Sunday Morning at the Christadelphian Synagogue, Birmingham, No. 4
From Shorthand Notes by brother John Butler.
p. 741 JOHN, i.—We may be very thankful for the idea that is expressed in the first three verses of the chapter that has been read. It is an idea in which we have a direct and personal interest. It would not be written to Israel after the flesh, but to those in the p. 75truth among the Asiatic Gentiles; and therefore, it is as much addressed to us as to those who received John’s actual letter. It is important to recognise this, otherwise, we may fail to draw that consolation from it which we may do. Some may be prevented from doing full justice to themselves in the reading of the New Testament part of the word, by the idea that the things written by the apostles are confined, in their significance to those to whom these things were particularly addressed. This would be a great mistake. If such were the case, we should indeed have very little ground on which to build a hope; we in this remote island of the sea, living in this late period of the times of the Gentiles, would have no part or lot in the inheritance promised to Israel. But we have to recognise the fact, and be thankful for it, that God is no respector of persons; and that in Christ Jesus, there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free; and that therefore we stand in quite as privileged a position as any natural descendant of Abraham. This letter was written to Gentiles who had received the truth: we are Gentiles and have received the truth; and the only difference between us is this: they lived in the first century, in Asia Minor—we live in the nineteenth, in Great Britain; and that is no difference with God, for a thousand years are with Him as one day. There is no time with God; God is the same yesterday, to-day and for ever, from everlasting to everlasting—unchangeable. “That which was from the beginning,” says this authorised messenger of Christ, “which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the word of life (for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us); that which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ.” Now there are several very substantial and profitable ideas in these words. The first suggested to us is that we have not been personal witnesses of the facts upon which our faith is based. These facts may in a sentence be defined to be, the personal ministration of Jesus Christ, in Judea, for 3½ years, his crucifixion by the Romans, and his resurrection. Not that this is the beginning of the thing, for that was but the culmination, as we may say, in one sense, of the purpose that God had announced from the beginning. But so far as we are concerned, and so far as the message of the apostles was concerned, this is the groundwork of the gospel—this constituted the subject matter of the “witness” which the apostles personally delivered. Their first duty, in execution of the commission to go into all the world, was to tell people about these things; because these things formed the basis of the invitation which they were authorised to give to all men to become the servants of Christ. John puts his testimony on this point in the very foreground. He says “we have heard, we have seen with our eyes, we have looked upon, and our hands have handled” that manifestation of divine life and love which he preached, for the faith of men to lay hold of. It is the same with Peter; he says “We have not followed cunningly devised fables.” As he said before the tribunal of the Jews, “We cannot but speak the things we have seen and heard.”—(Acts iv, 20.) That they had seen and heard them is evident from the fact that they submitted to persecution, and ultimately surrendered their lives for declaring that they had so seen and heard Jesus of Nazareth for forty days after he had been put to death. That fact is evidence to us that what they said was true. Men never go in the face of disadvantage and opposition, without a motive. The motive in this case was a conviction that certain facts were true. It was not, as in the case of the persecuted Puritans, a persuasion of certain doctrines. The boldness of the apostles, on the one hand, and the antagonism of the Jewish rulers on the other, turned upon a question of fact, viz., whether the crucified Jesus had risen. Upon the fact, doubtless, the apostles founded a doctrine, but it was the fact and not the doctrine, that was the cause of the dispute that cost them their lives. Hence their firmness is evidence of the fact, which they asserted, and the basis of our faith. Their subsequent proceedings and writings show too much sanity and discrimination to admit the suggestion that though sincere, they were hallucinated. It is as John puts it here; we have seen, and heard, and handled. It is no myth, but a reality. This Jesus Christ has risen from the dead and is a real living man, and commanded his apostles, and also asks us to tell people about him, that we may gather out a sect for him.[?] People use the term “sect” in a reproachful sense; those who know the truth will see that instead of being a reproach, it is a p. 76necessary expression of the position to which those are called who believe the truth. There can be no people of Christ without a sect. The brethren of Christ created by the truth—are a sect of the most distinct and tenacious order, a peculiar people, a sworn people, a warm and enthusiastic people, if you will, a narrow-minded people, in the sense that their minds are narrowed down to a distinct apprehension of and an uncompromising contention for the things that are true about Jesus Christ. We are such a sect here assembled this morning—Christ’s sect, and though divided by a long distance of time, from the facts proclaimed by the apostles, yet with the intellectual means of grasping those facts as clearly and distinctly as those who listened to the personal ministrations of the apostles, we say to John and Paul, “Though dead, yet we hear your voice; we believe your testimony that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead, and that he was and is the resurrection and the life, and that he is the name of salvation given to men, by which they may be saved.” And we are here this morning to realise and recognise the object which John here asserts to have been the very object of their declaring all these things. For we must ever remember their proceedings had an object, They did not go abroad to declare the resurrection of Christ simply because they privately knew it to be a fact, and wanted other people to know it as an interesting fact. They had a palpable and intelligible and very definite object in view, and it is upon that object that we must concentrate our attention, for our belief of their testimony, apart from the object they had in delivering the testimony, is altogether vain. We had better never know what they taught if we fail to realize the object they had in view in teaching what they taught. Here John declares that object: “That ye may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His son Jesus Christ.” Now what does this mean? It means something very much more than the technical fellowship known to the language by which we define our ecclesiastical relations in this present imperfect state. To have fellowship with, is to be a fellow of, in the sense of being identical in mind, faith, disposition, principle, practice, taste and intention, and also in nature and relation. To have fellowship with the apostles, is to stand in their position, and their position John defines to be one of fellowship with the Father and his son Jesus Christ. To call men into this position is the object of the truth, but there are two stages in the attainment of it. The first relates to state of mind now, and the second to order of being at the full manifestation of the divine purpose. The first is the one we have more especially to concern ourselves with on the present occasion. John here says that a man has no fellowship with God if he walks in darkness. “If we say we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.” John is here addressing himself to those who believe the truth. He gives us to understand that a person who merely knows the truth intellectually—who merely believes there was such a man as Jesus Christ, and that he rose from the dead, and is theoretically offered as the salvation of God, but walks in unrighteousness, is none the better for his knowledge, and deceives himself, if he imagine he is a son of God. The mere knowledge of the truth will never secure for any one an entrance into the kingdom. The truth is but an agency; the gospel is but a means; and unless the end is realised, the means are a failure. Now the end proposed in the first instance is to give us fellowship with the Father. To do this, it must cause us to walk in the light John speaks of “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” We are not to read these terms darkness and light literally. There is nothing more conspicuous throughout the whole course of the scriptures than the metaphorical use of “light” and “darkness.” In this use, “light” is not a brightness to be seen by the physical eye, but a state of enlightenment—an intellectual and moral light. So darkness is not the absence of the sun’s rays, but it is the dakness referred to by Solomon, where he places darkness in antithesis to uprightness.—(Prov. ii, 1-10.) Now in God, as John says, there is no darkness at all. This is certainly true in every sense. God dwelleth in light to which no man can approach. He is the very source and focus of all the power we see abroad, and as such He doubtless is light. In fact it is not speculation; it is not opinion; it is a matter of declared fact that He dwelleth in the light, and the verity of this from what we may call a material point of view, is evident from a variety of circumstances, Moses, on Sinai, beheld the similitude of God; he did not behold the Father, for Jesus says “no man hath seen the Father at any time,” and we are specially informed with regard to the Sinaitic occurrences, that they took the form of p. 77angelic mediation.—(Acts vii, 38; Gal. iii, 19; Heb. ii, 2.) Yet, “the similitude of the Lord” Moses beheld. On the top of Mount Sinai he saw a representation of the Deity, no doubt in the person of one of the mighty angels of His power; and the fact to be noted is that there was brightness to be seen in connection with the manifestation, and the brightness was so great that when Moses came down from the mountain, the people could not look upon his face, and he had to put a veil over it. Take Jesus after the resurrection, Paul saw him, and his description is, that the light of his person was ‘above the brightness of the sun, and felled them all to the earth; and had such an effect upon Paul that it formed scales upon his eyes. Again, take the angel who rolled the stone from the sepulchre of Jesus: his countenance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow, and a great light shone about him. Light and power are connected with the things that are of God. This we may be permitted to experience in due time. But the sense in which we are to realise it now, and walk in the light, is the intellectual and moral sense. God is wise, and holy, and righteous, and merciful in the method of His procedure. Of course, it is difficult for us to comprehend the operations of the divine mind. His thoughts are higher than ours. We can only see them in their effects. The mental attributes of Universal Power are manifest in His works, as well as declared in His word. We can see but a little, but we see enough to fill us with awe and adoration. We see the perfection of His works, the wisdom of His operations, the beneficence of His designs. Everything has a good purpose. The very winds that blow and cause so much devastation, are, in existing circumstances, a necessary purification of this planet as a habitation; the very thunder-storms that crash, and roar, and destroy, and frighten man and beast, are the means of that equileibrial rectification of mundane forces, which is essential to our existence; the evils to which we are subject—the pains we feel—are but the obverse of beneficent law; for if we were incapable of pain, we should be incapable of enjoyment, and exposed to many destructions. A child looks at the fire, and his little imagination is charmed by the dancing flames; and but for the sensation which God has associated with their action upon our organisation, the little thing would put his hand into the fire, and feeling no pain, would proceed in his folly till destroyed. So with everything; if you go round the whole circle of nature, you will find beneficence the ultimate law of wisdom. Yet the rules of wisdom are never slackened to give beneficence a longer rope. Justice and righteousness hold the reins with unflinching hand. Their end is good, but they are never sacrificed or compromised for a presumed good. There is no clash in God’s work. The noiseless machinery of eternal and unvarying law, is perfect in all its parts. In this is disclosed the character of the Father. Righteousness, wisdom and goodness, are His supreme attributes. The practical use of this to us is simply this. Jesus says that we are to be holy as the Father is holy—and “Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” “Without holiness no man shall see God.” These are the words of Paul, and show us the high standard to which we are amenable. Now although it is true that we have an inferior nature, and one which, if left to itself, will inevitably gravitate to the earth; yet this is the case also—and it is of the utmost importance we should recognise it; because the recognition of it is a part of the means which will lead to our elevation to the divine nature, namely—that we are capable of being made different: that we are capable of becoming new men, and of approximating to divine things: that it is possible for us to be drawn up as well as drawn down. We have no impulse within ourselves to go up; it must come from without; but obtaining a lodgment from without, it becomes a power within. This power is the truth; this is the means of our elevation. They are placed in our hands, and we are responsible for the use or disuse of them. This, in fact, is the basis of our responsibility. If we are wise, we will appreciate and use them. We can only become the children of the light by dwelling in the light; we can only become holy by breathing the holy atmosphere of the scriptures; we can only become righteous by subjecting ourselves to those intellectual and moral impulses that induce righteousness; and these come from the scriptures. We have to walk in the counsel of God. If we walk in this counsel, and eschew the counsel of the world, we shall be blessed. “Blessed is the man,” says David, “that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the law of the Lord.” Here in this book, God shines upon us; His mind is brought to bear upon us; all His ways of looking at things are[?] disclosed to p. 78us, and if we are ignorant of them, it is because we have not used the means He has given us of knowing them. There is scarcely a thing that God could say to us, but what He has said. Certainly, so far as principles are concerned, He could say no more. He could acquaint us with the political programme that lies between us and the coming of Christ; He could tell us the exact date of Christ’s return, and such little things as these—mere facts; but so far as the great principles, that regulate our relation to God, are concerned, He has certainly told us everything he could possibly communicate; and in the telling of it He has—as always—acted upon the wisest principles. His definition of what He has done, is that He has given “here a little, and there a little, line upon line, precept upon precept.” In this He indicates the highest knowledge of our nature. We are so constituted that we could not take the truth in all at once. We could not effectually receive it in the form of a synopsis. A statement of our faith may be very useful for some purposes; but for a thorough acquaintance with the whole matter, it is necessary that it should be spread over a large area, and diffusely intermixed, as God has intermixed it, with the material of human history. It is spread over a surface of centuries, and interwoven with every incident of life. It is like a kaleidoscope: it is turned and turned and turned, assuming new shapes and colours at every move; and it is only by diligently following the track in which this continual evolution of divine thought has occurred, that we can get the benefit. This is our duty, our wisdom, and our life. What we have to do, is to walk in the light and have fellowship with the Father. This we do by having our minds assimilatad to His—to look at things as He looks at them—to understand the past as He comprehends it, to realise the present as He looks at it; to view the future as He views it; and we can only do these by reading, reading, reading. It is not to be done as a mere logical feat; theoretical conviction is only the basis on which this training must take place. A mere demonstration of the truth would not have been so effective as God’s plan. His plan is a line of history of 2 000 years, and around that string the interweavings of His mind in varying disclosures. Now there are many people that attain to a comprehension of the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, but do not put themselves in subjection to these means of divine enlightenment; and therefore do not realise their relation to divine will. Their knowledge is a mere skeleton outline; it is the knowledge of the mere doctrinarian. It is a knowledge of that which is true, and is the indispensable framework of true spiritual attainment, but in their case it is naked and useless. Unfruitfulness is the inevitable result of such a condition. The foundation must be built on; the framework must be filled up; the bones must be covered with the living flesh of spiritual life. The truth is intended to make of us a certain kind of people. God does not want simply human beings in His kingdom. There are plenty of them at all times. There are on the face of the earth at the present time 1,200,000,000, but they are as nothing to Him—mere flesh—mere living creatures—nothing at all to Him in His eternal purposes, any more than a tree, or a rock, or a beast. They are all His handiwork, and in their places, have their purpose; but God’s highest intention and enjoyments are connected with the development of independent intelligence in the creatures of His image. He taketh pleasure in the righteous. This is His highest pleasure. The flesh profiteth nothing: all the nations of the earth are nothing. They are counted to Him less than nothing, and vanity.—(Isaiah xl, 17.) Therefore we have to remember that human beings, (and we are all just that to begin with, without anything in our nature to commend us to the favour of God,) have no value as such. This is the continual sentiment of scripture; it is just the opposite of orthodoxy, which is continually preventing people from doing the right thing, and taking the right course, by telling them that the mere fact of being a human being, gives them a claim upon God’s good purposes. We were taught in the days of our ignorance that a human being is worth countless worlds, whereas a human being as such is not worth the dust of which he is made. God wants something more than human beings; He wants those who, by the truth, are brought into fellowship with Himself, and have their minds fashioned after His, and His principles incorporated with their mental being. We have not only to know the things of the kingdom and the name, but we have to grow up into Christ, our living head in all things. We have to become like him. Was he a cold man? “Nay, verily,” he says “The zeal of thy house hath p. 79eaten me up.” He was continually at work. Even when a boy, 12 years of age, he had to say to misunderstanding relatives “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” Was he a placid indifferent man—indifferent to God, unexcited by deep principles—unconcerned at the wickedness of the world? Many a man may fancy himself a very legitimate and respectable and christian sort of a person, because he goes through the world without doing any harm, and does pretty well in business, and gets on pretty comfortably. He perhaps has managed to provide himself with a snug house, a nice garden, a thriving family, and is rather respected by his neighbours; and he thinks upon the whole the world is in a tolerably fair condition. He feels comfortable and enjoys himself, and cannot make anything of this great outcry about the world being wicked and miserably off, and badly governed. He thinks he is a good sort of man himself, and that the world on the whole is not so bad; and that the man who is always croaking about evil times, and preaching about judgment to come, and, a millennium of righteousness, must be cracked. This gentleman we must leave alone. His complaisance shows whereabouts he is in the scale. Christ is our standard. What would his opinion of the existing order of things be? this is the way to look at it. The sleek well-to-do man of the flesh, with a comfortable balance at the banker’s, and some good investments, is naturally contented. This only proves where he is in the scale of moral beings. Satisfaction depends upon capacity. Poor puss is very comfortable as she sits purring by the fire, and would laugh, if she could, at society, with its scientific exhibitions and social ceremonies, and wonder what pleasure in the world these two-legged creatures could find in such occupations. Go a little further down, and we see another animal grunting and snoring in the mire; and Jesus gives us to understand that there are human pigs. He says “Cast not your pearls before swine,” that is, human swine. Now the gentleman I have been describing is one of them, though rather of a well conditioned and harmless order. It just comes to this, if we want to realise the standard to which God wishes His children to ascend, we must contemplate Jesus Christ and not take anybody’s opinion or sentiments apart from Him. We shall hear people say that we are extreme, that we are fanatical, that we carry things too far, because we try to be like him; but listen not to the voice of the serpent—listen continually, and all your lives, to the voice of wisdom, and there is some chance at least, of our entering the state in which all will be “holiness unto the Lord.”
EDITOR.