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This is the Message...

by T. Austin-Sparks

From unpublished manuscripts (with the exception of chapter 2 which was published in the "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine) of spoken messages given at a conference in York, October, 1962.

Contents

Chapter 1 - Eternal Life

Chapter 2 - Fellowship

Chapter 3 - The Victory

Chapter 1 - Eternal Life

I am going to ask you to look with me at quite a number of fragments in the first Letter of John.

"And this is the message which we have heard from Him, and announce unto you" (1 John 1:5).

"And this is the promise which He promised us, even the life eternal" (1 John 2:25).

"And this is His commandment, that we should believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ" (1 John 3:23).

"If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for the witness of God is this, that he hath borne witness concerning His Son. He that believeth on the Son hath the witness in him; that believeth not God hath made Him a liar, because he hath not believed in the witness that God hath borne concerning His Son. And the witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son" (1 John 5:9-11)

"For whatsoever is begotten of God overcometh the world; and this is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith" (1 John 5:4).

"And this is the boldness which we have toward Him" (1 John 5:14).

"And every spirit which confesseth not Jesus is not of God; and this is the spirit of the antichrist" (1 John 4:3).

"This is He that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ" (1 John 5:6).

"And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we know Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life" (1 John 5:20).

Let us put all those fragments together:

"This is the message... this is the promise... this is the commandment... this is the record... this is the love of God... this is the victory... this is the confidence... this is the spirit of antichrist... this is He that came... this is the true God".

I do not know what that conveys to you. In a very brief letter, a letter which you can read through in about ten minutes, you have this tenfold reiteration: "This is...". Surely it very clearly indicates that the writer, the apostle John, was wanting and intending really to pinpoint the great factors of the Christian life and the Christian faith. It is impressive; it is instructive; it is very challenging.

It all comes out of the first words in the letter: "That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life" (1 John 1:1). Everything springs out of that. That is the sum of all that the apostle is going to say: "That which we heard from Him".

So John is here in this letter recapitulating what came with Christ and which he with other apostles had seen and heard and beheld and handled. He has very serious business on hand. Indeed, John in all his writings had a burden, a burden which amounted to a passion. You will have noted perhaps that in every one of these ten "pinpointings", as we have called them, there is in some way one governing issue. There is one governing issue to the whole ten of these "This is..." statements. And that governing issue, related to every one, is:-

Life.

Take note of that. Go and look at it again. The issue bound up with "this" is Life. And "this is..." and the issue bound up with "this" is Life. And so it continues right the way through, to the final summary: "This is the true God and eternal life" (1 John 5:20).

And it is in repeating that so strongly, emphasising that, that John brings us to the issue of the whole battle of Christianity. For true spiritual Christianity is a terrific battle. When you come into this kind of relationship with the Lord Jesus, which is in Life, which is living, you are precipitated into a tremendous conflict. You discover that sooner or later.

And it was in that very context that John wrote: he wrote his Gospel; he wrote his three letters; and he wrote the Book of the Revelation. He wrote them all very much about the same time and no one who knows anything about these writings of John has any doubt whatever that they are set in the realm of a tremendous spiritual battle.

Can you recall his Gospel and all that we have there about the Lord Jesus, in teaching and in work, is compassed by an atmosphere of intense antagonism. How many times did the Jewish rulers counsel together to kill Him because of the things which He said? Until at last they did it. But all the way through that Gospel, if you look again, you will find that He is moving in this atmosphere of intense spiritual antagonism. And John wrote the Gospel with that clearly in view. We will come back to that.

Of these three letters, the first is for the Lord's people in general, the second is for a church, and the third is for a spiritual leader in the church, but they are only three aspects of one thing. And if you read carefully you cannot fail to detect that what John is writing is because of the existence of a positive antagonism and hostility to the spiritual life. And if you have not recognised that in these two sections, you have not missed it in the book of the Revelation. For if there is one thing about that book, it is that it is a book of warfare. We know how the first three chapters gather around "to him that overcometh... to him that overcometh", seven times repeated. And from then onwards it is warfare.

It would be good always if you would remember that, although there is some meaning and value in the position which these books occupy as bound together, that arrangement can be misleading, or can mean that you lose something or miss something. It would be a good thing if you could get hold of these books separately and bind together the Gospel, Letters and Revelation as one continuous narrative, each part having its own particular purpose. But you must remember that John's Gospel was not written away back there, just at the end of the life of the Lord Jesus, to give an account of His earthly life. That is historically where it is put, but it was written right at the end of the first Christian century, after the destruction of Jerusalem. And so were these Letters, and so, probably, was the Revelation. They all come right at the end of that first Christian era or century, when all the other apostles had gone to the Lord, and John, the old, old man, was writing at that very critical turning-point in the history of Christianity.

Now that is a parenthesis. Always remember that, because you must have the Gospel by John in order to understand the Letters of John. It has been said that he wrote his Gospel, and then wrote this first letter, or the three letters, as a kind of covering letter to the Gospel. Be that as it may, there are other very helpful things in that connection. You see, the Gospel was written with one object. It was written with this sole object of making known what was in Jesus Christ; in other words, what had come into the world with Him and in Him, what He had brought in in His own Person. That was the object of the Gospel. The object of the three letters is to show what is in believers because of Jesus Christ. We need not go on to the Revelation because that does not concern us at this moment as to its special object. But you will see that the Gospel and Letters are part and counterpart concerning the Person of the Lord Jesus, and what has come in with Him and what is in Him; and the Lord's people: what is in them, or is supposed to be in them, because He is in them.

Jesus brought many things with Him in His Person into this world, as from God. But everything that Jesus brought was more than a doctrine, more than a teaching, more than a truth. The meaning and the proof of everything that came in with Him is in this one word 'Life'. The value of His teaching was to be found in the effect of His teaching, in producing Life. His teaching goes for nothing (unless it is condemnation) if the result is not Life. All the works that He did were meant to result in Life. They were not just interesting or wonderful or miraculous works. The issue was intended to be Life. And all the work of the Lord Jesus goes for nothing if it does not result in Life. It is not the teaching of Jesus, although that is important; it is not what Jesus did, although that is important; it is the result of all that He said, and did, and was, that is the crucial thing. The proof of the Lord Jesus is in the Life which results from everything to do with Him. That is both a statement and a test of everything that we know and have to do with in relation to Him.

You notice that John is very explicit about this. He sums it all up, both in Gospel and in Letter. You look in his Gospel at Chapter 20 (Chapter 21 was a kind of additional chapter; he really closed with chapter 20), and in verse 30 he sums up all that he has written: "Many other signs therefore did Jesus in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life in His name." Now you can shorten the statement, if you like, and say: "All these are written that you might have Life in His name". That is the issue. That is the object. That is the only purpose of narrating all this about Jesus and His teaching and His work. The purpose is solely this: "that ye may have Life".

Then, as you notice, in the first letter, at the end of Chapter 5, he does a similar thing. At verse 13: "These things have I written unto you, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, even unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God." "These things are written that you may know that you have eternal Life." In the Gospel it is: "Believing that you have...". In the letter it is: "That you may know that you have".

Well, let us look at the time and the occasion of this writing. We have pointed out that the date of John's writing was at the close of the apostolic era. All that we have in the book of the Acts was history. All that we have in the Epistles of Paul and the others stands on record as an accomplished thing and the unveiling of Divine purpose. It is on hand. Now John comes right in and, in effect, he says: "You have all that. You know all that. That has been deposited with you. Now, then, what about it?" It is a call back, or a call up, to all that the church has received. It is a challenge at this time to the Lord's people, to the church of Jesus Christ, to come right into line with all that has been given, because the Lord, having given, holds His people responsible for all that.

He goes on with the book of the Revelation, and when at the opening of that Book he calls the churches into question before the Risen Lord, he does so on the ground purely that the apostle Paul had given to those churches in Asia (which he had been instrumental in bringing into being), a full-orbed revelation of Jesus Christ. And now the risen Lord is calling them to account for all that Paul taught them. And it is most impressive; it is solemn, but it is encouraging. You know that one of the last things that Paul said about his ministry was: "All that are in Asia turned away from me" (2 Tim. 1:15). "They have repudiated me. They have discredited me. They have closed down on my ministry in Asia." Now: "John to the seven churches which are in Asia" (Revelation 1:4). But it is not John, it is the risen Lord through John to the seven churches in Asia, and it is as though the risen Lord there in Chapter 1 of the Revelation is saying: "Oh, but, churches in Asia, you are not going to get away with it like that. You may repudiate My servant. You may turn from him, but it is with Me you have to reckon. It was I who spoke through him, who worked through him. It is with Me that you have to reckon". Now that is encouraging for any servant of God who has been faithful and has suffered discrediting and repudiating. But it is very challenging and very solemn that the Lord never lets anybody get away with anything that He has given without, sooner or later, calling upon them to answer to Him for that trust. There comes a time when the Lord does that.

But what about this occasion? Well, it is perfectly clear from these letters and the Revelation, and it is implied by the Gospel, that a state of spiritual decline had set in; a state of spiritual change. Those former days of glory in the church were passing, but they had not passed. All that devotion, faithfulness, willingness to suffer, was passing. Declension had set in and a big change was coming over Christianity at the time that John was writing. It was a change of loss of standard, loss of calibre, loss of purity, loss of first love. It was a time when pagan ideas were invading the church and Christianity. Strange, mysterious kinds of teachings from paganism were coming in and being made a part of Christian teaching. And this was destroying the absolute purity of the gospel and of the faith and of the life of believers. That clearness and transparency of testimony and of life which had marked the early days was giving place to spiritual mixture, and whenever mixture comes in there is always confusion. And you can discern how much confusion there was by reading this short letter. How much here indicates that the Lord's people were in a state of confusion born of this mixture which had come into Christianity!

Now I am not talking only about something nearly a couple of thousand years ago. I have no hesitation in saying that we are living in conditions very similar to those in which John wrote this letter. What a mix-up Christianity in general is today! What a confusion there is in Christianity today! What a loss of tone, and of level, and of impact, and of purity, and of passion for the Lord Jesus! Everybody is aware of it and everybody is deploring it. There was this extra factor at that time which no small part of this world is knowing something about today, and that was persecution. John wrote the Revelation as an exile in the Isle of Patmos "for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus" (Revelation 1:9). It was a time of severe testing of the church by persecution, opposition and antagonism. We may not know so much about it in this western world and yet that is not to our credit! Our brethren in the east do know all about this! They are in the fiery trial of persecution and suffering.

And when I say that it is not to our credit that we don't know it, I mean this. While, just at present, the form of it that is over there may not have reached us, if, dear friends, we were more vital in our spiritual life and testimony, we would meet more of that powerful opposition. I think it is because we don't count for enough that we don't meet enough of it; speaking of the church generally. Some of us individuals do meet quite a lot, but as a whole, the church in the west is not a persecuted church because it does not count for enough.

Well, this was the occasion of the writing. But when we have said all that, we have got to get behind and to the heart, and say: "What is the explanation? What is the meaning?" These are only aspects of a great battle. The battle has many forms; it takes many different aspects. It means that there is something against purity, against vitality, against the life of the people of God. There is something against. But what is it that is the object of it all? What is at the heart of it?

Now John does not leave us in any doubt when he underlines this one word all the way through - Life. You mark it in the Gospel, in the letters: Life! What is it all about then? Anything, by any means, anyhow, from subtle subterfuge and deceit and trickery, through every other form, until it comes to open, deadly persecution; anything, anyhow, to destroy this Life. Anything to destroy this Life, because this Life is the eternal issue, from eternity past, through all the ages to eternity to come. This is it, God intended the man of His creation to possess His own Divine, eternal Life; to share His life with Him. That is symbolised, of course, in the tree of Life in the beginning. That is there, and it represents God's thought that man should, on certain conditions, on a certain basis of faith, obedience, and fellowship with Him, of walking in the light as He is in the light - on that ground become the possessor of this that is called eternal Life.

Now, if that should happen in a universe where there is a hostile, inimical and antagonistic hierarchy to God, a hierarchy set against God and all His purposes and intentions, the whole situation for that hierarchy is hopeless. The forces of antagonism are fully and finally ruled out if that should happen, because this Life is indestructible. It just cannot be destroyed. John is telling us that it was in the Son of God, and we know from another Scripture that "it was not possible that He should be holden of death" (Acts 2:24). It was an impossible thing that One in whom this Life dwelt should be holden of death. It is indestructible. It is irresistible.

Mr. Spurgeon was once asked if he would become a member of a committee for the defence of the Bible. He looked at the man who had come to ask him and he said, "Does a lion need defending? You let him off his chain. He will look after himself all right. The Word of God needs no defending. Let it loose." And that is all that you have got to do. It is irresistible.

I read about a whole stretch of concrete road that had got to be torn up and re-laid because mushrooms had forced their way through it and cracked it open. Mushrooms cracking open a concrete highway! That is the power of Life. It is irresistible if it gets a chance, if it is let loose, if it takes things into its own hands. This Life calls out everything in this universe to defend itself against this Life, to save itself from this Life. It is a Life which provokes opposition because of its inherent potentiality.

Now this Life, John says here, was in the Son, Jesus Christ. Look at Him! Everywhere He went He met, in its many different forms, antagonism to the Life that was in Him. Because of what was in Him all the evil intelligences in this universe, the devil and demons came out, woke up. "This is a critical situation. This thing has 'invaded our realm'." And He met it in every form. Demon-possessed, and all the forms of satanic works in human bodies and human minds - but not one could stand against Him.

John heads up all his signs in his Gospel of this very thing, the mighty, irresistible power of the Life which was in Jesus, in one cumulative instance. Lazarus is allowed not only to die, deliberately allowed to die, but allowed to be in the grave in that climate and at the end of four days to be in a state of corruption. This was in order to show that real death - not imaginary, fictitious or sentimental death, but real, terrible death - cannot stand before Him, who is "the resurrection and the life" (John 11:25). He exemplifies the nature of this Life. It is indestructible; it is irresistible; and I would like to take you through the many instances of Jesus bringing Life into situations which were naturally quite hopeless.

You must remember that John deliberately selected a whole line of impossible situations in order to show that with this One there is nothing impossible. It does not matter what it is; whether it is the water into wine, a hopeless situation in Cana of Galilee, an end of everything. Or whether it is the woman of Samaria - morally, a hopeless situation. Or the nobleman's son reaching the verge of death and being a nobleman, he would undoubtedly have used all his wealth to find some help for that son. He travels all the way from Capernaum to Cana to come into contact with Jesus and to beg Him to go and do something. A hopeless situation in this world. And so we might go on. John deliberately selected these things to show that this Life in Christ has no match and no master. It is the master. In a situation of growing spiritual death and darkness, decline and loss, John writes all this and says, in effect: "Oh, you believers, you need to recover in this day your knowledge, your experience of this Life that is in Christ, this matchless Life, this mighty Life. It is the Life that is going to solve the problems, answer the questions, meet the needs, overcome the adverse forces and triumph at last. It is this Life in Christ. That is what you need to know."

And, apart from that, things will go from bad to worse, and from worse to awful. They will just decline. And John stands right in that gap and says: "The answer is the recovery of Jesus Christ as the eternal Life, in the power of this endless Life; a recovery in your spiritual history, in your spiritual experience."

But the great fact is that over against what anybody with any spiritual knowledge, spiritual experience or spiritual discernment will agree is a time of lost spiritual power on the part of the church and the people of God today, is the need of much more power. To meet the present situation, the inroads of adverse forces, that about which we have yet to speak more specifically, to meet it, to counter it, this is what is needed. As John says in his Gospel, in his letters and the Revelation, we need the bringing back of the Lord Jesus into His full place, in terms of eternal Life. John with his Gospel seeks to bring in the Son of God in a new way to a failing church. In his letters that is the emphasis: the re-introduction of the Son of God in the power of eternal Life.

May the Lord say something to our hearts about this, because we really are so much further on than John was in the dispensation, and surely none of us will dispute the statement that we are getting very near the end, "by reason of which the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat"! (2 Peter 3:12). My, we understand it today! This is a terrible reality. It only needs some madman with the restraint taken off him to push a button today and civilisation will be well-nigh wiped out, if the Lord were to allow it. It is possible. We are very near the end. I can only trust that we, at least individually and as companies of the Lord's people, may come into a new knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ in the power of this mighty, indestructible and irresistible Life; that we may really come where John meant to bring the Lord's people when he said: "These things have I written unto you, that ye may know that ye have eternal life" (1 John 5:13). It is possible to have the doctrine of it and not know it. It is possible even to put your feet down on the truth of it and not be living in the knowledge of it.

These were Christians, and doctrinally and theoretically they had eternal Life because they had believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, but they were not living day by day in the knowledge of that Life. That is possible, you know. John, when he wrote the Revelation, made perfectly clear to one church this: "You can be doing all the Christian work without all the Christian Life. The dynamic of all your activities has gone, but you are carrying on the activities."

Now it is possible to be full of Christian works without the Life and the Love being there. A lot of people are working tremendously hard in Christianity but there is something vital lacking, and it is just that that John was saying: "No, it is not the teaching, not the doctrine, not the theory, not even the works that you are doing; it is the mighty power of this Life registering, which you know in your own experience every day: His Life, His resurrection Life, in you, in me; that is the testimony." This is the testimony, this is the message.

Now, of course, it would take a long time to take every one of those pinpointings and say: "This is the message." "This is the record." "This is the commandment" and so on. But, as I have said, whether we deal with them separately or not, when you put them all together they focus upon one thing - Life. Life is the issue.

May the Lord write this very strongly upon our hearts!

Chapter 2 - Fellowship

Reading: 1 John 1:1-2:1.

John uses the phrase 'This is' ten times in his brief letter, and the first of his identification of things is this one in verse five: "This is the message which we have heard from Him". And if you look to see what the message is, you will see that it focuses upon one word, a word which is repeatedly used in the first part of the letter. It is the word 'fellowship'. It occurs twice in verse three, again in verse six, and again in verse seven; and the recurrence of this word indicates that here is something about which the Apostle is evidently greatly concerned in relation to believers.

The main issue with which John was concerned, in his Gospel, in his Letters, and in his great Apocalypse - the Book of the Revelation, the supreme, inclusive issue was this matter of Life. I suggest that you read even the Book of the Revelation with that word in mind, and you will be tremendously impressed. This is the issue all the way through. It is the matter of livingness. Early in that book you have the "living creatures" (Rev. 4:6) and "the Spirit of life" (Rev. 11:11). The book closes with "the river of water of life" (Rev. 22:1), "the tree of life" (Rev. 22:2), and so on.

It is quite evident that the question, or the issue, with which John was so greatly concerned for believers, was not that they should have Life - that was the object of his Gospel, but that they should know, that is, live continually in the consciousness of possessing this Life. So he says: "That ye may know that ye have eternal life" (1 John 5:13).

Now you may see how he links these two things together at the outset. He will link other things with the matter of Life as he goes on with his letter, but right at the outset, in this first section, he links the matter of fellowship with Life. These two things are brought together, and it is as though he were saying - indeed, he is saying in other words: 'Life is a matter of fellowship and fellowship is a matter of Life.'

A Family Fellowship

And what is the nature of this fellowship? Well, it is quite evidently a family fellowship, because you notice it is: "Our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son". And then John says: "My little children". So it is quite a family thing: Father, Son and little children; Father, Son and the rest of the family. It is a family fellowship.

And what again does that mean? It is, of course, a nice word, a pleasant idea, but a family is built upon one life; just constituted by one life, isn't it? The great trust of life has been fulfilled, for life is a trust. It is something committed for transmission, for passing on, for reproduction. That great trust of life has been fulfilled, and the family is the result of the letting go, the giving up of life, the distribution of life. So that every member of a true family is a part of one life, all sharing a single life. In every one there is the same life. It will manifest itself in different ways, and, of course, that is the mystery and wonder of life. We cannot stay with that, interesting and instructive as it is, but in a family you have so great a variety, all from the one source, from the one life - variety of disposition, temperament, and so on, all in one family. But it is one life expressing itself in many ways.

The Lord's family is like that. Sometimes we are rather inclined to want all the members of the family to be exactly alike, to think the same thing and do the same thing. Really we want them uniform, but the Lord does not do it like that, either in the natural creation or in the family. That does not alter the fact that it is His own one Life in all expressing itself in a multitude of different ways, but all coming from the one source. It is a family life. We all, therefore, share the Life of the Father through the Son, and we are the little children - and God forbid that we should ever be more than little children in the family, that is, in spirit! There is a growing up, there is such a thing as maturity, but it is a good thing that however old we are in this Christian life and experience, however much we have learnt, we are still there where we know that we still have everything to learn, that we are only at the beginning of things. That is a good mark. It is a very bad mark when anyone in the family thinks he knows it all! That upsets the family, doesn't it? It just ruins everything if any think they know - they have no need to learn anything else, they have got it all, they know it all. Oh! that spiritual pride has been the cause of many divisions. However, that is by the way.

Here we are with this fellowship, and we want to compress into a short space a little on two matters in this very connection.

First of all, this fellowship just dates right back to God's eternal, primary desire to share His Life, and by thus sharing it to have fellowship between His creation and Himself; just clear, pure, open, unsullied fellowship between Himself and man, between man and Himself. Is not that the first picture of the relationship of man with God? In the garden they walked in the cool of the evening, in blessed fellowship; God and the man whom He had made. That fellowship was something very precious to the Lord. We cannot understand why God, all self-sufficient, so full and so wonderful and so mighty, and, in a sense, so absolutely independent and sovereign, should find this in His heart, to have a creation with which He could have this kind of fellowship, as Father with a family. But there it is. That is what the Bible reveals as God's desire at the beginning. And this fellowship of which John is speaking just dates right back to that. You see, "our fellowship is with the Father" - that takes up the eternal thought and desire of God and brings it here right into expression amongst the Lord's children now.

Fellowship the Foundation of All

Now then, the very first thing in the Christian life is this matter of fellowship, union with God. The strain has gone, the breach has gone, the distance has gone, the isolation has gone, and everything that kept God and us apart has gone when we come into what we call 'new birth'. When we are begotten of God and born of the Spirit, then it is union with God. That is the foundation of everything. Let it be clearly understood that that is not only just an act which is carried out and finished, but it is the very basis and foundation upon which God is going to do everything. All God's hopes are bound up with that. All God's intentions are bound up with that. All God's purposes are bound up with that. All God's interests for time and for eternity are based upon this fellowship-union between Himself and His children, and His children and Himself. That is why this is such a battle, because God has vested in this very thing everything for which He hopes, and everything that He has purposed and planned He has just vested in this. It is God's great investment. And you know, when you come to the end of the Old Testament you find that the prophets are in a state of Divine distress because God has lost His family. The great word that governs those prophetic utterances is that God has been robbed of something. God has been robbed; something upon which He placed so much importance, indeed, upon which everything hung, has been stolen from God. God has been robbed of it. This family relationship between Himself and His people, has been stolen from Him. Therefore God in a sense is in desolation until that is recovered, and His people are also in desolation until that relationship is recovered and restored and re-established.

This is what John, by the Spirit, is talking about, saying that God has done something in us in bringing about a union. But it does not end there. All God's investment is in that union. He has invested all His hopes, all His purposes, all His expectations, all His interests in this union, this fellowship-union with Himself. All that we are ever going to come into, dear friends, of those great purposes and designs of God is going to be on this basis of our fellowship with God, our maintained fellowship with God. God works on that basis. Get out of fellowship with God and everything comes to a standstill. We know that quite well. If anything cuts across our fellowship with God, well, all has gone. It is as though everything is lost, and we know quite well that there is no going on, no getting on, no hope whatever until we get back and have that relationship put right and the way clear with the Lord. How much there is, then, bound up with this relationship!

Now, how is it to be? John tells us: "If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another". With Him, of course; "our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son..." "if we walk in the light... we have fellowship".

Fellowship rests, then, upon walking in the light, "as He is in the light". John says: "This is the message... that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all... If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship".

What does that mean? It means far more than I can put into few words, but let us look at the Lord Jesus because this is what John is saying: 'This is what we have heard from Him; this is what we have seen in Him; this is what we have handled of Him - the Son.' And he is saying. 'This is what the Son did.' He walked in the light with the Father. How did He do it? What did that mean to Him? Well, in the case of the Lord Jesus He always raised one question about everything in His life - His movements, His goings or comings or stayings, His not moving, His doing this or not doing that; everything with Him was governed by a question - 'Is this in the Father's interests? Or is it in My own interest? Or am I governed by some other influence - ideas, policy, for instance? Is it politic to do this? Or how does it affect the Father? Is it in My interest or is it in the Father's interest?' He subjected everything, even His physical, quite legitimate physical requirements. He hungered, as we hunger in body - and it is not a sinful thing, is it, to take food when the body needs it? But there were times when Jesus said, 'That is secondary. There are interests of My Father to be served, so even those legitimate things in which there is nothing sinful or wrong must just stand aside while I attend to My Father's business.'

That is what He said at Sychar's Well, to the disciples. They came and said: "Rabbi, eat. But He said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not... My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to accomplish His work." (John 4:31,32,34). Well, He hungered. He sent them to buy food because He was hungry and they were hungry. When they brought it back - 'That can wait. There are other interests. My Father's interests come first, before even My legitimate needs can be met.'

In the wilderness, with the Devil: "Command that these stones become bread" (Matthew 4:3). His question was: 'Where does this come from? From the Father or from another source? Is the Father's interest going to be served supremely by My doing that?' He decided 'No'. For the time being, after forty days of fasting, He hungered. Nevertheless - wait - 'I am in a spiritual battle, and it is the spiritual interests that have to be established before I can allow these perfectly legitimate things to have their place.'

You see what I mean? His life was like that. He was walking in the light with the Father. 'Father, is this Your pleasure? Is it of You that I go here, that I do that? If I have not the witness that it is of You, then it must wait. It must be set aside.' There may be nothing wrong in a thing in itself, but nevertheless there is something higher than a life of 'Oh, there is no harm in it'. Many Christians are governed by that! 'Oh, you know, there is no harm in it. Other people do it. There is no sin about that - it is quite a natural thing.' But there is a higher standard than 'no harm in it'! That is negative! The positive life of the Lord Jesus is: 'What about the Father? What does He think about this? What is His mind on this?'

Walking in the Light

The Lord Jesus would not allow a shadow to come in between Him and His Father, not one bit of darkness to break in upon that relationship. He knew that the only way and the only ground for the fulfilment of the purpose for which He had come was by walking in the light with His Father.

So John says here that we ought to walk as He walked. Note it in chapter two: "He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also to walk even as He walked" (1 John 2:6). "If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another". Fellowship demands that you and I shall be walking with God. If one is not walking with God, not walking in the light, fellowship is interrupted. If some are walking in the light and others are not walking in the light, fellowship is arrested, and our fellowship, which, as I have said, means so much to the Lord and to us, requires that we are all keeping an open Heaven with God, that we are all walking in a transparent fellowship with Him, that we are all so committed to Him that any other interests, no matter what they are, come second to this: 'What does the Lord want in this situation? How does the Lord look at this? That is the thing that governs and I am going to walk according to that, God helping me, as the Spirit bears witness in me to the Will of God, I will walk in the light.'

If we all do this, oh, how wonderful the fellowship will be, and how the Lord will be able to take us on in all the fulness and purpose of His desire, and fulfil Himself in us and through us!

Now, there is very much more, but that will be enough for us to get on with for the moment.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine as "This is the Message - Fellowship", May-June 1963, Vol 41-3.

Chapter 3 - The Victory

We are going to resume our meditations in the First Letter of John, and, although there is such a large mass of valuable instruction in this letter which we cannot touch on at this time, we shall seek to take out just one more fragment which we trust the Lord will use. Those of you who were here at the beginning of our meditation in this letter will recall that we indicated that in it John reiterates one fragment ten times. Ten times over he says, "This is", and then he appends some particular point in the spiritual teaching which he has set out to give. "This is the message" is the first statement, and then in ten different connections he uses that phrase "This is", pinpointing these things which he so strongly felt the Lord's people needed to recover and to take careful note of. We, of course, have not attempted to go through all ten of these pinpointings. We did take the first one "This is the message". Now we are going to take another of these.

"For whatsoever is begotten of God overcomes the world: and this is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith" (1 John 5:4).

"Ye are of God, my little children, and have overcome them; because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world" (1 John 4:4).

"This is the victory that has overcome the world".

Now these statements clearly point to two things which are going to engage us in this chapter. The first thing is the battle in which the Lord's people are involved, and the second is the secret of victory in that battle.

The Battle

That there is such a thing needs no emphasising or proving. No true Christian is without the knowledge that he or she is, in union with Christ, involved in a spiritual conflict. There is something wrong with your Christianity if that is not true. That is the normal Christian life, and you will not have an easy time if you are really bound up with the Lord Jesus and His purpose in this world. The battle is a fact. We are not going to dwell upon the fact of the battle, because I am sure that is quite unnecessary.

But the why, the wherefore, of the battle is another thing. What does this spiritual conflict relate to? And it is very important for us to know that. We know something about there being a fight on in the Christian life, but we are not always intelligent as to why it is, what it is all about, what it all means and what it all relates to. And it will therefore, I trust, be of real value to us if we spend some time answering that question as to the why and wherefore of this spiritual battle. And I think we can focus it down to this. It is because of the tremendous potentiality of Life in Christ.

We have received this Life, of which John has written so much, both in his Gospel and in these letters, this eternal Life which God has given to us. Have you noticed that one of these pinpointings comes right to that: "And the witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that has the Son has the life; he that has not the Son of God has not the life" (1 John 5:11,12). Now God has given unto us this Life which is in His Son if we are truly born again children of God.

But that is not the end of it; it is only the beginning. That Life has within it an immense potentiality. If it results in all that it is intended to result in, leads to all that it is intended to lead to, realises all the potentiality that is in it, it will bring us to full growth in Christ; what Paul calls "the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" (Eph. 4:13). It is all there in that Life. It is tremendous what a bit of life, even in nature, can result in. Some of you who are gardeners know all about that. You have only to get one little vegetable organism into your plot of land, and you know quite well that it will not take very long for that one thing to fill the whole. And you have to cope with this tremendous potentiality of a bit of life. It will go on and on, and it is a real battle to cope with this life. There is so much in a small bit of life.

Now, if that is true in natural life, how much more true it is in spiritual Life! To deposit this Life, this eternal, Divine Life, this Life which was in Christ, in any person by new birth, is to deposit something that has immeasurable possibilities and potentialities. The Book of the Revelation, written by this same man, John, gives us pictures of the potentiality of this Life. Oh, that we only had the time just to dip into it! You know that that book of the Revelation circles round and focuses upon this whole question of Life. We pointed that out earlier. The key to that book is Life. Then we see the result of that Life. John says: "I saw, and behold, a great multitude, which no man could number, out of every nation and of all tribes and peoples and tongues" (Rev. 7:9). 'Thousands' he says! "Ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands" (Rev. 5:11). Language is beggared to describe it. He is struggling for words to express this thing which altogether outbounds any language. The vastness of it... and it is all the result of a Life being planted in these lives. How tremendous is the potentiality of the Life that you and I have received to bring to full growth!

But is full growth the end? You say surely it must be! But it is not. What is the full growth for? Why does the Lord want us, as His people, to come to full growth? Not just to remain babes in Christ, little children in Christ, but to "grow up in all things into Him, who is the head, even Christ" (Eph. 4:15), to come "unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" (Eph. 4:13). There must be a purpose in that!

Well, you have to go back to the beginning; why God made man and what He intended. And we are told in the Psalm which is quoted in Hebrews chapter 2 just why: "Thou madest him to have dominion... Thou hast put all things under his feet" (Psalm 8:6). This full purpose of God is going to issue in those who have come to it being the ruling instrument with God in His universe. The spiritual dominion is going to be vested in a people who come to full growth, to full manhood in Christ, to reign with Him, to rule with Him, to govern with Him, and - to use a symbolism which must not be taken literally - to sit with Him in His throne. That is not possible literally, for there will be a "multitude which no man could number", it is a spiritual state. To be with Him in His government in the ages to come... this is the meaning, the purpose, the object of growing up to full growth, spiritual maturity, and the outcome of this life which is put into us as babes and which has been allowed and co-operated with to reach its end. We only have it in the babe form, as the Lord Jesus had at Bethlehem. But look now! What has happened through these many centuries, and today? What has come? Multitudes upon multitudes in all the nations as the fruit of that little bit of Life deposited in the babe at Bethlehem! What there was in that babe! We see it today somewhat as we read the whole story of what has happened during the centuries through the Gospel. We say: 'Well, that was a mighty babe!' or 'That was a mighty bit of Life which was planted by God in this world!' Now this is not fiction. It is fact.

Now, because this ultimate purpose of God for dominion in this universe is all vested in that very Life that is given to us, and because there is another antagonistic system to that dominion which knows quite well that if that Life gets its way and remains unchecked, unhindered, and unarrested then their kingdom is finished and their dominion is at an end, so they must fight for their very life. That is the nature of the battle. It is a very real thing that the whole kingdom of Satan is keenly and terribly alive to this fact that a bit of divine Life deposited within some human spirit is the portent of that evil kingdom's undoing.

So "Thou madest him to have dominion", and man lost it in himself. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews, taking up that word of the Psalm, puts it this way: "Thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet... But we behold Him who has been made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honour" (Heb. 2:8,9). Here is the one Representative who had the Life and has gone through; the Representative of that reigning company, the forerunner of a reigning company, and He is, as the writer says, "Bringing many sons unto glory" (Heb. 2:10). That is the same principle; the principle of His own Life.

Now you see the battle rages against this Life, and against the tremendous potentialities that are in the Life that you and I have received as born again children of God.

But when we have said that, we have to say more. You see, the battle is related to the going on of Christians from the very beginnings, through all the stages of spiritual development, to final fulness. And spiritual progress is always fraught with a great deal of conflict and resistance. Anything that is going to minister to the increase of the spiritual Life will become a battleground. Make no mistake about it! All sorts of things, anything that can be used to keep the Lord's people who have received this Life in spiritual limitation will be used. Do be on your guard, dear friends, about this.

One of the most subtle ways of the enemy to defeat this progress in spiritual Life is to make Christians content with the beginnings. And that is just evangelism, evangelisation, to draw a circle round that, and make that the beginning and the end. Whereas with God it is only the beginning, and all Christians ought to recognise that that is but the beginning. Of course, it is important, it is vital, it is essential, but it is not by any means everything. It is but the first stage. And you must be alive to this: that God would make provision for your spiritual growth, and you must be very watchful that you take advantage of anything that will minister to your spiritual growth, to your building up in Christ.

There is a battle, of course, at the beginning of the Christian life. It is always so from the beginning, the first sort of difficulty that arises for the youngest Christians who have their own forms of spiritual battle, but the real battle comes when you want to go on with the Lord, when you want to go further. Then things really do become difficult! But you have your great illustration in the Bible. God has written this spiritual history in the temple history of the Old Testament. Look at Israel! They are out from Egypt, they are redeemed with the blood of the Passover lamb, they are the Lord's people, they are in the wilderness. Well, they have certain battles in the wilderness. It is not just all free from all kinds of conflict and difficulty. No, there are occasionally battles in the wilderness, but, mark you, when it is a matter of going over the Jordan into the land, to possess all the fulness of their salvation, then you have this terrific battle under Joshua: nation after nation, kingdom after kingdom withstanding, and in battle from beginning to end. There is no comparison between the two stages of the wilderness and the land, for conflict.

And that is God's Old Testament parable of the spiritual life. You have your battles at the beginning, in the early stages, in the elementary forms of the Christian life. They are there. It is not all easy going. You meet opposition, but if you are set upon going right on into all God's fulness, you know then the meaning of the Book of Joshua. You will know that it is against that that the forces are arraigned, it is against that that the real battle is waged. It is because the thing for which they were brought out is now coming immediately into view: fulness of Life. When Jesus said: "I came that they might have life" (John 10:10). He also said: "and may have it abundantly". That is for something more than being born; that is for maturity.

Now look at the Lord Jesus. We have already pointed out that from the time He came into this world to the moment when He went out, He lived His life in an encompassing atmosphere of positive hostility. When He was born, the devil, through Herod, made a plan to kill Him. They slew all the male children in that area in order to get hold of that One whom Satan knew. And you know what the Lord Jesus had to say about Herod. He had no illusions about these men; He knew the devil was behind this. The devil knew the potentiality of that babe because of the Divine Life in Him. And although we do not have a record of those years between, with only one break, up to the time of His baptism, we can draw our own conclusions. I am quite sure that He did not get through those years without dangers and threatenings to His life. But we do know that from the moment that He stepped out on the line that was going to mean the imparting of that Life to others, the distribution of the Life that was in Him to others, all hell was against Him.

He lived His life in an atmosphere of positive hostility. First, in the wilderness with a hand-to-hand encounter, not with demons, but with the very devil himself, in an attempt to frustrate the purpose for which He had come. And then onward. Oh, it is amazing! You will never fail to be impressed if you read through these Gospels, with this persistent, unrelenting antagonism to that dear Son of God. You are really amazed that it could be so, knowing who He is and knowing what He had come for and knowing what He was doing. This thing came from somewhere else. This bitter hatred of Him was not human; it was satanically supernatural.

He lived His life so that all the powers of evil and their head, Satan himself, knew where that Life was going to lead, and knew that in the end that Life would cast out the kingdom of Satan and take its place in the government of this world. It is what Paul calls "our wrestling... against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness" (Eph. 6:12). They are all going to be ejected from God's universe by this one Christ and all those who share this one Life with Him in fulness. His battle was because of the potentiality of that Life that was in Him.

And John is saying in this letter of his that it is exactly the same for believers. What was true of Him is true of us. Just as the world knows us not, it knew Him not. So much, then, for the battle for the moment.

But what is the sphere and medium of the battle? I want you to notice this, especially the young Christians - it is the world. In his gospel John uses that term 'the world' seventy-eight times. It is not a long book and it has a lot of things in it. But when you see that in that quite brief narrative one thing is mentioned seventy-eight times, you have to pause and say 'Well, there is something here. This is not put in for nothing.' And then, in this first letter which, as I have said, you can read through in ten minutes, John reiterates this phrase 'the world' eighteen times. And if you notice the context of that, it is tremendously impressive. John looks upon this thing that he calls 'the world' as a positive enemy of the spiritual Life of the people of God. Something quite inimical, He says in this letter: "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him'' (1 John 2:15). That is a tremendous statement. He that is a friend of the world is an enemy of God. You notice that it was something that Christ Himself had to overcome. He said to His disciples: "In the world ye have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). It was something that He, Christ, had to overcome. It was an enemy to be subdued. It was something that Christ feared for His disciples and for the church.

In His great final prayer in John 17, hear how He prays: "Holy Father, keep them in Thy name which Thou hast given Me... I pray not that Thou shouldest take them from the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil one" (John 17:11,15). He is praying out of a sense of the infinite peril to His own in this world because of the world. It is something that He feared for His own. It is something to which the apostle said he was crucified: "I (have been crucified) unto the world" (Gal. 6:14), he says. Think of crucifixion! My, that is a tremendous thing! And he said, 'The world made it necessary for me to be crucified. I have been crucified unto the world, put to death in this violent and humiliating way because of the world.'

It is this thing, this world, which has proved such a disastrous thing for the church during its history. If the church is in a state of weakness, a state of ineffectiveness, a state without a real impact here on this earth, if it is failing at all, you may trace it to this: that the world has been able to get in, and it has gone into the world. It is this link with this accursed world - for it is under a curse. It is under judgment. It is the link with that that is destructive of all spiritual Life and spiritual growth. You talk about a 'worldly Christian'. In reality there is no such thing. You are either worldly, or you are a Christian, from the New Testament standpoint. These are the differences between Light and darkness, between death and Life, and if you bridge that gap in any way in your life, if you are surrendering yourself to the purpose of the ruler of this world, you frustrate the purpose of the Life that is in you. We cannot be too strong about this.

What is the world? Well, that will take a long time to answer. But you know it is not the sphere, it is not the place. We are not talking about the earth. We are talking about a system and a mentality to begin with. The mentality of this world is altogether different from the mentality of Christ. Take its standard of values! What the world sets up as a value is a thing that the Lord thinks nothing of at all! The Lord's standard of values are spiritual values. The world's standard of values are material values. See what the world makes of man! It is all the time working to make man important, something of account. Oh, what the world will do with a man, if it can: inflate him, enlarge him, give him a great place. Yes, it will make man into something. God does not do that. Get yourself into the hands of the Holy Spirit and He will knock the bottom out of all your pride, conceit, self-importance, self-sufficiency, and everything that is you, and put other values in you which are not these earthly, worldly values in their vanity and emptiness. God's standard of values is of a different kind altogether. They are eternal; heaven's standard of values. Altogether different from this world's.

If you get into that world and you begin to take on its standard of values, you will lose all your spiritual Life. When Paul said "I (have been crucified) unto the world", the context is a sidelight upon this very thing. What did he mean by being crucified to the world? You will notice that the context is this. He is speaking about those Judaisers who were pursuing him wherever he went because he was preaching 'justification by faith and not by works'. And he says "They desire to have you circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh" (Gal. 6:13). He means that they might be able to say: 'Look how many converts to Israel we have made all over the world' and glory in the number of converts that they have made. And Paul says: 'That is the world. I have been crucified unto the world'. It is a worldly thing to begin to count heads like that.

David committed the sin of his life when, even against the advice of such a carnal man as Joab, he numbered Israel. 'Oh', said Joab, 'No, my lord, don't do it. The Lord make the people of Israel a hundred times what they are, but don't you do this.' But David was caught at that time and he numbered Israel. The result was that God mowed down Israel with the pestilence and plague and reduced them. But David was held responsible. It is sheer worldliness to boast in numbers, and in material growth, and all that external side of things in which the flesh can boast and take pleasure. That is how the world behaves with display and statistics. Paul said "I (have been crucified) unto the world". If you get into that realm you will lose your spiritual Life.

Yes, that is the world, and I have only hinted at what the world is. It is a mentality, a standard of values, a way of looking at things. And it is the energy of the flesh.

And when you look behind all these things, and the many other things that the world is, you say: 'Where does it come from? What is its energy?' That energy is satanic. The ruler of this world is the energy of this whole system. This is the enemy of the spiritual Life: the world. Oh, may we see and understand, and be very sensitive to this whole matter of where we can touch this world. I don't mean coming out from this earth and leaving it. Paul said that we cannot do that. We have got to be here. Christ said: "These are in the world... they are not of the world" (John 17:11,16). It is a very important thing that the enemy does not destroy the destroyers of his kingdom, by making them make contact with his kingdom, or causing them to make contact with his kingdom.

Now, the second thing:-

The Secret of Victory.

"This is the victory that has overcome the world". What is it? Of course, it says here "our faith", but that is a related matter. Look at two fragments in this letter. The first is in chapter 4, verse 4: "Ye are of God, my little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world." And then in chapter 2, verse 20: "And ye have an anointing from the Holy One, and ye know all things". In verse 27: "And as for you, the anointing which ye received of Him abides in you."

"Ye have an anointing... the anointing... abides in you... greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world". So, then, the true child of God has resident within no one else, and nothing less than God the Holy Spirit. The same Spirit by which Jesus overcame the world. He had the anointing, as you know, at His baptism, and overcame because of the Spirit that was in Him. He overcame death because, it is declared, He was raised by the Spirit. He overcame everything because of the Spirit of God that was joined with Him.

Now here John is saying, as in His case, so in our case: "ye have an anointing". 'You have received the same Holy Spirit as was with Christ, and that Holy Spirit abides in you and "greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world"'. Oh, that terrible, immense power and deep subtlety and ingenuity of the evil one, great as it is, however, "greater is He that is in you than he".

What a thing the Christian life must be if that is true! The enormity of the power of evil that is working in this world, in the nations and in mankind is really something that we cannot comprehend; certainly we cannot cope with it. And then to be told, 'Take the sum of it all - and greater is He that is in you than the totality of that that is in the world'! It must be a tremendous thing to be a Christian if that is true! It must be a tremendous thing to have eternal Life in us! It must be a tremendous thing to have the Holy Spirit in us. Oh, the Lord lift us on to a higher level of Christian life in a true apprehension of how great a thing it is!

Now notice what John says; "And you know all things". 'The anointing which abides in you teaches you all things'. The indwelling Holy Spirit creates and imparts an intelligence to those who really possess Him and who live in Him; an intelligence that this world has not got, an intelligence that the natural man does not possess. "Teaches you concerning all things" (1 John 2:27). Do you know something about that? The Holy Spirit indwelling, teaching, taking us into the Divine School and educating us, giving us spiritual intelligence which no one without the Holy Spirit can possess. That is the birthright of every child of God: spiritual intelligence of this kind, with the indwelling Holy Spirit 'teaching us concerning all things'. That is a wonderful world to live in, surely! The Holy Spirit continually teaching us, right through our lives.

Now, you see, that is something different from being religious. This is something different from being an adherent of a Christian system called a church. This is something different from going to church whenever a church service is on, and hearing a preacher, and all that. Those things may be all right and may be useful. There might be grounds on which God could work. But what this says is that you have got it inside yourself, if you are a Christian - and God only knows how His people today, in the lands of persecution, are discovering this thing! No more meetings or services, no more interchange with fellow Christians, no more sermons and addresses, no more public reading of the Bible, no more of all that. Isolated and alone, shut up by themselves. They are discovering what it means that they have got it all inside! And if they have not, they have lost everything.

We must never be in a position that if we lose the externals of meetings and preachings, and so on, we have lost everything. We must be in a position whereby if at any time we find ourselves in a situation or in a place where none of these things are available, we have got the Lord, and we have the Holy Spirit who is teaching us, 'bringing to our remembrance' as Christ said, the things which He had spoken - the blessed ministry of the Holy Spirit!

Now let no one think for a moment that I am saying that these other things are of no value and that you can give up meetings, give up having messages brought to you by the Lord's servants. No, that is not what John is saying. He is saying that whatever you have in that way, there is something deeper, something more than that. You have to know the Holy Spirit in your own heart as your teacher, as your inheritance, your instructor, showing you and guiding you into all the truth. That is not something extra to the Christian life. That is the normal Christian life. John is only seeking to bring these Christians back to what is normal. They have become subnormal in their spiritual life. "Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world"; and not only in the matter of intelligence, but in the matter of power, or energy, or strength.

And the wonderful thing about this greater power is that it works alongside weakness. Where is our power of endurance, of resistance, of overcoming, and taking ascendancy? We are weak creatures, and we are made so by God Himself. Weak and dependent in ourselves. We are counted as nothing in this world. And yet, my dear friends, when the story is fully told, it will be seen that our very survival - to say nothing of our ultimate victory - is the result of the working of the "exceeding greatness of His power" (Eph. 1:19), to get us through. It took nothing less than the almighty power of God to get us through because of the forces that were set against us.

Paul says: "Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me" (2 Cor. 12:9). Alright! Weak, yes, poor creatures... but the vessels of a power and energy that is supernatural. "Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world".

You and I have to be brought to that place where the Cross empties us of ourselves in order to make room for the greater One to be in us. The Cross has to weaken our strength of soul, mind and will in the things of God; our self-sufficiency, our self-assertiveness. The Cross must undercut all that and bring us to a state of brokenness, and dependence, where we know that, but for God, the situation is hopeless in us and we can do nothing. The Cross must bring us there. We must allow the Cross to do that, to provide all the room for the 'greater to be in us than is in the world'. In other words, the Holy Spirit takes over and becomes the source and energy of everything.

"This is the victory that has overcome the world".