Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

This video is a little over 4 hours long, but is broken into 11 segments. This part is covered from 31 minutes to 1 hour 7 minutes.

1 John 1:1-4.

The apostle Paul tells us that God dwells in light — unapproachable light (1 Tim. 6:16). He is the invisible God (Col. 1:15; 1 Tim. 1:17; Heb. 11:27). No man has ever seen Him. It is not possible for man to see God in His essential Godhead. Man’s constitution makes him able to see only what is within the range of his vision — not the invisible.

Even angels, who by creation are nearer to God than man, have not seen and cannot see that essential glory of God in which He is alone, and which is known only by the three persons in the one Godhead. The apostle Paul tells us that angels are dependent on God coming out of the unapproachable light in which He dwells to display “the riches of His grace” and His “manifold wisdom” to acquire the knowledge of them (Eph. 2:7; Eph. 3:10). Surely, if they have not this knowledge instinctively, and can only have it through a revelation of it, a display of it, then certainly they do not know the fathomless depths of the being of God — what He is in Godhead essence — what He alone is and cannot share with another.

God, dwelling in the unapproachable light, is Father, Son and Holy Spirit; a community of essence, a community of moral nature and character, a community of life both in principle and continuous activity — a community of fellowship peculiar to themselves, known only to themselves and enjoyed only by themselves; and that jointly and co-equally. It is an eternal fellowship, abiding, unchangeably the same from everlasting to everlasting, an eternally mutual and reciprocal fellowship.

It is evident that the purpose to reveal Himself was ever in the mind of God. He designed ways of displaying Himself. This, however, needs to be guarded. God never planned to reveal His Godhead essence. In this He is, and must forever be alone. He cannot communicate His Godhead essence to any other. If this could be, He would cease to be absolutely God alone; but created beings can never become uncreated, self-existing ones, whether they be men or angels.

What then was His purpose? It was to make known His moral nature and character and the blessedness — the happiness — of the life He lives. It was as to this that He designed to bring others into community with Himself — a community not of being, but of moral nature and of life. To do this, to carry out this purpose, it was necessary for Him to come out from the unapproachable light in which He dwells alone. This He did when He came forth in the exercise of the creatorial power inherent in Himself. In the creation which He has produced He has clothed Himself “with light as with a garment” (Ps. 104:2). But God looked at in the light of creation is not seen in His moral nature and life. Creation manifests “His eternal power and divinity” (Rom. 1:20, Greek). It proclaims the power and divinity that was eternally in Him, but not what He is in moral nature and character and their continuous activity.

God comes out of the light in which He dwells to exercise His providential care over His creatures. He cares for every sparrow. It has but little value in the eyes of men, but not one falls to the ground without His notice. He does not forget one of them (Matt. 10:29; Luke 12:6). He “maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just, and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45). He opens His hand, the desire of every living thing is satisfied (Ps. 145:16). The least need of the least of His creatures is provided for, and the supply is superabundant. But if, on the one hand, God witnesses to Himself in giving by sun and rain and other forces “fruitful seasons,” filling men’s “hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:17); on the other hand, by “sweeping rain” (Prov. 28:3) and the burning heat of the sun, He destroys the food of both man and beast (James 1:11).

If we look at God in the light of His providential care for His creatures, we find mysteries that that care does not solve. Questions arise that it does not answer. We look there in vain for the revelation of God’s moral nature and character, and the manifestation of the life He lives.

If we turn to His governmental ways with men, both with individuals and nations, as publicly exercised, we fail to learn our lesson if we do not realize that we are studying ways that proclaim the sovereign Ruler of the universe to be in a pre-eminent sense a moral Being. His moral nature is plainly manifested in His moral government, but how inscrutable are these ways! How past finding out (Rom. 11:33)! To our finite minds there are contradictions which seem irreconcilable. The mystery of it is to us impenetrable. He acts sovereignly, does His own will, and “giveth not account of any of His matters” (Job 33:13). We wonder at His silence when evil insolently lifts up its head. We tremble in the presence of His punishments of it. We see Him putting limits to the operation of evil, and ask, Why then does He permit it at all? If, on the one hand, God “doeth according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest Thou?” (Dan. 4:35); and, on the other hand, tolerates sin, allows it to go on unrebuked, at times seems to be indifferent to it and exposes Himself to the charge of seeming acquiescence in it; where is the line of demarcation between His abhorrence and His sufferance of it?

Looking at God in the light of His moral government, we reach certain conclusions as to His moral nature and character, and up to a certain point our conclusions are correct, but beyond that point there is felt to be a need of fuller light.

The same is true also with regard to God’s special government of His own people. Any observer of the governmental ways of God with His own children, both individually and collectively, will readily see that He warns them against disobedience, threatens them with penalties, and in case of disobedience often visits them with severe punishments. On the other hand there is often apparent indulgence. There is indeed patience, long-suffering with their manners, and what seems like indifference. We see here, too, God exposing Himself to implications which upright souls feel cannot be true of Him; yet the mystery of it is not explained until God is seen in a fuller light.

God came forth from the unapproachable light to make known His law — His demands on man, what He requires of him as standing on his own responsibility; but He did not manifest Himself. He surrounded Himself with “a thick cloud” (Ex. 19:9). He spoke out of “fire and smoke” (ver. 18) and “thick darkness” (Deut. 4:11). There was a display of majesty, power and authority. So great was the tempest and the quaking of the mount that the people trembled, and Moses himself feared exceedingly (Heb. 12:21). Even on the occasion of the second giving of the law, though not accompanied with such terrible manifestations, there was still reserve and distance. When Moses requested to see the glory of God, his request was not granted. He was told, “Thou canst not see My face: for there shall no man see Me, and live” (Ex. 33:20). The revelation then given was not of the “face” of God, but His “back parts” (ver. 23). It was not the Light in the full power of its shining, manifesting God in the fulness of what He is in moral nature and life, but a ray of the Light, partially revealing the One from whom it was reflected.

God came out of the light in which He dwells directly after Adam’s disobedience and fall. He came out to reveal to him the coming of a Man to triumph over Satan and bring life out of death (Gen. 3:15); but, though the revelation was a promise of eternal life (Titus 1:2), the life and incorruption of the promise was not illuminated till the giving of another revelation long after (2 Tim. 1:10).

By types, by the shadows of the sacrificial system connected with the law, by specially appointed events — events happening by divine intervention and under divine control, God came out of the unapproachable light to give forth rays of what dwells in Himself. These rays, either singly or combined, while telling us something of the character of God, were in no wise a full and adequate revelation of what He is. It was a true revelation, so far, but not the full truth.

God came out of His dwelling-place in light in the promises He made to the fathers. These promises were a revelation to faith of her inheritance and portion; yet the revelation was incomplete. The promises, however truly implying what was in God’s mind, did not in reality express it all. If the “God of glory” (Acts 7:2) appeared to Abraham, He did not show Abraham all His glory.

So also in prophecy, God came forth out of the light in which He dwells, speaking by the mouth of men who were moved by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21). None of the prophets, however, could say: “We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen” (John 3:11). Only He who came from God could thus speak. The prophets spoke as and when moved by the Spirit, and thus only what was given them to say. Their utterances therefore were always in measure, fragmentary and partial, not the full revelation of the God they served. Old Testament prophecy does not adequately and fully declare what God is. However much it does tell us of Him, it does not make Him known to us in the fulness of His moral nature and life.

In the various ways in which I have thus far spoken of God (as coming out of the light in which He dwells to display before men some distinct and special characteristic of Himself), He remained still the invisible God. In none of them had He yet placed Himself in conditions in which He could be seen; but in the incarnation He has done so. There we see “God manifest in flesh.”

The incarnation is a profound mystery. The mind of man cannot explain it or understand how it was effected, but the fact is plainly evident. The power of the Holy Spirit in and through the virgin produced a Man who is both a divine and a human Person. Thus supernaturally come into the world, He unites Deity and humanity in Himself — in one Person. He is thus truly God and truly Man: with human spirit, soul and body — God is seen in flesh.

The incarnation of the Son of God then was a stooping from “the form of God” (Phil. 2:6), the condition of essential Deity to the condition of humanity — a coming down into the condition of human and creature dependence. In this human condition He is not only “the Firstborn of all creation” (the One who has the first and highest rank in it), but also the image, the representation of God (Col. 1:15). Come thus from the unapproachable light, from the bosom of the Father, to be the image of God among men, He has declared the God whom no man has seen nor can see (John 1:18). So far as knowledge of God is communicable He has fully communicated it. He has fully expressed and exhibited it.

Here I may mention the competency of the Son of God become Man to witness to God and declare what He is — to reveal Him to man. Being Himself a divine person, one of the dwellers in the unapproachable light, He knows God in a divine way, with absolute knowledge in the essence of His being; He knows what His moral nature and character are; He could, and did say, “We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen” (John 3:11). “What He hath seen and heard, that He testifieth,” was said of Him by the Spirit through John the Baptist (ver. 32); and Himself said, that He did the works and spoke the words He knew in the Godhead intimacies (John 8:26, 38; 12:49).

Existing eternally as one of the Godhead, when He came down into our dependent creature-place He brought with Him the eternal intimacies in which He was with the Father and the Spirit, and possessed them and lived in them here. As living in them from everlasting, He was fully competent to declare and reveal them here.

While tabernacling among men, He was the Light of the world (John 8:12; 9:5). He was not, as some others, a light merely; He was the Light. Every prophet was a light, some brighter than others. John the Baptist “was a burning and a shining light” (John 5:35). But all these were mere lights — were fallible men, though under the power of the Holy Spirit for the light they gave (2 Peter 1:21); but Christ was in His own person the Light — God in humanity manifesting Himself.

What light in which to see God! God Himself come out of the unapproachable light, in the person of His own Son, to be seen, heard, studied, and even handled by men! What light in which to see the invisible God, had men eyes to see! Alas, they had not. They were in the darkness, and, blinded by it, they could only think of Him as a blasphemer — He the incarnate Son of God! (John 10:33).

But what wondrous revelations of God were to be seen in Him! What illumination of those partial revelations in the Old Testament! The promised woman’s Seed, the Man from the Lord had come — Abraham’s Seed and heir — David’s Son and Lord — the foreordained Lamb of God, to whom the oft-repeated sacrifices of the Old Testament ages all pointed — the One of whom the prophets all had spoken, and the psalmists in Israel had sung and prophesied.

But how could I enumerate, much less unfold, all the revealed glories of the incarnate Son, as the light of men (John 1:4)? There are some, however, which need special mention as having to do with what is before us in our studies of this epistle.

First is the revelation of the Godhead relationships of Father and Son. I have already mentioned the fact that God who dwells in the unapproachable light is made known to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit — three Persons in the one Godhead — a Trinity in unity, a community of essence in life, nature and character. In the Old Testament, Elohim (the Hebrew word for God) is in plural form, implying at least three, and is constantly used as the subject of singular verbs, suggesting plurality in unity.

It may be of interest to some to mention that in Isaiah 48:16 we have the three persons of the Godhead spoken of: “The Lord God and His Spirit hath sent Me.” This trinity in unity is thus clearly indicated in the Old Testament, though not in the terms of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But He is thus made known to us in the New Testament, by one of the persons of the Godhead coming forth from that unapproachable light, stooping down from the form of God to the form of a servant, tabernacling among men, a veritable Man and Son of God, uniting Deity and humanity in one Person.

When this Visitor from heaven was baptized by John the Baptist, the Holy Spirit descended and abode upon Him (John 1:32), and a voice from heaven said, “This is My beloved Son” (Matt. 3:17). Thus God is revealed to be Father, Son and Holy Spirit — relationships which were not revealed and therefore not understood before. Our Lord, however, constantly speaks of “the Father” and addressed Him as “My Father.” He speaks of Him as One who has already been declared as the Father (see Matt. 11:25-26; Mark 13:32; Luke 9:26; John 4:23; 5:20, and many other places).

In His life upon earth the Son of God was for men a revelation of the life and character of God. In Him was life (John 1:4). As the Father has life in Himself — a life uncreated and eternal — thus also has the Son life in Himself (John 5:26). He was personally the Life eternal that was with the Father (ver. 2). Had it not been in Him as in the Father, it would not have been said “with the Father.” It was a community of life, therefore, in the persons of the Godhead.

So also as regards the activities of the life. It surely is impossible for us to measure the infinite fulness of the joys that filled the divine Persons’ bosom as they mutually and reciprocally participated in constant fellowship of eternal activities. There are many scriptures implying this, but none perhaps that helps us more to appreciate this fact than Proverbs 8:30-31: “Then I was by Him, as one brought up with Him; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him; rejoicing in the habitable part of His earth; and My delights were with the sons of men.” If we apply this (as undoubtedly we may) to the Second Person of the Godhead, as being the personification of the wisdom of God, then we have expressed here the eternal happiness of God in the activities of divine life. What mutual intimacies! How deep the outflow of love responding to love! What a community of enjoyment; what fellowship of the Father and the Son in these eternal, divine activities!

And when the Son of God became Man, He did not cease to have life in Himself. The same underived, eternal and divine life that was in Him as dwelling eternally with the Father was in Him in humanity. He was the only Man to whom it was given to have life in Himself. In the first man, Adam, God breathed the breath of life, and he became a living soul. This was a creature-life — not the divine, eternal life. But the human life assumed by the Second Man was produced by the power of the Spirit in the virgin. Thus in Him were the divine and human life united in one Person, a unique Person, a unique Man: “The Word was made flesh.” Life was essentially in Him upon earth as in the Father (John 5:26).

If the Son of God become man united in His own person divine and human life, humanity in Him was a new humanity — in community of life with God. The Son of the Father become man was a Man possessing life in community with the Father. But if He thus raised up humanity into community of life with God, it is also true that He brought divine life down into a condition of human life. The life He had with the Father eternally was thus possessed in the human condition He assumed.

For Him to assume the conditions and limitations of human life, meant living dependently and obediently. This of course was an entirely new experience for Him, and for which it was necessary He should come into the condition of it (Heb. 5:8). He could not experience creature dependence and obedience while in Godhead form and condition. To have that experience He needed to stoop down to the form and condition of man — of dependence and service.

To this He stooped, assuming a condition in which He lived dependently and obediently. He lived “by the Father” (John 6:5, 7), i.e., the living Father was the reason or ground of His life here below. But, living thus, there was no interruption of the divine and eternal intimacies as the eternal Son with the eternal Father in the unapproachable light.

Living here among men dependently and obediently, yet as possessing and enjoying the intimacies of Godhead community of life, He was the revelation of them for men. If men had had eyes to see it they would have seen in Him not only the One who was personally the life with the Father, but also the activities of the life which habitually and constantly expressed itself in Him, both in word and work. (See John 3:11, 32; 5:19-20, 36; 8:26; 10:15, 32; 11:44-45.) There never was a moment, save in the darkness of the cross, when the divine, eternal intimacies were interrupted: the Father finding in His Son, become man, His eternal delight; and the Man Jesus Christ, the Son of God, realizing His eternal rejoicing. His earthly life was a manifestation of the life of the divine Dwellers in light brought down into the condition of a dependent human life.

The true Life thus was shining, was manifested in its own proper activities; but men, blinded by the darkness they were in, had not eyes to see it. There had been rays of the light shining from the beginning of fallen man’s history, but only in the Son of God become man and living here in the world did the light shine in its full power. It was shining for every man (John 1:9), but they hated the light thus manifested.

Still, through grace, there were those whose eyes were opened and who did see. From the garden of Eden, down the long history, there were those who saw and received the light so far as it was shining. So, too, when the Son of God was among men as the Light of men, there were those who through grace, saw it, welcomed it, received it — received of its fulness, grace upon grace (John 1:16). They saw in the One who was made flesh, a divine Person; for, as they contemplated His glory, they saw it was the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father.

I have said this was through grace; for it was by the power of the Spirit that divine testimony laid hold of those who thus set to their seal that God’s testimony concerning His Son become man is true (John 3:33). They thus became children of light and of God, through faith, receiving Him who had come from God. It was by believing on His name they were born of God — born of water and the Spirit. It was by believing on His name they were born from above, that is, from a higher sphere than the natural.

Of course, it was ever by faith that men, from Eden down, became children of God; but, though born of God, they were not granted the privilege of taking their place with God as children. They could not take the place of children until that place was made known; nor could they know the blessedness of the place until it was revealed. Hence, until the Son of God came into the world and revealed the children’s place and its blessedness, the children of God died in faith, without full knowledge of their place with God. But the Son of God having come, the place was made known and the intimacies of it communicated. To His children, the Father’s name was made known (John 17:6, 8).

It was thus they became competent witnesses of the life eternal that was with the Father and was manifested here. They were qualified to witness by their personal enjoyment of the manifested life, and testified to what they experienced of it (ver. 1). So far as they enjoyed the word of life they have declared it. What they saw, they have testified to (ver. 2). Their testimony is an announcement of the life eternal which was with the Father, but manifested to them here in the Son. Not only have they given us the testimony of the Son of God Himself — the testimony He bore as being the true Light of men — but they have reported what was their own enjoyed portion as those to whom He manifested the Father’s name.

What this wondrous, blessed portion was, we shall consider directly, but I wish to emphasize the fact that John, as one of these qualified witnesses, representing and speaking for them, has authoritatively declared (John 21:24) what the testimony of the Son of God to the world was, and also His communications to the men given Him out of the world.

In his Gospel he writes to all men, declaring the things that Jesus did and said to bring conviction “that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,” that by believing they might have life through His name (John 20:31). In the epistle he writes to those to whom the Son has manifested the Father’s name, unfolding the characteristics of the Life eternally with the Father, that they may not merely have the life, but have it as inwardly understood (chap. 5:13), as subjectively realizing what its character is, and what its accompanying blessedness.

Of this privilege, bestowed upon the children of God of this present period, we shall speak in the proper place. My object now is to fasten attention on the fact that John, as the divinely-chosen witness, has testified to the children of God, as being himself in the realized enjoyment of it, the character of the life of which by faith they have become participants. What he saw and heard, what he thus inwardly knew, what he enjoyed of the manifested life, he has reported to us.

In their day these witnesses testified orally; by divine inspiration their testimony was put into permanent form to be handed down. We of this 20th century have their personal testimony of the life of our Lord upon earth. Through the divine testimony and power of the Spirit they saw His glory; they believed Him to be the Son of God; and what they saw and heard, they testified to.

Now, in John 17:20-21, our Lord prayed for those who should receive the testimony of these witnesses, that they might be participators in this divine community of life with the Father and the Son: “That they also may be one in us” (the Father and the Son), i.e., should share in their community of life and nature. It is in this light we must understand what the apostle says when we read: “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.” Through faith in Him they had come into the community of life of the Father and the Son.

I speak of course of the fact, not of the measure of their apprehension and enjoyment. But, as is said, their fellowship was truly with the Father and the Son. It was a fellowship of life and nature — in divine community — and those who believe through their word share with them in it: “That ye may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ,” affirms this. The apostle is speaking of the fact. The measure of its enjoyment is another matter. Whatever be the measure in which we are enjoying it, the fact is and abides, and we know it by divine revelation. The Son has come and manifested its nature and character, and believers now are made acquainted with the fact of their participation in what has been manifested.

Here I must pause to consider some questions that have been raised and variously answered. Some think the possession of this blessed privilege, this participation in the divine community of life, is the result or consequence of attainment, of reaching a certain stage of intelligence, of believing some testimony beyond what is received when new birth is effected in the soul. But it is the one who believes on the Son that possesses the life eternal (John 3:36). As an unbeliever, instead of being a sharer in the life, he is under the wrath of God. This is a state of death out of which he passes through faith. By faith he is born into the divine community of life. He must first be in the life before he can make attainments in it. In Leviticus 1 we learn that the one who brought turtledoves or young pigeons for a burnt-offering was accepted as fully as the one who brought a bullock. The one of the feeblest apprehension as well as the one of the greatest is made accepted in the Beloved. So with the life received in new birth; it puts one into this community of divine life with the Father and the Son.

Another question has also been raised. It has been asked, “Did the Old Testament saints have fellowship with the Father and the Son?” I reply, As regards the fact, they did; but as regards the knowledge of it — since it had not been revealed to them — they could not know that they were partakers in the divine community of life. Unquestionably, however, as born from above by the power of the Spirit, they were in reality partakers of the divine nature — had eternal life.

In Old Testament times God did not give His children the place and privileges of children; consequently He did not reveal to them the true nature and character of their relationship to Him. They were truly His children, but He did not tell them they were. They in fact were possessors of His life, of His moral nature and character, but He did not reveal it to them. They could not have understood it if He had told them. To understand what divine, eternal life is, it had to be manifested. The Son has come and manifested the life, and along with its manifestation comes also the revelation that God’s children are sharers in it. As born of the Spirit they have eternal life, and are in community of life with the Father and the Son.

This explains the difference between the Old Testament saints and us as regards eternal life. God not having revealed it to them, they knew not that they had it. We have it, and know it, because God has declared it to us. In saying we know it, I remind the reader again that I am not speaking of the measure of our enjoyment of it. This is, as already said, a different matter, and is not the Spirit’s subject in verse 3. If any should say that I am overlooking, or that I am forgetting the practical side, I answer that I am simply reserving its consideration till we come to those parts of our epistle where it is treated of; but here the Spirit’s thought is that of our participation in the divine community of life.

There is another question I must not overlook. We are sometimes told that fellowship with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ is the only fellowship Scripture ever speaks of, and thus it is taken to mean Church fellowship. This is a serious mistake. It is true there is no real participation in Church fellowship unless there is participation in the fellowship of the Father and the Son. To be a sharer in the ecclesiastical community or unity really (not merely professedly), one must be a sharer in the community of the divine life; but they are different things. This should be evident from the fact that there are those who share in the latter that do not share in the former. The children of God of both the Old Testament and millennial times participate in the divine community of life, but do not in the Church community.

For Church fellowship, whether ideal or practical, we must turn to those scriptures where it is spoken of; but we do not find it here. Here, the apostle speaks of the life that is common with the Father and the Son. The incarnate Son has life in community with the Father (John 5:26). Those who receive the divine testimony are brought into that community of life. The apostles and others in their day participated in it, and all those who receive their testimony share in it now, through infinite grace.

What unspeakable blessing! How little are we in the practical enjoyment of it! How amazing the grace that has made such a rich portion ours! We, who have forfeited even merely human life, being laid hold of by this life from above, are raised up, not merely out of the death and the judgment due to our sins, but to oneness in life and nature with God! “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God!”

A word of caution here may perhaps be needed by some. We are not brought into oneness of essence with the Father and the Son. To say that, would be serious error; in fact, blasphemous. We do not become what God is in the essence of His Being. To be “children of God” does not mean or imply that. The unity into which by grace we are brought is not a unity of essence, but of life and nature. We are not made participators in His Being and attributes, but in His moral nature and character. Fellowship with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ is not community of being, but of life.

We briefly notice verse 4. If faith comes by hearing and hearing by a report, and the believer is thus brought into community of divine life, the unfolding of the nature and character of the life thus participated in makes the joy complete.

By inspiration of the Spirit the apostle thus authoritatively unfolded the blessing which divine testimony brings to believers to make their joy complete. The saints of old had joy surely, but their joy could not have been complete under the then conditions and circumstances.

But now, the true nature and character of the relationship in which the children of God stand to Him having been made known, how much the joy has been enlarged. Our joy, as compared with theirs, as measured by theirs, is fulness of joy. It is not that we are better than they; it is not that we are more worthy than they, but in the wisdom of God the time has come for the children of God to take practically the place of children.

And to this end our revelation is immensely larger than was theirs. The revelation given to us, beside revealing the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, also reveals the fact that the children are in community of life with them, and that this blessedness is ours.

What richer, fuller joy can there be? What is there beyond and above God? We now know Him, His moral nature, His character, His life, and we are made partakers of them! This is fellowship with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ.