We have observed that,
when the Divine thought as represented by the temple and
Jerusalem was forsaken and lost and the glory had
departed, Ezekiel was given and caused to write the
vision of a new heavenly house, a house in every detail
measured and defined from above. In the same way, when
the Church of New Testament times had lost its purity and
truth and power, and its heavenly character and order,
and the primal glory of those early New Testament days
was departing, then John was caused by the Spirit to
bring into view the new, wonderful, heavenly, spiritual
presentation, the Person of the Lord Jesus - that new
heavenly presentation of Christ which we have in John's
Gospel, his letters, and the Revelation - and we must
remember that the Gospel written by John is, in point of
time, practically the last writing of the New Testament.
Perhaps the real significance of this has not fallen upon
us with due power and impressiveness. We take up the
Gospels as we have them in the New Testament arrangement
of books, and immediately we are put by them back into
the days of our Lord's life on the earth, and from the
point of time that is where we are when reading the
Gospels. For us all the rest of the New Testament has yet
to be when we are in the Gospels, both as to the writings
and the history that followed; all is in prospect. That,
of course, is almost inevitable - perhaps almost
unavoidable, but we must try to extricate ourselves from
that position.
Why was the Gospel by
John written? Was it written just as a record of the life
of the Lord Jesus here on earth to go alongside of two or
three other records, that there might be a history of the
earthly life of the Lord Jesus preserved? Is that it?
That is practically the sole result for a great many. The
Gospels are read with a view to studying the life of
Jesus while He was on the earth. That may be very good,
but I do want to emphasize very strongly that this is not
the Holy Spirit's primary intention in inspiring the
writing of those Gospels. And this is particularly seen
in the case of John's Gospel, written so long after
everything else, right at the end of everything; for when
John wrote his final writings the other apostles were in
glory. John's Gospel was written when the New Testament
Church, as we have said, had lost its original form and
power and spiritual life, its heavenly character and
Divine order - written in the midst of such conditions as
are outlined in the messages to the churches in Asia at
the beginning of the Apocalypse; and that can be so
clearly inferred from his letters.
What was the object in
view? Well, just this: as John writes things are not as
they were, not as God meant them to be, they no longer
represent God's thought in and for His people. The order,
the heavenly order, has broken down and is breaking down
yet more. The heavenly nature has been forfeited and an
earthly thing is taking shape in Christianity; the true
life is being lost and the glory is departing. To that
situation God reacts with a new presentation of His Son
in a heavenly and spiritual way (for the features or
characteristics of John are heavenliness and
spirituality). Is that not true? Oh yes, here is a new
bringing into view of His Son. But what a bringing into
view! Not just and only as Jesus of Nazareth, but as the
Son of Man, Son of God, God revealed and manifested in
man, out from eternity with all the fullness of Divine
essence, that His people might see.
So we must get to the
Holy Spirit's standpoint in the Gospel by John, and in
his other writings, and just see this: that God's way of
recovery, when His full and original thought has been
lost and that heavenly revelation has departed and the
heavenly glory has been withdrawn, is to bring His Son
anew into view; not to bring you back to the technique of
the Church or the Gospel or the doctrine, but to bring
His Son into view - to bring Christ again in the
tremendousness of His heavenly and spiritual meaning
before the heart eyes of His people.
That is the answer that
is found in John to these conditions that we meet with in
the New Testament, which so plainly show that the Church
was losing its heavenly position, and all sorts of things
were coming in, and the whole thing was becoming earthly.
What will God do? In what way will He save His purpose,
which seems to be so dangerously near being lost? He will
bring His Son into view again. Remember, God's answer to
every movement is always in His Son. Whether that
movement be in the world as it heads up to Antichrist
(God's answer to Antichrist will be Christ in the full
blaze of His Divine glory), or whether it be in the
Church in declension and apostasy, God's answer will be
in His Son.
That is the meaning of
the opening words of the book of the Revelation. The
Church has lost her place, the glory has departed, but
God breaks in with a presentation of His Son.
''I am He that liveth; I
became dead, and behold, I am alive unto the ages of the
ages, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.''
Christ is presented, and
then everything is measured and judged in the light of
that heavenly Man with the measuring reed in His hand.
Everything for God and for us is bound up with a heart
revelation of the Lord Jesus. Oh, beloved, it will not
be, as I have said, in trying to recover the New
Testament technique. It will not be in a restoration of
New Testament order. It will not even be in the
re-affirmation of New Testament truth and doctrine. These
are things, and they can be used to form a framework, but
they can never guarantee the life, the power, the glory.
There are plenty here on this earth who have the New
Testament doctrine and technique and order, but it is a
cold, dead framework. The life, the glory, is not there;
the rapture is not there. Now God's way of the glory is
in His Son; God's way of the life is in His Son; God's
way of the power is in His Son; God's way of the heavenly
nature is in His Son.
An extract from "The School of Christ", Chapter 3. First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Sep-Oct 1942, Vol 20-5.