READING:
Romans 5; John 12:20-28, 31-33.
I have been meditating upon the place of the
death of Christ in the Gospel by John, and I have found that numerous references
are made to His death in different ways, and that they are all in
connection with something new brought in as the result of it. We will look at
some of these.
At the same time I have been reminded with a sense of freshness of how often the
death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus in the later writings of the New
Testament has associated
with it the word "new". So often when we read there of the Cross of Christ and
its result, the
word "new"
occurs. You will recall immediately some of the references; Romans 6:4, for example: "We were buried therefore with him
through baptism into death: that... we also might walk in newness of life". There is newness
of life as the result of Christ's death and resurrection.
Then Paul, in the second letter to the Corinthians speaking of the death of Christ and our union with Him
in that death, and then of His
resurrection and our being risen in Him, says "If any man is in Christ (Christ risen) there is
a
new
creation: the old things are passed away behold, they are become new".
We could go on reminding ourselves of the occurrences of this word in relation
to the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, but we just make mention
of the fact now because these references to the Lord's death in John's Gospel
all bring something new before us, and it is the new things out from Christ's
death, in resurrection, which affect us, and should occupy us, not only now but
continuously.
We will run our eye briefly over this Gospel by John, to note some of these
things.
A New Man
Chapter 3:14-16: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the
Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever
believeth may in him have eternal life. For
God so loved the world, that he gave his
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal
life".
If you will look at the context of those words, you will
be able to see to what they bring us as related to the
death, the Cross of the Lord Jesus, and you will see that
there are two sides to that matter here.
There is the side which is represented by verse 14: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
even so must the Son of man be lifted up". Surely that
represents the death side of things; and it is perfectly
clear, and no one will for a moment dispute the fact, that
the Lord Jesus, God's Son, is not placed in that position
of correspondence to the serpent lifted up by Moses in
the wilderness, on His own account. No one will ever say
that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is personally rightly
represented by a serpent, for you will remember at once
that a serpent is always a symbol of a curse. The first
curse that ever came into this creation was pronounced
upon the serpent, and all the way through the serpent is
the embodiment of a curse. Now it is said that the Son of
Man is lifted up like the serpent. Why bring these two
things together? Surely they ought to be kept far apart,
and never be mentioned in the same breath. Surely there
is no correspondence. The Apostle Paul makes perfectly
clear what it means, when by the Spirit he writes to the
Galatians, "Christ redeemed us from the curse... having
become a curse for us" literally, "in our place". Then if
in that position, as made a curse, He is crucified, and that
as taking our place, surely that is the putting away in
death of ourselves representatively. Christ's death, then,
was representative of man who lies under God's curse,
because he has been led captive in death. God's Son has
stepped in, taken our place, been made a curse, received
the judgment of God, and has died as us. That is the
death side.
If that kind of man is removed out of the way, what
have you? You have the way prepared for something
new, a new man, and so verse 16 shows the other side.
God gave His only begotten Son to take the place of
man in sin, under the curse, "that whosoever believeth
on him should not perish (He has perished for them, and
they believe that He has perished for them in that act),
but have eternal life". The death of Christ brings out the
basis of a new position for man. Man's own position was
that of lying under judgment, reserved unto everlasting
death. Christ has stepped into that, taken man's place,
been made a curse, judged and separated from God
representatively. Now in His resurrection there is
provided an escape from that and the ground for a new
position for man. What is that? That there man is no
longer under a curse, separated from God, under
judgment, reserved for death, but in Christ he is risen by
faith, accepted by God, and in the place of blessing. That
is very simple, and there is a great deal of Gospel
packed into that, but you can see that the first reference
to the death of Christ in this Gospel brings forth that
death as providing a new standing for man before God,
and that is a wonderful thing. Man was in death;
now he is in life. He was in sin; now he is in Christ's
righteousness. He was separated from God; now he is
in union with God through the death and resurrection of
the Lord Jesus, which he has embraced through faith as
being on his behalf. That is what it means to believe on
the Lord Jesus; not just to believe the Lord Jesus, but to
believe on the Lord Jesus.
A New Sustenance
Chapter 6:53-54: "Jesus therefore said unto them,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the
flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye
have not life in yourselves. He that eateth my flesh
and drinketh my blood hath eternal life; and I will
raise him up at the last day".
When language like that is used the death of Christ is
pre-supposed. The Lord Jesus in so speaking is looking
on to His death, and bringing His death into view, and the
very words presuppose that Christ has died in order that
we may eat His flesh and drink His blood in the sense in
which He meant this. Eating and drinking simply means
inwardly appropriating. We have advanced here to see
that we are now on the ground of eternal life, beyond
that first presentation and acceptance of the death of
Christ. We are now in that position of which the Lord
was speaking to Nicodemus, in that very same chapter, "born from above".
We may state the position thus: 'I
have started, I have come into the new relationship with
God, I am saved. My great need is to be maintained and
to grow; to be maintained in that position, and yet not
just to stay there but to increase in that life, to grow and
develop'. That is God's thought for His children. He
would not just
have them to be those who are born again and stay
there, able to say, 'Yes, I am saved', but no more.
If I were to show you one who is a child in
dimensions, and were to tell you that this child is forty
years old, and is still having to be fed with a bottle, still
being carried about in a pram, still having to be nursed,
still having everything done for him, I wonder what you would say. You would call it a tragedy. There has not
been development mentally or physically. There are a lot
of Christians like that, truly born again but never having
advanced beyond that. All they are able to say is that
they have been saved; but they have never grown up.
The question, then, that arises is that, as children of
God through new birth, we have to grow to the full
stature of sons of God. For that we must be fed, we
must have nourishment;
we must be sustained in the life that we have, and we
must have that which shall make that life increase. Thus
we advance to this second step, and here we see the
death of Christ to mean that, with the putting away of the
old life in that death, on the one hand, there is brought in,
on the other hand, a fulness in Christ risen. It is not just
that He gives life, but in giving life He brings fulness for all
that that life requires. We have heard so many people
say, 'Well, if I start I fear I shall not be able to go on'.
What we have said is the answer to that. The Lord Jesus
in His risen life is a full provision for keeping us in life and
causing us to reach the full measure of God's thought for
us as His people. That is what the Lord Jesus means
here. He tells us that He is sufficient for all our
requirements in this new life, but we have to appropriate
Him on the ground that He has died and risen again.
The pre-supposition that Christ has died is in the
words "eateth my flesh... drinketh my blood". The
blood must be shed; that is, the life must be poured out
in order to be available, and we have continually to take
of that which Christ has released for us of Himself, His
own life, in order to grow up. We shall never fully
understand this. These people did not understand. When
He said these things some immediately exclaimed: How
can this man give us his flesh to eat". To those who are
God's children the method may be a mystery, but the
fact is no mystery at all. The fact is that some of us have
gone on for years in the Lord, in the face of everything
that we think could come
against us to stop us from so doing. If we could have
been held back, if we could have been thwarted, and
defeated, and baffled, and broken, and shattered, and
destroyed, and put
out of this life, we should have been, for all hell has
raged against this new life, and all the forces of evil have
come in our way to turn us back. It is not because of our
sheer force of will and determination that we have gone
on, for very often we have reached the point of despair;
but we have gone on, and are going on. Why? Because
it is a fact that we have trusted in Christ, and when He is
trusted He maintains. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus
brings not only the life, but all that the life requires to
make it full, to make it complete.
A New Relationship
Chapter 10:17-18: "Therefore doth the Father love
me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it
again. No one taketh it away from me, but I lay it
down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I
have power to take it again. This commandment
received I from my Father".
Here is another reference to Christ's death. If you look
at the context you will see that the Lord is saying, "I am
the good shepherd... I know my sheep". Then He says,
"Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also
I must bring... and there shall be one flock, one
shepherd". He is referring, in the first place, to the
Jewish believers as His sheep. Then when He speaks of "other sheep I have, which are not of this fold", He is
thinking of those Gentile believers which are going to
come, and He says, "Other sheep... one flock... one
shepherd". You will not see a Jewish strain of sheep,
and a Gentile strain of sheep. You will not be able to
make any such distinction. They will be one flock, two
flocks having been brought together into one fold; not
two strains of sheep, and not two brandings, as for it to
be possible to say, This is a Jewish believer, and that is a
Gentile believer; there will be one flock, and it will not be
possible to differentiate between the sheep. That is said
to be a consequence of Christ's death and resurrection.
Paul will explain that. He will tell you that Christ in His
death destroyed the enmity between Jew and Gentile,
and in His resurrection He made of the twain - Jew and
Gentile - one new man. You cannot imagine one man, a
man
who is one complete, perfect entity, being two men.
That is an absurd thought. Now, one new man means
that all that is diverse has been done away, and you
have one sort of man, one new man. It is to that the
Lord Jesus is pointing in this figurative way in John 10.
All this means that, as the result of death and
resurrection, believers from all different types of people
here on this earth come to possess a common life, so
that in the innermost reality of their being they are one.
This is something new. This is what Paul calls the new
man. It is a corporate man.
That is true in reality, so that to those of us who really
do know the Lord, and are the Lord's, it matters not
what nationality we are, it matters not at all what we are
in ourselves on this earth, we have something in common. We are living in an altogether different realm.
We are one in Christ. If you were to assemble a number
of persons of various nationalities into a room, and all
were truly born-again children of God, they would all be
found to be one in the deepest reality of their being, in
perfect fellowship, because of that inner truth, that they
shared the one life of Christ. If you deal with such a
situation apart from Christ, or the case be that of those
who are not in Christ, you will, of course, find that there
will be all kinds of diversities, differences, and those
differences will begin to operate, and make themselves
manifest. But in Christ there is a level where all that are
His meet and are one, and there is perfect fellowship in
our hearts, in our spirit, and the other things which are of
this world, of this earth, take a second place, and must
be kept in the second place.
This is one of the new things that come out of
the death of Christ: In His death He embraced
all nationalities. You must remember that
different languages and different tongues are the
result
of the curse, but in
His
death Christ took
the curse and destroyed it. In risen union with the Lord
Jesus we find ourselves in spirit lifted above the curse.
The many languages may still present a difficulty on the
earth, but in spirit we are one; we have a language
which we all understand. We are in Christ. Our
fellowship is there. That is a new thing that has come
with the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
A New World
Chapter 12:31-32: "Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the
prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will
draw all men unto myself".
Here you have two things in relation to the death of
the Lord Jesus: firstly, the judgment of this world;
secondly, the prince of this world cast out.
The judgment of this world took place in the Cross of
Christ. What is the judgment of this world? The Word of
God will supply the answer. "The whole world lieth in the
wicked one"; "All have sinned and come short of the glory
of God"; "The wages of sin is death." The Lord Jesus
in His Cross took upon Himself the judgment of the
world, the judgment of a sinful world; the judgment of
the world passed upon Him in His Cross. Then was the
judgment of this world. You say, If the world has been
judged, why look forward to a judgment in the future?
Well, if you accept by faith the judgment of the world, of
which you were a part, as having been taken by the Lord
Jesus, you have no judgment to look forward to with any
fear. Judgment has gone for ever if you have seen that
Christ has taken the judgment of the world, to which you
belong. If you have not taken that position of faith in
Him, then judgment still lies ahead for you, in the
judgment of the world. Christ has made it possible for us
to escape from this world.
The point is this, that because in Him the world was
judged in His Cross, you and I by the resurrection of the
Lord Jesus are out of the world; we have escaped from
the world in this spiritual sense that we are no longer a
part of it to be judged, we are delivered from it. What
have we then? A new world! Only children of God
understand that language, what that means, but they do
understand. You can test whether you have been born
again or not, whether you
really
have
come into a
living
relationship
with
Christ, by whether you find a clash
between your spirit and this world. Do you find you can
get on just as easily with ungodly men as ever you could? Do you find that this world is something which sickens
you? Do you feel a stranger in it, that you do not belong
to it, and in heart are really out of it? Do you find that
becomes more and more acute, so that as you move in
this world you feel it is an artificial world, that the
people in it are all living an artificial life? That is a proof
that you are out of it. If you have
no sense like that, then it is time you looked seriously
into the matter, because one of the first things that comes
to a true child of God is the sense of separation from,
and conflict with, the world. They go back to business,
and without saying anything about it they know, and,
strangely enough, without anything being said to the
people of the world in it, a sense of conflict arises.
Spiritual things speak very loudly, without audible
words.
This is the test of whether we belong to the Lord. Do
we in our hearts live in this world as strangers? This is
not our world, this is not home, and everything here is
foreign to us. "Now is the judgment of this world".
Ours is a new world, a world which will never be
judged. It is the world of Christ risen.
If you look at the part of the record that deals with the
period that followed His resurrection, you will see that
He never appeared to the world again after His Cross. It
was only to His own that He appeared. He was outside
of the world then.
A New Lord and Master
"Now shall the prince of this world be cast out".
That is something which comes in by the death of Christ.
The prince of this world held us in bondage; he was our
master, our lord. Not that we ever deliberately and
consciously worshipped the Devil, but that does not alter
the fact that by nature we are in the evil one. The
Apostle John says, "The whole world lieth in the evil
one", and by nature we are in the kingdom of Satan and
he is our lord. If he is cast out in the Cross of the Lord
Jesus, there is a new possibility, namely, of having
another Master, another Lord. So that, in the
resurrection of Christ, and our faith-union with Him, we
have a new Master, a new Lord.
You see what you have in each of these stages in
John. In the first place you have a new man, possessing
eternal life. Then you have a new provision for that new
man, for his sustenance. Then you have a new
relationship, in one flock, one Shepherd, and a new
relationship with believers. Then you have a new world.
Then you have a new Lord and Master. It is all very
simple, but all this is related to the death and resurrection
of the Lord Jesus.
Those who know it in their own lives and experience
will rejoice in being reminded of it, and will seek to
adjust themselves to it, and any who are not in the
enjoyment of it will know that it is as much open to them
as it is to any one.
"God so loved the world that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish (perish with the world, with the
accursed thing, with the Devil) but have
everlasting life".
This is the new door, the new way to having
everything new that is ours in Christ crucified and risen.