, as one who is with the Church—the Comforter sent—not merely resting in thoughts about Him, but led, actuated, directed by Him, and honoring Him as energized by Him in all things.
This is specially the Church’s need.
Concluded from p. 2130.)
On the Gospel by John
(* Jesus knew all things, and that was Peter’s comfort. Peter was sure that his Lord knew the depths as well as the surfaces of things, and thus that he knew what was in his poor servant’s heart, though his lips had so transgressed.)
This was a moment of sweetest interest. We know that if we suffer with him, we shall reign with him; and if we follow him, where the Lord himself is, there his servant shall be. Now this call on Peter was a call to follow his Lord along the path of testimony and suffering, in the power of resurrection, to the rest in which that path ends, and to which that resurrection leads. Jesus had said to Peter before he left him, “Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterward.” (chap. 13.) And the Lord, as we know, was then going to heaven and the Father through the cross. This present call was, in spirit, making good that promise to Peter. It was a call on him to follow his Lord through death up to the Father’s house. And upon saying these words to him, the Lord rises from the place where they had been eating, and Peter, thus bidden, rises to follow him.
John listens to this call, as though it had been addressed to him also, and on seeing the Lord rise and Peter rise, he at once rises also; for he ever lay nearest the Lord. He leaned on his breast at supper, and was the disciple whom Jesus loved. He ever stood in the place of closest sympathy with him. His eye touched his Lord’s eye, his mouth his mouth, his hand his hand. And thus, by a kind of necessity (blessed necessity!) on the Lord’s rising, he rises, though unbidden.
In such an attitude we now see them. The Son of God has risen and is walking out of our sight, and Peter and John are following him. All this is lovely, and significant beyond expression. We do not see the end of their path, for while thus walking the Gospel closes. The cloud, as it were, receives them out of our sight. We gaze in vain after them, and the path of the disciples is just as far removed from us as that of their Lord. It was, in principle, the path that leads to the Father’s house, which we know is prepared for the Lord and his brethren, the presence of God in heaven.
Surely, we may say, the bridegroom at our feast has kept the best wine until now. If our souls could enter into this, there is nothing like it. Mark, in his Gospel, tells us of the fact of the Lord being received up into heaven (16: 19), and Luke shews us the ascension itself, while the Lord was lifting up his hand and blessing his disciples 24: 51). But all that, sweet as it was, is not equal to what we get here. For all that left the disciples apart from their Lord. He was then going to heaven, but they were to return to Jerusalem; but here they are following him up to heaven. Their path does not stop short of the full end of his.
This is none other than “the gate of heaven” to which our Gospel conducts us, and whereat it leaves us. The Lord is in this place, in fullest grace to his chosen. The receiving of the brethren into the Father’s house is here pledged to us. In this, Peter and John are the representatives of us all, beloved. Some, like Peter, may glorify God by death, and others, as is intimated here to John, will be alive and remain till Jesus comes; but all are to follow, whether Peter or John, Moses or Elias, whether asleep in Jesus or quick at his coming, all shall be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air, and be forever with him. It will be to them like the ascension of Enoch before the flood. And being received unto himself, they will go with him into the prepared mansions of the Father’s house, as he has said unto us.
And I may observe, this is the only view of our Lord’s ascension which our Gospel gives us. But it is that view of it which is strictly in character with the whole Gospel, which gives us, as has been observed, our Lord Jesus in connection with the church as the family of the Father, the heavenly household.
For this ascension is not so properly to the right hand of God, or place of power, where he abides alone, but to the Father’s house, where the children are to dwell also. Their path in that direction reaches as far as his through his boundless grace; as here, as I have already noticed, wherever it was that Jesus went (some spot unknown and untold as to this earth), there did Peter and John follow him. He is here acting as though he had gone and prepared the promised mansions in the Father’s house, and had come again, and was now receiving them unto himself, that where he is, there they might be also. And this will be really so at the resurrection of those who are Christ’s at his coming, when the brethren meet their Lord in the air. The Son of God was now, at the end, as he had done in the beginning, showing his own where he dwelt (see chap. 1:33); only, at the beginning he was a stranger on earth, and they abode with him but one day; now he is returning to his proper heaven, and there they are to abide with him forever.
Our Evangelist, then, just lets us hear the full response of the believing hearts of all God’s elect to those truths and wonders of grace which had now been told out. “We know that his testimony is true.” They set to their seal that God is true. And all this is then closed with a simple note of admiration—for such, in principle, I judge the last verse to be. And, indeed, this is all he could do. Was it not beyond his praise? What heart could conceive the full excellence of his ways whose name he had now been publishing?
Here the fourth section of our Gospel ends; and here the whole ends. And what a journey through it has that of the Son of God been? Made flesh at the beginning, he walked on earth as the Stranger from heaven, save as he was occupied in ministering grace and healing to sinners. The prince of this world at length came to him; but, finding nothing in him, he cast him out of the world. But this he could not do, until, as the Savior, the Son of God had accomplished the peace of all that trust in him. Then he triumphantly broke the power of death, and, as the risen Lord, imparted the life which lie had won for his people: and, finally, by a significant action, pledged to them that where he was going, there they should follow him, that they might be with him where he was.
Our Gospel began with the descent of the Son, and closes with the ascent of the saints. And the time of this ascent, or being taken into the air, I judge is altogether uncertain. It may be tomorrow; and will be, when the fullness of the Gentiles shall have come in, when all the saints have been brought, in the unity of the faith, to a perfect man. It does not depend on a certain lapse of time. No prophecy which involves computation of time, I believe, belongs to it. Such belongs to the Lord’s return to the earth, and not to the taking of the saints into the air to meet him. At that return of the Lord to the earth, the saints will be with him; and this earth will then be prepared to be their common kingdom and inheritance. And that return, I grant, must await its prescribed time, and the full spending out of the days and years announced by the prophets. But no days or years measure out the interval from the ascension of the Lord to that of his saints. The Holy Ghost, it is most true, has given us moral characters of certain times, thus defining “the latter times,” and “the last days” (1 Timothy 4; 2 Timothy 3 &c.); but he tells us also, that even then “the last time” had already come. (1 John 2:18.) So that faith is entitled to look for her joy in meeting the Lord in the air every hour; with patience the while, to do the will of God. And the prophecies that compute time (as far as they are still future), will not (I merely give my own judgment) begin to be applied, or the times they notice begin to run, till this rapture into the air take place. Then indeed the suffering remnant in Israel may begin to number out the days for their comfort, and for food of hope; and in their deepest sorrow lift up their heads, as knowing that their salvation draweth nigh.
After all this, beloved, our God well may claim our confidence, and be our title to full holy liberty, and our sure and constant source of gladness. This is to honor him as the Father. And if we have a thought of him that leaves a sting behind it, it is the thought of foolishness and of unbelief. All is brightness to faith. Such is God our Father. And in the Son, of his love we are accepted. “He’ll not live in glory, and leave us behind”—and the language of our hearts towards him abidingly should be, “Come, Lord Jesus.” And this confidence of present adoption, and this joy of hope, we have through the Holy Ghost who dwelleth in us, our companion by the way, our “other Comforter,” till the Bridegroom meets us.
To our gracious God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, be glory forever and ever Amen.
(Concluded from p. 260.)