"In him was life; and the life was the light of men... And the Word was made
flesh, and dwelt among us..." John 1:4,14.
"Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the
Spirit... Ye must be born anew (or, from above)... whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:5-7,16.
"If thou knewest the gift of God... thou wouldest have asked of him, and he
would have given thee living water... from whence then hast thou that living
water? ...The water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that
I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting
life. John 4:10,11,14.
"For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son
quickeneth whom he will... The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall
hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. For as the
Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in
himself... Ye search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life:
and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might
have life." John 5:21,25-26,39-40.
"There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves... So they gathered them up,
and filled twelve baskets with broken pieces from the five barley loaves... Work
not for the meat which perisheth, but for the meat which abideth unto eternal
life... They said therefore unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread... I am
the bread of life... This is the will of my Father, that every one that
beholdeth the Son, and believeth on him, should have eternal life; and I will
raise him up at the last day... He that believeth on me hath eternal life. I am
the bread of life... He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath
eternal life: and I will raise him up at the last day... As the living Father
hath sent me, and I live because of the Father; so he that eateth me, even he
also shall live because of me. This is that bread which came down out of
heaven... he that eateth this bread shall live for ever." John
6:9,13,27,34-35,40,47-48,54,57-58.
"If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me...
out of him shall flow rivers of living water" John 7:37-38.
We will confine ourselves to the third chapter of John
for the present, and that which is brought before us in
this chapter is undoubtedly the life of the new creation,
and that life is Christ. The concern of Nicodemus is
evidently the concern about the kingdom of God. He
does not use the phrase, nor mention the kingdom so far
as is recorded, but the Lord Jesus quite clearly saw what
Nicodemus was interested in, and that was the kingdom
of God, as would be the case with every true Israelite.
So the Lord Jesus, reading his heart, and knowing his
mind, immediately took up the whole question of seeing
and entering the kingdom of God, and proceeded to
point out to Nicodemus that this was not a kingdom into
which anyone could be born by nature, not even though
he were of the stock of Israel, and a ruler in Israel at
that.
Natural Birth Cannot Confer Eternal Life
That natural birth, even though it might be into
surroundings where the kingdom of God is the one
interest, never brings into it. No one can come into the
kingdom of God by natural birth. One may be born into a
Christian family, and into the midst of Christianity as a
religious system, or what is called the Christian Church,
but no one is in the kingdom of God on account of such
birth. This is another kingdom altogether, wholly other
than the kingdom of nature, even though it may be
religious nature; and this, being a new kingdom, and a
wholly other kingdom, requires a new and wholly other
life. It is a Divine kingdom; it is the kingdom of God, and
therefore it requires a Divine life, a life which is God's
life. "As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given
the Son to have life in himself". Thus, in the whole
universe, the Father and the Son alone have that life in
themselves. It is important that we should know that,
even when we have received eternal life, we do not have
it in ourselves. We will speak further of that presently. "God hath given unto us eternal
life, and this life is in his Son". It remains in Him. "He
that hath the Son hath life". It is never parted from Him.
The point is that, being a Divine kingdom, this requires
a Divine life, and that means, as the Word so fully and
clearly shows, that we cannot live according to God, and
according to Divine things, by natural life. We cannot get
through to God with any natural resource, the resource of
our natural mind. We shall beat ourselves against the
gates of the kingdom of heaven, and never get through, if
it is the natural mind which is making the attempt.
We can never get through to God and His kingdom
with the natural heart. We may have all the emotion, all
the desire, all the passion, all the zeal; we may work
ourselves up to a high tension of emotional concern, and
never get through. No one has ever yet been
intellectualized into the kingdom of God, or been brought
into it by emotionalism.
This is true also of the natural will. "Nor", says the
Word, "by the will of the flesh, but of God". We cannot
will ourselves into the kingdom of God. We cannot get
through to the things of God by the strength of our own
natural will, however much we may make up our will,
determine, try, work, and resolve. Our will can never
take us through. No one has ever yet been "volitionalized" into the kingdom of God; that is, so
appealed to in their wills to make decision, and to
determine to be in the kingdom of God, as by the
strength of that decision and that determination to have
got through. It cannot be done.
A great deal of mistake has been made in that
connection, and an entirely false position has been
brought about for multitudes of people because the effort
has been made along those lines, and they have been
appealed to along those lines to exercise their own
reason, and their own feelings, and their own wills, as
though that would regenerate them.
Thus interest and activity in Christianity is one thing,
but being in the kingdom is quite another. Multitudes of
good-meaning people are interested in Christianity, and
are active in Christianity. They see the value of the
Christian standard of life, and Christian teaching, and
have thought, if only it could be applied, how different the
world would be. So they have become busy in
Christianity, and have thought they were in the kingdom
of God. Not at all!
You can have all the interest in Christianity without being
in the kingdom.
This is what the Lord Jesus said, in effect, and in other
and more concise words, to Nicodemus. The only way in
is by our receiving Divine life as a gift through faith in
Jesus Christ, and that becomes the new basis of the new
creation, the basis upon which everything begins and is
carried through, the basis of Divine life. That life has in it
all the qualities and energies of the new creation. It
constitutes our being in what is called the kingdom of
God.
Every Kingdom Governed by its Own Life
It is hardly necessary to remind you that every
kingdom is governed by its own life. In the vegetable
kingdom there is life, and the vegetable kingdom is
governed entirely by that kind of life. That life may be
very wonderful in that kingdom, and capable of doing
very wonderful things, as we see all around us; we see
the variety, the magnificence, the beauty and strength of
life in the vegetable kingdom. But it has its limitations; an
end is reached. Between the end of the life of the
vegetable kingdom and the point at which the life of the
animal kingdom begins there is a gap, and there is no
bridging of that division.
In the animal kingdom there is a wonderful variety, a
wonderful manifestation of life. Look at all that animal life
can produce! But then again you come to the end of that
kingdom, and there is an unbridgable gap, as in the
former case. While man may find friends amongst
animals, and there may be a kind of companionship,
there is not that intelligent, understanding fellowship and
communion between a man and a beast that is between
man and man. They live in two different worlds.
In the kingdom of human life the range of possibility, of
value, of variety is very great. To what a height human life
can reach! But it has its limitations, and here again an end
is reached. Between the natural-life kingdom and the
Divine-life kingdom there is a gap which cannot be
bridged.
For the vegetable to become an animal it must become
a new creation, with a new life in it. For the animal to
become a man, despite what evolutionists may say, it
must become another creation, with another life in it. And
for a man to become a child of God, an inheritor of the
kingdom of heaven, he has to become a new
creation, possessed of an entirely different and other life.
It is another kingdom.
So that the natural man is totally incapable of having
intercourse with the things of the Spirit of God; the two
things belong to two different kingdoms. Divine life is
essential, and that is the thing upon which Christ is
placing His finger of emphasis all the time, as recorded in
the third chapter of John, in His dealings with
Nicodemus.
Divine Life Must Direct the Whole Course
What is the next step? Having received Divine life as
a gift of God through faith in Jesus Christ, the obligation,
the necessity, and the blessing of the believer is to live by
faith on this new basis. It is the obligation which rests
upon him; he must. He is obliged to live by faith on this
new basis of Divine life, otherwise he misses all that for
which life has been given. He has to live by faith in it. It
will not just proceed automatically. It will proceed as
there is a deliberate and definite attitude taken toward it,
to live on that basis. It is necessary for the believer to do
that, and it is the privilege and blessing of the believer to
live by faith on the basis of Divine life.
It is an entirely new and different basis of life for the
believer than the life of nature, or the basis of the life of
nature. This life is not in ourselves, even when we have
received it. It is in Christ. It remains in Christ; but then
Christ is represented as being in us by the Holy Spirit
through faith. "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by
faith..." Christ within possesses this life, but keeps it in
Himself.
Can you grasp the meaning of this if we use a double
technical word? If you can it will be a great help. This
new life becomes subjective-objective. If we could grasp
that we should be saved from introspection, which is a
misapprehension of truth. Introspection is looking into
ourselves for something, trying to find something in
ourselves. But in the case of the Divine life, while the life
is in us, if true believers, yet it is not in ourselves, but in
Christ who is in us; while truly within, it yet remains apart
from us. You and I are never to look into ourselves for
the resources God has provided for the Christian life, but
into Christ, not alone as in heaven outside of ourselves,
but as dwelling within. We must always keep that
division, otherwise we shall become that morbid type of person, who is
always trying to find in himself what is not there,
and realising all the time he is not finding in himself what
he is looking for. That is a condition of great
wretchedness. But to know that Christ is there as our
sufficiency, and looking to Him as within, is deliverance
from self altogether, and we are delivered into Christ.
We have neither to produce Divine things, nor the result
of Divine things, in ourselves. We have not to work
ourselves up to be what we think we ought to be, as
though we could produce it. We have not to seek to
draw upon ourselves for the Christian life, for the things
of God in life and in service. It is not so, and it is fatal to
try to produce it as out from ourselves. It is not effort of
any kind that is required in relation to God. Listen to
that, and underline it.
It is not effort of any kind that is
required in relation to God and His things, but
positive faith in the Lord Jesus as within
us.
If we say it
is active faith, that is not contradicting the statement we
have just made, that it is not effort. Active faith means
that we proceed upon the basis we have stated, taking it,
assuming it, and proceeding accordingly. There is all the
difference between active faith which proceeds upon a
basis, and that effort which is trying to produce
something to proceed upon.
Divine Life for Man's Entire Being
Having said that, we can go the next step, and that is,
that this life in Christ in us is for the whole man, spirit,
soul and body. It begins in his spirit, where it makes him
alive unto God, who is a Spirit. For intelligent,
understanding fellowship with what is spiritual you must
be spiritual, and you must be alive in that kingdom which
is spiritual. Man by nature is not alive to God; his spirit is
not alive to God, who is a Spirit. Everything in the
kingdom of God is spiritual, and we know that this does
not mean that it is unreal, ethereal, or abstract.
Sometimes it can be far more real than what is material
and temporal. This Divine life begins, then, in man's spirit,
where it makes him alive unto God, and all that is of
God, to God's kingdom which is spiritual.
Then it is for his soul. Far from setting the soul aside,
and ruling it out as though it were a forbidden thing, the
Divine life quickens and energises the soul. The soul has
now been brought under the government of the Spirit of
life, the Spirit of God, and is no longer under the
government of the spirit of the world, of Satan;
and now under the government of the Holy Spirit, the
soul is to be energised by the Spirit of life. The mind is
one part of the soul, and has to be quickened thus. This is
a part of the inheritance in life, to have the quickened,
illumined, energised mind, and a mind quickened and
energised by the life of God outstrips the natural mind by
a universe as to knowledge and understanding. It opens
an entirely new world and kingdom, and it is not only
impossible to communicate concerning that with the
natural man, but foolish to try. It is useless to talk to the
natural man about the things of the Spirit of God.
Herein is the foolishness of preaching, so far as we are
concerned. It is at one and the same time a hopeless thing
to talk to the natural man of the things of the Spirit of
God, and yet not hopeless; but it means that we are cast
upon the Spirit of God to carry those things home with
effect, with power. For ourselves it is a blessed thing to
have a Divinely quickened and enlightened understanding.
We have a new world. How important this is for the child
of God. The Lord's desire for His own, and the Lord's
need in His own, is that they should have spiritual
understanding, and a mind quickened, energised, illumined
as to Himself, His ways, His things.
If this were recognized there would be fewer tragedies
of deception, delusion, error, and misleading. All such
things are the result of judging according to the natural
mind, and coming to a conclusion that certain things are
quite good and right because they appear to be so. The
language of certain persons may seem to be quite sound,
their arguments to be quite right, their ways to be the
proper ways, and to the natural mind everything appears
all right; there is no capacity for seeing beyond, and into,
and through. Then those concerned are carried away into
deception. They are deceptions because they are so
closely counterfeiting the things of God, and the enemy
knows quite well that, if he can put up a close counterfeit,
an imitation, there are enough Christians without spiritual
understanding to fall into his trap. So he produces vast
productions, counting upon this very thing, because he
knows of the existence of this state of affairs, this lack of
spiritual understanding in the people of God. This Divine
life is for the understanding, which in the natural mind, the
Word says, is darkened, but which in the kingdom of
God is delivered from the kingdom of
darkness, translated, and then quickened. This Divine
life is for the mind.
Then it is for the heart; a life to energise and maintain
desire, to govern the affections, to use in a right way the
emotions. Emotion is not a sinful thing in itself, but if we
think that natural emotion is of value in Divine things that
is where we go wrong. It is emotion of a right kind,
affection and feeling governed by the Spirit, and
energised by Divine Life, which is a feature in that
humanity which remains God's thought. Humanity is a
Divine thought. Humanity is an eternal thought. We are
not going to be disembodied spirits floating about in the
air throughout eternity; we are going to be human beings,
but after God's mind. This humanity is in heaven now, in
the person of the Son of Man, Who revealed Himself to
John in Patmos. John says, "I turned to see", and the
designation used concerning the One Who appeared to
him was "the Son of Man". There is a humanity after
God's original thought in heaven now, and to that it is that
you and I are going to be conformed. All the holy, pure
and right emotions and affections of the Son of Man are
to be found in us. This Divine life produces them, saves
them from that realm into which they have gone, which is
both false and futile.
The will is another part of the soul, and comes into the
same realm of Divine activity. The will is to be energised
by Divine life. On the one hand, we may be will-less in
ourselves, suffering perhaps because of the weaknesses
and debilities of the physical life, or for some other cause
our wills have lost their strength, and we cannot do. Now
the Divine life energises the will, and works in us as God
to will and to do of His good pleasure. On the other
hand, let us remember that it has to be a Divinely
energised will to achieve Divine ends. It is no more a
matter of the will of the flesh in doing the work of God,
than it is in being born again: "...which were born, not of
the will of the flesh..." If that is not true of the birth, it
cannot be true of anything that follows afterwards. So we
can produce no Divine fruits, achieve no Divine purpose,
accomplish no Divine work in the natural will, however
strong it is. The natural strength has to come under the
mastery of the Spirit of God.
Then this Divine life is for the body. We know that it is
in this direction and realm of things that many mistakes
have been made, and much confusion and contradiction
wrought amongst
the Lord's people. When a position is taken which is said
to be a true doctrinal position, and there is contradiction
in history and experience, the Lord's honour is involved,
and a great deal is brought against the Lord by a false
position. When we speak of Divine life for the body we
are not affirming that this necessarily means that the whole
of our physical infirmity and weakness, and the mortal
element in our bodies is destroyed, or set aside. It means
nothing of the kind. Of course, that ought to go without
saying, because, if that were so (and some people have
taken that extreme position, with disastrous consequences
to their doctrine and to the faith of others, and to the
honour of the Lord), then we should be in our
resurrection bodies now; it would be true of us now that
this mortal has put on immortality. Who would be
prepared to say that? Divine life does not destroy the
infirmity, and weakness, and mortality of this body, but it
energises over against all these. Paul is a very clear
example. Infirmity was always with him. To a very late
hour in his life he was almost dead through a sickness.
Weakness was his constant companion. He said much in
his letters about "this mortal flesh", and yet over against
that he went forward on his course until he himself could
just pour his life out as a drink offering to the Lord, laying
it down for His sake, and saying, "The hour of my
departure is at hand". He did not say, The hour has come
when I shall have to surrender to death working in my
mortal body, when I shall have to admit that I am beaten
by disease and infirmity. He went through to the end,
when from every natural standpoint death should have
claimed him long before.
It is a testimony to this great truth that, while there
may be infirmity, and mortality, and weakness, and even
disease, Divine life may be there all the time, energising
over against those things, until God's work is done.
Such an end is not one of defeat; it is a rounded-off
ministry, so far as
this present life is concerned.
Thus the whole man becomes a spiritual testimony to
Christ in His risen life, and that is what we are here for.
That takes us back to what we said earlier. It is the
obligation, and the necessity, as well as the privilege of
the believer, to live by faith on this basis. It does not
work automically, but we recall that it is written, "the life
which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son
Of God..." It is a case of living on Him by faith,
taking His life by faith for spirit, soul, and body in the will
of God.
Prisoners of the Lord
We have to govern all that with something
else which we must needs remember, and which
in some sense qualifies what has been said.
When you and I live upon a basis of Divine life, and seek to exercise faith for that life to be made
good in us for spirit, soul and body, we have to
be utterly the prisoners of the Lord, we cannot
do as we like. If you and I begin to exercise and
interest ourselves in things outside of God's permission, the life cannot work, and will not work,
and it will be death. If, in claiming Divine life
for your body, you begin to use your physical
energies outside of the will of God, Divine life
will not sustain you, will not support you. Your
body has to come within the limits of Divine
permission, and when you over-step you will find
the Lord does not go with you in Divine life, and
then you have a reaction, something goes wrong
physically or nervously.
It is the same in every other way. Divine life moves
within the compass of Divine interests and purposes, is
always in the direction of God's ends, and we shall find
life as we keep in that direction. We may have life as we
abide in Christ, but if in interest, in thought, in occupation
we get outside of that which is meant by Christ, there we
can neither count upon Divine life, nor draw upon it.
Remember that, lest you go off and say, I may count on
the Lord's life now! and begin to presume upon that life.
It only operates within the compass of the Divine will.
That does not necessarily mean that we are going to
be cut off from numberless things. The Lord can give
added blessedness to many things which in no way
contradict His mind, but it is when things come in to
conflict with some interest of His, and we begin to be
occupied with them, that we lose the operation of life. So
all the time our attitude has to be one of inquiry, and of
willingness in the direction of the Lord's will. Would the
Lord have this? Is this today in the Lord's will, or are
there interests of the
Lord's which require that this shall be left? Would this
run counter to some interest of the Lord? It is a matter
of life and death all the time.
This is Nicodemus, who is unable to go through to the
kingdom of God. The Lord said to him, "Art thou a ruler
in Israel, and knowest not these things? If I have
spoken to you earthly things and you have not
understood how will you understand if I speak heavenly
things?" The Lord was speaking of His illustrations, "the
wind bloweth where it listeth... "
of being "born anew".
Nicodemus was in a fog. He did not understand the Lord
even when He spoke in parabolic form. In effect he said,
I do not understand what you are talking about. Well,
Nicodemus, if I have come down to that level of
presenting things to you, and you cannot understand,
where will you be if I try to open up to you, and really
present, the bare, intrinsic, heavenly realities? It is
impossible for the natural man to get through even to the
simplicities of the things of God, and therefore there is the
necessity for even such an one as Nicodemus to have
another life.
Thus the Lord Jesus constantly brings things back to
Himself, and tells Nicodemus life is bound up with the
Son of Man, bound up with the Son of God. "God so
loved... that he gave his only begotten Son..." When you
look through John 3 and observe the personal references
to Christ, you will see that what the Lord was really
saying to Nicodemus was this: Nicodemus, what you
need is the Son of God in order to come into the
kingdom of God, for "he that hath the Son hath the life;
he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life." Now,
Nicodemus, you are a representative in Israel, and you
see how Israel is rejecting the Son, and is therefore in
death. Israel now can never come into the kingdom of
God until Israel is born again. That is the issue for you,
Nicodemus, as a representative of Israel, whether you
will accept the Son of God and live, and so come into the
kingdom.
Thus it is all brought back to the person; not to a thing, but a person; eternal life in Jesus
Christ our Lord.