Reading: John
1:4; 2:3; 3:3; 4:13-14; 5:5-9; 6:33-35; 9:1-7; 11:1-6,
17,21,23,25-26.
A
ZERO POINT
ALL these passages which
we have read are really a sequence. They are the outflow
of the first. "In him was life; and the life was the
light of men." And you will notice that they all
represent a zero point. The mother of Jesus said unto
Him, They have no wine: there is nothing to draw upon!
The next chapter is only another way of saying the same
thing. Nicodemus came to Jesus and sought to commence at
a point which he considered to be a good point from which
to begin negotiations with the Lord Jesus, but it was a
point far in advance of that which the Lord Jesus could
accept: so He took him right back to zero, and said: Ye
must be born again. We cannot start at any point beyond
that. If you and I are going to come into any kind of
living relationship, we must get right back there: we
must come to zero and start from zero. "Ye must be
born again." For except a man be born anew, he
cannot see. It is no use our starting at some point
where, after all, we are incapacitated from seeing.
Chapter 4 is but another way of setting forth the same
truth. The woman after all is found to be bankrupt, at
zero. Jesus gradually draws her out and the final
expression from her side is, in effect, Well, I don't
know anything about that, I have not anything of that; I
have been coming here every day, day after day, but I
know nothing about what you are talking of! She is down
to zero: and then He says, That is where we begin. The
water that I shall give is not the drawing upon your own
resources at all, not bringing something out of your
well, it is not something that you can produce and I
improve upon and make better. No, it is something which
comes solely and only from Myself; it is a new act
altogether apart from you; it is the water that I shall
give. We begin all over again in this matter.
Then in chapter 5 the
Holy Spirit is careful to make perfectly clear that this
poor fellow was in a hopeless state, that every effort
was abortive, every hope was disappointed. For thirty and
eight years, a lifetime, the man had been in that state,
and there is the note of despair in the man. The Lord
Jesus does not say to him, Look here, you are a poor
cripple; I am going to take you in hand, and after a
course of treatment I will have you on your feet, I will
make those old limbs over anew, I will improve on your
condition. Not at all. In an instant, in a moment, it is
a start again. The effect of what He does is as though
the man were born again. This is not curing the old man,
this is making a new man, in principle. This is something
that comes in that was not there before, and could not be
produced before, the ground of which was not there,
something which was uniquely and solely Christ's doing.
It was zero, and He began at zero.
Chapter 6—a great
multitude. Whence shall we buy bread enough for this
multitude? Well, the situation is quite a hopeless one,
but by His own act He meets the situation, and then
follows on with His great teaching to interpret what He
has done in feeding the multitude. He says, I am the
Bread which came down from heaven. There is nothing here
on this earth that can meet this need; it has to come out
of heaven, Bread out of heaven for the life of the world:
otherwise the world is dead. We begin at zero. (The
loaves and fishes may represent our small measure of
Christ which can be increased.)
Chapter 9—the man
born blind. Not a man who has lost his sight and is
having his sight recovered. That is not the point at all.
The glory of God is not found in improving, the glory of
God is found in resurrection. That is what is coming out
here. The glory of God is not found in our being able to
produce something or put something into God's hands,
something of ours, that He can take up and make use of.
The glory of God is something solely out from God
Himself, and we can contribute nothing. The glory of God
comes out of zero. The man was born blind. The Lord Jesus
gives him sight; he never had sight before.
Then chapter 11 gathers
it all up. If you like to sit down and look at Lazarus,
you will find that Lazarus is the embodiment of
"They have no wine". He is the embodiment of
"Ye must be born again". He is the embodiment
of "the water that I shall give shall be in him . .
." He is the embodiment of a bankrupt state; in the
grave four days; but the Lord is coming to that. Lazarus
is the embodiment of chapter 6: "I am the living
bread which came down out of heaven . . . for the life of
the world". Lazarus is the embodiment of chapter 9,
a man who is without sight, who is given sight by the
Lord Jesus. Lazarus gathers it all up. But if you notice,
in gathering up everything, the Holy Spirit is very
careful to stress and emphasize one thing, namely, that
the Lord Jesus will not touch the thing until it is far,
far removed from any human remedy. He will not come on to
the scene, or into association with it, until from all
human standpoints it is bankrupt, it is at zero. And this
is not a question of lack of interest, lack of sympathy,
or lack of love, for here the Spirit again points out
that love was there. But love is bound by a law.
THE
GOVERNING LAW—THE GLORY OF GOD
Divine love is bound by
a law. Love has a law where God is concerned. God's love
is under a law. God's love is under the law of the glory
of God, and He can show His love only in so far as
showing His love is going to be to His glory. He is
governed by that. In all the showings of His love, His
object is that He may be glorified, and the glory of God
is bound up with resurrection. "Said I not unto
thee, that if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see
the glory of God?" "Thy brother shall rise
again." The glory of God is in resurrection, and
therefore love demands that everything shall come to the
place where only resurrection will meet the situation; no
curing of things, no remedying of the old man.
Oh, let me start right
back at the beginning if it is necessary. There are still
a lot of people in this world who think that there is
something in man that can contribute to the glory of God
and that Christianity is only the bringing up out of man
of something that is for the glory of God. That is a
long, long-standing fallacy and lie. It is not true.
Call it what you like; it goes by various names, such as
'the inner light' or 'the vital spark'. The Word of God
all the way through is coming down tremendously on this
thing. I start at zero, and zero for me means that I can
contribute nothing. Everything has to come from God. The
very fact that the gift of God is eternal life means that
you have not got it until it is given to you. You are
blind until God gives you the faculty of sight. You are
dead until God gives you life. You are a hopeless cripple
until God does something for you and in you which you can
never do. Unless God does this thing, unless this act
takes place, well, there you lie. Spiritually, that is
how you are. You can contribute nothing. Nicodemus, you
have nothing to give, you must be born again; I cannot
take you at the point at which you come to Me! Woman of
Samaria, you have nothing, and you know it and confess
it: that is where I begin! Man of Bethesda, you can do
nothing, and you know it: then it all rests with Me! If
ever there is to be anything, it rests with Me! Lazarus,
what can you do now, and what can anybody make of you? If
I do not come right in as out from heaven and do this
thing, then there is nothing but corruption!
This is one of the great
lessons that you and I have to learn in the School of
Christ, that God begins for His glory at zero, and God
will take pains through the Holy Spirit to make us to
know that it is zero; that is, to bring us consciously to
zero, and make us realize it is all with Him. You see,
the end is always governing God, and the end is His
glory. Take that word through this Gospel again—the
glory of God in relation to Christ. We were saying in a
previous meditation that God's great end for us in Christ
is glory, fullness of glory. Yes, but then there is
this—that no flesh should glory before Him. And
where does that come? —"He that glorieth, let
him glory in the Lord" (1 Cor 1:29-31). And what is
that connected with?—He "was made unto us
wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification,
and redemption: that, according as it is written, He that
glorieth, let him glory in the Lord". It is a
question of what He is made to be. No flesh is to glory
before Him. "My glory will I not give to
another" (Isa 42:8; 48:11). Therefore it is all the
Lord's matter and He will retain it in His own hands.
"And when he had heard . . . he abode two days . . .
where he was" (John 11:6). In love, governed by
love, that the glory of God might be revealed, He kept
away.
Have we got settled on
this? We take so long to learn these basic elementary
lessons. We do still cling to some sort of idea that we
can produce something, and all our miserable days are
simply the result of still hoping that we can in some way
provide the Lord with something. Not being able to find
it, but breaking down all the time, we get miserable,
perfectly miserable. It takes us so long to come to the
place where we do fully and finally settle this matter,
that if we lived as long as ever man lived on this earth,
we shall not be able to contribute one iota which can be
acceptable to God, and which He can take and use for our
salvation, for our sanctification, for our glorification,
not a bit. All that He can use is His Son, and the
measure of our ultimate glory will be the measure of
Christ in us, just that. There will be differences in
glory, as one thing differs from another. One glory of
the sun, another of the moon, another of the stars. There
will be differences in degree of glory, and the
difference in degree of glory ultimately will be
according to the measure of Christ that each one of us
severally has. That in turn depends upon how much you and
I by faith are really making Christ the basis of our
life, the very basis of our living, of our being, how
much the principle of these familiar words has its
application in our case, 'Not what I am, but what Thou
art'. Christ is all the glory, 'the Lamb is all the glory
in Immanuel's land'.
Beloved friends,
whatever you go away with, go away with this, that from
God's standpoint, the glory of life depends entirely upon
our faith apprehension, appropriation and appreciation of
Christ, and there is no glory at all for us now or in the
time to come but on that ground and on that line. I know
how simple that is, how elementary, but oh, it is such a
governing thing. Glory—that the Lord shall be
glorified in us. What greater thing could happen than
that the Lord should be glorified in us? The glory of God
is bound up with the resurrection, and resurrection is
God's unique and sole prerogative. So that if God is to
be glorified in us, you and I have to live on Him as the
resurrection and the life from day to day, and know Him
as that as we go through life.