by T. Austin-Sparks
Edited and supplied by the Golden Candlestick Trust with the exception of "A Companion to the Gospel by John" which was published in 1934 and is mentioned in one of these messages. This series begins with John chapter 13. For a more comprehensive look at all of the gospel by John read "We Beheld His Glory Volume 1" and "We Beheld His Glory Volume 2".
John's gospel is the inclusive and comprehensive presentation of the Son from eternity, and the great statement which affects us and affects God's purpose so immediately is that statement: "In Him was Life and the Life was the Light of men." It is a statement which presents a unique fact; in Him was Life, in no other. Then it presents a related truth: "the Life was the Light of men." He is related to men as the Light. We can only understand any part of His Word and get the full value from it, as we see it in the light of God's eternal intention, and so once more we remind ourselves that God sets forth His full thought in a representative way, and demands that that thought presented shall be a governing one for all generations. The full intention or thought of God is the manifestation of Himself, and to give Himself an expression throughout the universe, and He has chosen to do that through a vessel which shall be the instrument of the manifestation of God, and therefore that vessel must take its character from Him.
