"Jesus
therefore said to those Jews that had believed him, If ye
abide in my word, then are ye truly my disciples, and ye
shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
They answered unto him, We are Abraham's seed, and have
never yet been in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye
shall be made free? Jesus answered them, Verily, verily,
I say unto you, Every one that committeth sin is the
bondservant of sin. And the bondservant abideth not in
the house for ever: the son abideth for ever. If
therefore the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free
indeed" (John 8:31-36).
"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of
your father it is your will to do. He was a murderer from
the beginning, and standeth not in the truth, because
there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he
speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father
thereof" (John 8: 44).
"Ye have not known him: but I know him; and if I
should say, I know him not, I shall be like unto you, a
liar: but I know him, and keep his word" (John 8:
55).
"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth,
and the life" (John 14:6).
"The Spirit of truth: whom the world cannot
receive; for it beholdeth him not, neither knoweth him:
ye know him; for he abideth with you, and shall be in
you" (John 14:17).
"But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send
unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which
proceedeth from the Father, he shall bear witness of
me" (John 15:26).
"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven
against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who
hold down the truth in unrighteousness" (Rom 1:18).
"For that they exchanged the truth of God for a
lie" (Rom 1:25).
"If so be that ye heard him, and were taught in him,
even as truth is in Jesus" (Eph 4:21).
"Put on the new man, which after God hath been
created in righteousness and holiness of truth" (Eph
4:24).
"These things saith he that is holy, he that is
true" (Rev 3:7).
"These things saith the Amen (=Verily), the faithful
and true witness" (Rev 3:14).
In our previous meditation, we were speaking together
about the School of Christ, and we were saying that every
true child of God is brought into the School of Christ
under the hand of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the
anointing, and that there the first great work of the
Holy Spirit is to present Christ to the heart as God's
object for all the Holy Spirit's dealings with us. Thus
Christ is first of all presented and attested by God as
the object of His pleasure, and then the Holy Spirit
makes known the Divine purpose in connection with that
inward revelation of the Lord Jesus, namely, that we
should be conformed to the image of God's Son. Then we
were speaking about two or three basic lessons in the
school, things which underlie our education. Firstly, the
Holy Spirit takes pains to make all who are under this
discipline (for that is the meaning of a disciple) to
know in experience, in an inward way in their own hearts,
the altogether 'other-ness' of Christ from themselves.
Then He also works to bring us to the place where we
realize how impossible the situation is apart from
miracles of God, that of ourselves we can never be like
Christ. The one upshot of it all is that this must be
something outside ourselves which is God's own doing.
Well, this is all preliminary in the School of Christ,
although it seems to me that this preliminary education
goes on to the end of our days. At any rate, it seems to
be spread over a great deal of our life, though there
should be a point reached which represents a definite
crisis in the matter, at which a foundation is laid
wherein these three things are recognized and accepted,
and we shall not get very far until it is so. The person
who really does begin to move is the person who has had
his final despair over himself, and has come to see quite
clearly by the Holy Spirit's illumination that it is
"no longer I, but Christ"—'Not what I am,
O Lord, but what Thou art, that, that alone, can be my
soul's true rest': Thy love, not mine; Thy peace, not
mine; Thy rest, not mine; Thy everything, nothing of
mine; Thyself! That is the essential foundation of
spiritual growth, spiritual knowledge, spiritual
education.
"I
AM THE TRUTH"
Now, in
this meditation, we come to look at the Lord Jesus more
closely as God's object and standard for the Holy
Spirit's work in us, this 'other-ness' which He
represents, and we have read a number of passages, all of
which, as you noted, bear upon truth. Surely those
passages in the Gospels must have played a part in the
disciples' education. In the first place there was the
statement or declaration made to the Jews—a
tremendous thing to be said in the hearing of those
disciples. There were Jews who made a profession of
believing. The Lord Jesus raises the question of
discipleship with them. He said to those Jews who had
believed Him (it does not say they had believed on
Him), "If ye abide in my word, then are ye truly my
disciples; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth
shall make you free." They answered back at once
with the counter claim, "We are Abraham's seed, and
have never yet been in bondage to any man." He
presses this matter of the truth, truth in relation to
Himself. "If therefore the Son shall make you free,
ye shall be free indeed." "Ye shall know the
truth, and the truth shall make you free." The
question of whose seed they were arose, and associated
with that the statement "if therefore the Son shall
make you free, ye shall be free indeed". Do you
follow that? Knowing the truth is knowing the Son.
Freedom by the truth is by the knowledge of Him.
Then to the Jews—I presume of the more violent
type— He said these words of unparalleled strength:
"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of
your father it is your will to do. He was a murderer from
the beginning, and standeth not in the truth . . . he is
a liar, and the father thereof . . . when he speaketh a
lie, he speaketh of his own." Tremendously strong
language, and all on this question of the truth, the
truth as bound up with Himself.
Then, when you come to chapter 14, He is with His
disciples alone; and Philip says to Him, "Lord, show
us the Father, and it sufficeth us." His reply is,
"Have I been so long time with you, and dost thou
not know me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the
Father." Another question in the school: "Lord,
we know not whither thou goest; how know we the
way?" "I am the way, and the truth . . ."
I am the truth. The truth is not some thing;
the truth is a Person. Well, all this is in the School of
Christ, bearing upon Christ as the Truth.
I do not know how strongly you feel about the matter, but
our object surely is that we should come to feel very
strongly about these things. How do you feel about the
importance of having a true foundation? and after all,
the supreme feature in a foundation is truth, that the
thing should be well and truly laid. This foundation has
to take a fairly heavy responsibility, no less a
responsibility than our eternal well-being and destiny,
nay, the very vindication of God Himself. Therefore it
must be absolutely true and the truth, and it surely
behoves us to make very sure of where we are; in other
words, to have done with all our unreality, to finish for
ever with anything that is not genuine and utterly true
in our position. It is just this that we are going to
press and analyze for a little while now. So great are
the consequences that we cannot afford to have anything
doubtful in our position.
It is like this. You and I are going to face God
sometime. We are going to come face to face with God
literally in eternity and then the question is going to
arise, Has God at any point failed us? Shall we be able,
on any detail, to say, Lord, You failed me, You were not
true to Your word? Such a position is unthinkable, that
ever any being should be able to lay a charge like that
at God's door, to have any question as to God's truth,
reality, faithfulness. The Holy Spirit has been sent as
the Spirit of truth to guide us into all the truth, so
that there shall be no shadow whatever between God and
ourselves as to His absolute faithfulness, His truth to
Himself, and to all His word. The Holy Spirit has come
for that. If that is true, then the Holy Spirit will deal
with all disciples in the School of Christ to undercut
everything that is not true, that is not genuine, to make
every such disciple to stand upon a foundation which can
abide before God in the day of His absolute and utter
vindication.
THE
NEED FOR A TRUE FOUNDATION
But in order that this
may be so, you and I, under the Holy Spirit's teaching,
have to be dealt with very faithfully, and have to come
to the place where we are perfectly adjustable before
God, where there is all responsiveness to the Holy
Spirit, and nothing in us that resists or refuses the
Holy Spirit, but where we are perfectly open and ready
for the biggest consequence of the Holy Spirit putting
His finger upon anything in our lives needing to be dealt
with and adjusted. He is here for that.
The alternative to such a work of the Holy Spirit being
allowed to be done in us is that we shall find ourselves
in a false position, and it is far, far too costly to
find ourselves in a false position, even though it only
be on certain points. This is a false world we are living
in, a world that is carried on upon lies. The whole
constitution of this world is a lie, and it is in the
very nature of man, though multitudes do not know it, but
think they are true. They are trying to build the world
on a false foundation. The Kingdom of God is altogether
other. It is built upon Jesus Christ, the Truth.
Well now, my emphasis at the moment is upon the need for
a true position where we are concerned. Oh for men and
women in whom the truth of Christ has been wrought and
who will go on with God, no matter what it costs.
"Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?"
"He that speaketh truth in his heart . . . he that
sweareth to his own hurt"—that is, who takes
the position of verity though it cost him dear. We are
influenced by all sorts of false considerations,
influenced by what others will think and say, especially
those in our religious circles, of our tradition; and
they are false considerations and false influences. They
bind and keep many men and women from going right on with
God in the way of light. The issue is a false position at
last.
Will you accept it when I say that there is no truth in
us? This is one of the things we are going to find out
under the Holy Spirit's dealings with us, that there is
no truth in our minds naturally. We may be the most
strongly convinced, and we may be prepared to lay down
our lives for our convictions and to put everything into
the crucible for what we believe with all our beings is
right, is true, and in that very thing we may be utterly
wrong. Such was the case with Saul of Tarsus—"I
verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many
things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth"
(Acts 26:9). Again, "The hour cometh, that whosoever
killeth you shall think he offereth God service"
(John 16:2); so zealous for their conviction—That is
God's will! God's will! —convinced it is God's will;
some to give their own lives on the strength of their
conviction, and some to take other people's lives on the
strength of their conviction. How far we will go on the
strength of conviction and be wrong, utterly wrong, as
utterly wrong as we are in earnest. A false conviction;
and there is not one human mind incapable of getting into
that state. The seeds of that are in human nature, in
every one of us; in the mind as to conviction, the heart
as to desire. We may think our desire is a perfectly pure
and right one, and it may be utterly false; and so with
our will, just the same. In us by nature there is no
truth.
LIVING
BY THE TRUTH
I am going to get right
down inside this thing. What is a Christian? A Christian
is one who was not a very good tempered person, but is
now good-tempered; not a very genial person, but is now
very much more genial; a person who was not very zealous,
but is now very zealous; a person who is different in
disposition from what he was formerly. Is that a true
definition of a Christian? Give me a homeopathic cabinet.
Bring along to me a very irritable person. Give him a
dose of, what shall I say?—nux vomica; in two or
three hours he will be a very good-tempered man. Is he a
Christian? Give him something else; turn him back to what
he was before. Was he saved, and has he backslidden?
Drugs can change a man's temper in a few hours. From
being a lethargic, careless, indifferent person, you
become alive, energetic, active; from being miserable,
discontented, morose, melancholic, disagreeable,
irritable, you become amiable, pleasant, relieved from
all that nervous strain which was making you like that,
and all that disordered digestion which was making you
such a boor to live with. For a little while, you have
made a Christian with drugs! You see the point.
Where is the truth? If the truth about my salvation lies
in the realm of my feelings, my digestive system, my
nervous organism, I am going to be a poor Christian;
because that will be changing from day to day according
to the weather or to something else. Oh no! Truth; where
is the truth? "Not what I am, but what Thou
art." That is where the truth is, "Ye shall
know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
Free from what? Bondage! What bondage? Satan clapping his
chains of condemnation upon you because today you are not
feeling up to scratch. You are feeling bad in your
constitution, and you are feeling depressed, you are
feeling death all around, you are feeling irritable, and
Satan comes along and says, You are not a Christian! a
fine Christian you are! and you go down under it. Is that
the truth? It is a lie! The only answer for deliverance
and
emancipation is, 'It is not what I am, it is what He is;
Christ abides the same.' He is not as I am, varying here
in this human life from hour to hour and day to day: He
is other.
Forgive me being so strong in my emphasis, but I do feel
this is the only way in which we are going to be saved
really. Jesus, you see, says, "I am the truth."
What is the truth? It is that which stands up to all
arguments of Satan who is "a liar and the father of
it". It is that which delivers us from this false
self which we are; and we are a false self. We are a
bundle of contradictions. We can never be sure that we
are going to be of the same mind for long together, that
our convictions are not going to do a right-about-turn.
Oh no, it is not ourselves at all; it is Christ. You see
what a false position we could be in if we were on that
other level of nature. What a game the Devil could play
with us.
I am using these illustrations to try to get to the heart
of this. What is the truth? What is true? It is not found
in us. We are not true in any part of our being. Christ
alone is truth, and you and I have to learn how to live
on Christ, and until we have done that the Holy Spirit
cannot do the other thing. Perhaps you are saying, Is not
a true Christian less ill-tempered? Is there no
difference at all? Is a Christian right to be irritable
and all that? I am not saying that, I am not letting you
off on that; I am saying that in the school, until you
and I have learned to hold on to Christ by faith, the
Holy Spirit has not the ground upon which to work to
bring us into conformity to Christ. If we are going to
live upon the false basis of ourselves, the Holy Spirit
leaves us alone. When we come to live by faith on Christ,
then the Holy Spirit can come in and make Christ good in
us, and teach us victory and teach us mastery, and teach
us by deliverance how not to become a prey to good or bad
feelings in ourselves, but to live on another level
altogether. I mean this, that you cut the ground from
under a great deal when you really get on to the ground
of Christ.
Take irritability, for example. Some of you, of course,
may never suffer in that way at all, but others do know
what that battle is. Well, let us take such a case. Today
we feel like that, all nervy, strained and short. What
are we going to do about it? Are we going to make that
our Christian life or the negation of our Christian life?
If we come on to that ground, then Satan is always swift
to make the most of it and bring us into terrible bondage
and really to kill all spiritual life. But if you will
take the position, 'Yes, that is how I feel today, that
is my infirmity today, but Lord Jesus, You are other than
I am, and I just rest on You, hold on to You, make You my
life', you see what you have done. You have cut the
ground from under the feet of the Devil altogether, and
you will find that there is peace along that line, and
rest, and although you may still be feeling bad in the
outer part of you, in the inner part you are at rest. The
enemy is shut out from the inner part of you, he has no
place there. The peace of God stands sentinel over heart
and mind through Christ Jesus; the citadel is safe. What
Satan is always trying to do is to get into the spirit
through the body or soul and to capture the stronghold,
the spirit, and bring it into bondage. But we can remain
free inwardly when we are feeling very bad outwardly.
That is freedom by the truth. That is the truth! Not a
thing, not an affirmation, but a Person. It is what
Christ is, and He is altogether different from what we
are. Well, the Holy Spirit would teach us, as the Spirit
of Truth, that it is abiding in Christ that means
everything. The alternatives are to get into ourselves,
or into other people, or into the world, in a mental way.
Abide in Christ and there is rest, there is peace, there
is deliverance.
But do not forget that, if we mean business with the Holy
Spirit, He is not going to allow us to be deceived. I
mean that the Holy Spirit is going to expose our true
selves. He is going to uncover us and show us thoroughly
there is nothing sound in us, nothing to be relied upon
in us, in order that He may make it equally clear that it
is only in Christ, God's Son, that there is security, and
safety, and life.
I have a sense of failure in trying to convey to you what
I have in my heart. So many people think that the
spiritual life, the life of a child of God, is a matter
of things. It is a thing called 'the message of the
Cross'. It is a thing called 'sanctification'. It is a
thing called 'deliverance'. It is thing called 'death
with Christ'—some thing. They are trying to
get hold of it, and there is no deliverance that way at
all. It does not work. 'Its' do not work! It is all a
matter of the Person, the Lord Jesus, and the Holy Spirit
will never save us by an 'it'. He will always bring us to
the Person, and make Christ the basis of our life, of our
deliverance, of our everything. So the word is
"Christ Jesus . . . is made unto us wisdom from God,
both righteousness and sanctification, and
redemption" (1 Cor 1:30).
THE
ABIDING NEED OF FAITH
Well, I must close. The
work of the Holy Spirit is to conform us to Christ, to
cause us to take the form of Christ, to form Christ in
us; but Christ will always remain other than we are, so
that there will never cease to be a call for faith. Do
you expect to reach a point in this earthly pilgrimage
when faith can be dispensed with? It is a false hope.
Faith will be required as much as ever in your last
moments in this life, if not more than at any other time.
Faith is an abiding thing for the duration of this life.
If that is true, that in itself dismisses any hope
whatever of our having the thing in ourselves. That was
the first sin of Adam, that choice of his, not to have
everything in God, but to have it in himself in
independence, to get rid of the idea of faith. So he
sinned by unbelief, and all the sin that has come in
since is traceable to that one thing—unbelief. Faith
is the great factor of redemption, of salvation, of
sanctification, of glorification; everything is through
faith. It undoes the work of the Devil. And faith simply
means that we are put into the position where we have not
got it in ourselves, we only have it in Another, and can
only know it and enjoy it by faith in that Other. Thus
Galatians 2:20 always comes with renewed
force—"I have been crucified with Christ; and
it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and
that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith.
the faith, which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and
gave himself up for me" (A.R.V.). I live the life in
the flesh by faith in the Son of God.
The Lord interpret His
word to us.