Notes of an Address at London
Truth
The simple thought I have before me, dear brethren, is the greatness of the revelation that has come to us in the Person of the Son of God and the response that is due from our hearts in worship towards the Father and in our love for each other. There are three little expressions that I want to draw attention to in three portions from the word of God. When the Lord came He came “full of grace and truth”; when we worship the Father we do so “in spirit and in truth”; and finally, if we are to love each other it must be done “in deed and in truth”. We often speak about truth, and rightly so, we cannot be right in relation to God or to each other or to the world unless we are governed by truth, but these three other words connected with truth would remind us that something more is required than just the plain statement of truth, features connected with the truth that make the truth so attractive.
Grace and Truth
“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me. And of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” (John 1:14-18)
What can be more attractive, dear brethren, than the truth as expressed in Christ, and connected with grace? There cannot be a greater, more attractive unfolding of truth than presented in the Son of God, He who came full of grace and truth. What a contrast to the law given by Moses. What a fearsome sight that was when the law was given, the mountain burning with fire, fear was in the hearts of the people and they were warned to keep away from the mountain lest they should die. The law given was binding upon them, if they failed to keep that law death was their portion. What an awesome and fearful sight! What a terror it creates as we think of a holy God demanding of people the keeping of the law in all its ways. Dear brethren, there was no error connected with that law, that law was truth from God Himself, and every word was truth; but it was truth connected with fear. There was nothing wrong with the law, but the weakness of the flesh brought about an end of that way of dealing with man. Men are unable to keep it, unable to respond to it, unable to answer to the heart of God because of the weakness of the flesh.
Many centuries elapsed before in the fullness of the time “God sent forth his Son” (Gal. 4:4). What a moment this is at the beginning of the Gospel by John “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt [or, ‘tabernacled’] among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth”. I own before you dear brethren that I am not competent in spiritual discernment or in truth to expound this verse to you, it is infinitely beyond the mind of any man to plumb the depths contained in this verse, “the Word became flesh”. How can we possibly explain this in human terms? It is inexplicable. Nobody can explain this, but there it is, true for faith, and in faith we apprehend this wonderful fact, that the One who was and is the Word, the One who is stated in the very first verse of this Gospel to be God, the everlasting Word, that One came forth and became flesh and dwelt among us. The disciples saw His glory, they walked with Him, they spoke with Him, they ate with Him, and they saw a glory there they had never seen before. They saw this wonderful relationship of a Son and a Father worked out in Manhood. They saw this distinctive glory, something that was only known to divine Persons in eternity before time began, before worlds were created, but now manifested in a man. They never had nor ever could see anything greater. The Word became flesh and dwelt among them and they saw this wonderful relationship worked out in such a wonderful way. Oh, that we could see this more and more because all this adds a lustre to Christianity, take it away and you take the lustre of it away, this is the glory of the present day, the revelation of God in the Person of the Son and made known to ourselves for faith, so that in faith we can apprehend it and see the greatness of it. There is nothing like this in all the pages of Scripture. It is so wonderful, so marvellous, that we cannot find words to explain it—“The Word became flesh”. I know that to bring us into the enjoyment of it the One who is the Word died on the cross, and this is another matter. Who can explain this mystery, dear brethren? We read it further on in this Gospel, we come to chapter 19, the same blessed Person who is described to us in the opening verses and in this verse that we have read, verse 14, He is hanging upon a cross. Can anyone find a more marked contrast between the glory that is brought to our attention in these verses and that centre cross? that man hanging there, the object of shame and derision and scorn, the enmity of man heaped upon Him? He is still the same blessed Person, and there it is in order to bring us into the enjoyment of what He revealed He had to die. Surely this touches our hearts and causes us to respond to Him in affection.
“John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me” (v. 15). This word “before” is the same that is translated in many parts as “first”. John was saying that the Lord was first. In time John was actually born before the Lord Jesus, but Jesus was before him in every conceivable sense. He was infinitely greater than John, and John took a place below Him, as he said elsewhere “He must increase, but I must decrease” (3:30). What John is bringing home to our hearts is the distinctive glory of this Person.
He says further “And of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (vv. 16-17). There was no fear or distance now, dear brethren, God is revealed in such a way as to attract our hearts to God and to the Son. The revelation removes every distance and every fear, “the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ”. If it had said that only truth came by Jesus Christ we would still have been appalled at the revelation, we would still have been at a distance, we would still have fear, but grace and truth coming is calculated to win our hearts and draw us nearer this blessed Person and to God whom He revealed. The truth is not a cold thing. The truth is that which regulates us and forms our minds in the knowledge of God and helps us to have right thoughts in relation to God and in relation to His Son. Dispel the truth and we are left to imagination, mysticism and every conceivable arrangement of man in connection with the knowledge of God, and we are left with nothing, because in the speculations of man concerning the knowledge and the greatness of God we have a host of errors, and there is nothing we can put our feet on securely with any confidence. It is all speculation, it is all distance, it is all darkness, but when we come to the truth as revealed in the Person of Christ we have the correct knowledge of God, a God that we can worship intelligently and with feeling. And because that God has been made known in such an attractive and a gracious way by the One who is full of grace and truth, it is calculated to produce in us this feature of worship and response to God.
So John says “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”. What can we say about this dear brethren? In the Old Testament there were partial revelations of God. Moses, Aaron and his sons and the seventy elders went up to the top of the mount and it says “they saw God” (Ex. 24:1-11), and then follows in the law a description of God given at that time. That sight that they saw could only be partial and in connection with the revelation that was made in connection with the covenant that was then made with Israel. But the truth remains, as we have in this verse, that no man, no creature, has ever seen God in His fullness and glory and greatness. God said to Moses “For there shall no man see me, and live” (Ex. 33:20), but here was One who was God, who was with God, who knew all about God, the One who was ever with Him from all eternity, who shared His love, the One who was competent to reveal God, the only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father, He came into this world full of grace and truth. What a declaration! What a revelation has come out in the Person of the Son. The only One competent to reveal God, the only One competent to make the Father known. This is the greatness and glory of the present day in which we live. How wonderful it is that our God, known to us as Father, has been revealed to us in the Person of the Son. The Man who rose from among the dead, said “I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God and your God” (John 20:17). That blessed One who was revealed in the Person of the Son here we can now call “our Father” and “our God”. There is nothing like this, dear brethren! This will be our eternal enjoyment when as sons we shall enjoy this wonderful position in the enjoyment of the Father and all that has been revealed in the Son concerning Him. How thankful we are that this revelation has come to us by “grace and truth”. Every feature of truth concerning God was made known in the Son—the nature of God, the attributes of God, all was revealed in Him, and the grace that was in His heart made it available for us through His death and resurrection; but it was all embodied in Him. It is not so much that it was conveyed to us (although this is true) but it was embodied in the Person of the Son there to be seen in faith.
Spirit and Truth
“The woman saith unto him, Sir I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:19-24)
How wonderful it is, that this great and glorious Person, the eternal Son, incarnate, who was ever in the bosom of the Father, who dwelt with the Father from all eternity, is here speaking to a poor, sinful woman, and making known to her heart the most wonderful things! What a sight it is! We might have thought that such a glorious Person would choose glorious persons to make these things known, but instead of that He chooses to reveal to a poor, sinful woman that the Father was seeking worshippers and those who were going to worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. At that time and in that area there were two forms of worship going on. The Samaritan form of worship was certainly not according to the truth of the Old Testament, it was a rival form of worship, not approved by God, having no Scriptural sanction, it was not governed by truth. There was another form of worship that was going on in Jerusalem, all correct according to the ritual and ceremony, but there was no spirit in it, no life, no response towards the Father. The term “spirit” would bring to us this idea of life springing up to God. James says in connection with our bodies “the body without the spirit is dead” (Jas. 2:26), and the emphasis on the spirit in John 4 is not so much the Holy Spirit as a Person but rather the idea of life in the worship, life, no doubt, inspired by the Spirit, but spiritual worship, not dead worship, not according to phraseology or form, but a form of worship that is governed by the truth, that has been revealed in the Son, and that is alive, real and vital, and that springs from the knowledge of the Father Himself.
Dear brethren, these are things we shall all take to heart, for it is very easy to fall into a condition where we have a certain phraseology, all statements correct in themselves (and I certainly do not discount the correct use of terms), but we can have a habit of using them without life behind them, the spiritual life that makes them real, that makes our response to the Father in accord with the revelation that has come out in the Son. The Father does not want us to be standing before Him as persons who are correct as it is possible to be correct and yet inwardly as cold as ice, he wants us to worship Him in spirit and in truth. Let us see that these two things are kept together. There is no excuse for the lack of intelligence in worship to the Father because there are an abundance of scriptures that indicate to us how we ought to speak to Him; there is no excuse for deadness because we ought to be alive in the response of the heart that gladdens the heart of the Father Himself. So we want to get away from anything that is unintelligent or erroneous, we want to see to it that we are governed by the truth but also along with that we want to make sure that we are governed by spirit, life, vitality and real response that gladdens the heart of the Father. Here at Sychar’s well was the One who had brought this from heaven itself, making it known to a poor, sinful woman, filling her heart with joy, setting her free so that she was able to go back and tell others of the wonderful things that she had heard. We might say, dear brethren, if He made these things known to her in her wretched condition, how much more are we in a favoured position this evening. The Father desires our worship, He desires a response from our hearts, and that response is to be governed by spirit and truth.
Deed and Truth
“We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.” (1 John 3:14-19)
Lastly, the same writer now refers to the features of the revelation brought out practically in the hearts and lives of the people of God. To use two words that are often used, what was seen objectively in the Son in Manhood is now to be brought out subjectively in the lives of the people of God day by day. How wonderful this is. The Lord showed such love here that He was prepared to lay down His life. Nothing can be greater (John 15:13). We find this demonstration of love again and again in the Gospel by John. There are more direct references to the death of Christ, more inference and more figures of the death of Christ in John’s Gospel than in the other three Gospels. This is to emphasise the greatness of the love of the Son, that He was prepared to give Himself, first of all in devotion to His Father, and secondly for our blessing. So here this is the height of the sacrifice that is demanded of us, and I use that word ‘demanded’ rightly, we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. It is not only a question of saying we are to love, we are to love in deed and in truth. We are not only to say it. How often we come across that expression in John’s epistles, “If we say certain things, we ought to do certain things”. Here is one of them. If we love we ought to express it by doing certain things that are the real expression of what we say. Surely it goes without saying that to love each other is one of the greatest privileges and also one of the greatest responsibilities of the Christian company. Its height of expression is seen in the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. This is the standard, this is the pathway that we are to follow. We are to love in deed and in truth, not by word and by tongue (it is the easiest thing in the world to say things). The one who is standing here speaking to you this evening so often feels this in his own heart. It is easy to speak, but when it comes to doing things that is a different matter. I am sure we all feel this. This is what John is saying to us. ‘Brethren, do not let us love only by saying that we love, let us love by doing that as opportunity comes along (and there will always be opportunities for expressing this), let us be marked by the same features that were expressed in the Son Himself, who not only said things but did them.’
Our Response to the Truth
May we then be encouraged by these things, grace and truth coming to light in the Son in Manhood in such a wonderful way, setting, we might say, the standard of this revelation, the greatest possible revelation of God, and attracted to win our hearts, the response to God governed by those two features of spirit and truth, and the practical demonstration, Christian to Christian, loving each other in deed and in truth for His name’s sake.