The Father and the Son
(No. 2905)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1904,
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
SEPTEMBER 3, 1876.
"And truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus
Christ." 1 John 1:3.
THE 12 Apostles were favored with the most intimate communion with our
blessed Lord, but I can hardly say that they entered into fellowship
with Him during His life on earth. Each of them might have been asked
the question that our Savior put to one of them–"Have I been so long a
time with you and yet have you not known Me, Philip?" But after Christ
had ascended to Heaven and the Spirit of God had rested upon His
disciples and in proportion as the Spirit did rest upon them, all that
they had seen, heard and handled of their Lord became a means of
communion between Himself and them. They were then able to realize what
a very near, dear, deep and familiar communion had been possible to
them through having spent some three years or so with Him in public and
in private and having actually seen Him, heard His voice and felt the
touch of His hands.
Now, since their literal hearing, seeing and touching Christ did not
create communion with Him apart from the work of the Spirit, we need
not so much regret, as we might otherwise have done, that we never saw,
or heard, or touched the Savior–because we, also, without seeing, or
hearing, or touching Him, can believe in Him and rejoice that He said,
"Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." And,
further, as it is through faith, rather than by sight, or hearing, or
feeling that the Spirit of God operates upon us, when we believe the
witness of the Apostles concerning Christ, the Spirit of God will bless
their message to us and we shall enter into the Apostles' fellowship!
What the Apostles learned, they learned in order that they might tell
others. All that John saw, he was prepared to speak of according to his
ability, that others might have fellowship with him and, dear Friends,
remember that if you ever learn anything of Christ–if you have any
enjoyment of His Presence at any time–it is not for you, alone, but
for others to share with you! When fellowship is the sweetest, your
desire is the strongest that others may have fellowship with you and
when, truly, your fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus
Christ, you earnestly wish that the whole Christian brotherhood may
share the blessing with you. My great desire, just now, is not so much
to preach to you as to lead you, by the Holy Spirit's gracious
assistance, into the actual enjoyment of that which the Apostles
possessed, that, believing, as we do, their testimony, we might thereby
enter into their fellowship!
First, I am going to try to answer this question, What is this
fellowship with the Father and with His Son in general? Secondly, I
want to show you how we can enjoy this fellowship in meeting, as we do,
to celebrate the sacred Supper in memory of our ascended Lord.
I. First, then, WHAT IS THIS FELLOWSHIP WITH THE FATHER AND WITH HIS
SON WHICH THE APOSTLES ENJOYED AND WHICH THEY WISHED US TO SHARE WITH
THEM?
Let me give you an illustration to show you what fellowship is. Yet,
while I use it, I regret that it falls so far short of the Truth of God
I wish to illustrate, yet I know not of a better one. Suppose that a
great plague raged in London, like that which carried off so many of
the population in years gone by? And suppose that there lived, in this
city, a father and a son whose one care was for the healing of others.
Suppose you lived in the same house as they lived in and that you saw
the intimate affection existing between them? And suppose that you were
in their council chamber when they consulted together as to what was to
be done for the perishing citizens? You would mark the resolve of the
son to make a sacrifice
of himself from day to day by going into the homes of those who were
dying with the plague. You would observe him as, with his father's
smile resting upon him, he went forth to his work. You were privileged
to live in the house while the work of rescue was going on and you saw
how the sick ones were being plucked from the grip of the terrible
disease, like brands from the burning. You watched the father's love
and the son's self-sacrifice–and you were filled with admiration of
them.
Now, that being taken as a supposition, feeble as it is, I want to
ground upon that my description of what is meant by fellowship with the
Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. You must not, however, confuse
fatherhood and sonship, as they exist among men, with these
relationships as they stand towards God, for it is the eternal Father
and the eternal Son with whom we are to be brought into fellowship and
the terms that are used in speaking of them are accommodated to our
poor understandings–but they are not to be literallyconstrued and,
they are especially not to be understood in any carnalsense, nor to be
applied to the unregenerate.
Well, suppose we are living in such a house as I have tried to describe
to you–the first thing necessary for fellowship with such a father and
such a son would be mutual communication. To live in the house where
they were, yet never to speak to them, or to be spoken to by them,
would be no sort of fellowship! Merely to know that there were such
persons in the house and to know that they were engaged in such blessed
work as that would not make us partakers with them and would not give
us communion with them. We must speak to them and they must speak to
us. And the speaking, on both sides, must be of a kind, loving
sort–not, on our part, that which would offend them, nor, on their
part–that which would imply anger towards us. That is the very
beginning of our fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus
Christ. There must be mutual communication between us. We must have
heard the voice of God in our hearts and we must have spoken to God
from our hearts. You cannot enjoy this fellowship, my Friend, whatever
you say, unless your soul has learned to speak with God in prayer and
praise–and unless your ears have learned to listen to whatever He says
to you through His Book and by His Spirit, through His ministers and in
Creation and Providence. His voice is sounding everywhere and, in order
to fellowship with Him you must have the ears that hear and the heart
that believes what He says to you. And you also must have a tongue that
responds to His voice, for there can be no true communion without
mutual communication. Do you not perceive the kinship of the two words,
communion and communication, communion and conversation? This there
must be or there will be no true fellowship.
Now think of our illustration again, but transfer it to the higher
sphere. You are living in the house and you are sick with the plague.
Yet, suffering in that fashion in the house where the one business
carried on is the healing of the sick, I will suppose that you refuse
to put yourself under the care of the son, who is the great physician.
If you despise his remedies, or delay receiving them, you cannot be
said to have any true fellowship with him. Evidently you do not
appreciate his efforts on behalf of others, or you would be willing to
accept his services on your own account. It is his business to save,
yet you are not saved. He is quite close to you and he is able, with a
single touch of his hand, to heal you, yet you will not permit his
skill to be exercised upon you. Then, clearly, you do not believe in
him, for you do not desire to submit yourself to him! And it is equally
clear that you have no fellowship with him and cannot have any. If we
are to have any fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ, we must, first
of all surrender these poor sinful souls of ours into His dear
hands–and we must go to the Father and say to Him, "Father, we have
sinned." And as we gaze, by faith, upon the atoning Sacrifice, we must
say, "But although we must confess that we have sinned, there is the
blood that makes atonement for sin–therefore, Father, accept us
because we put our trust in Your only-begotten Son."
This is essential to true fellowship and, as you will see, it is a part
of it. So here you are, first of all, in communication with the Father
and the Son and, secondly, reconciled to God by the death of His
Son–healed of the awful, soul-destroying plague of sin. And thus you
have taken two steps upon the great highway of fellowship with the
Father and with His Son Jesus Christ! And you can sing with Toplady–
"For Your free electing favor, You, O Father, we adore! Jesus, our
atoning Savior, You we worship evermore!"
But it is necessary, further, supposing us to be living in the house
with this father and son and desiring to have full fellowship with
them, that we should have an intelligent apprehension of the work they
are doing. Suppose we know as a matter of general knowledge that they
are healing the sick, but we are not aware of the self-denials to which
that well-
beloved son has exposed himself, or of the bountiful heart of that
generous father who was willing even to yield up his son to endure all
the perils of the plague for the sake of those who were smitten by it?
If we do not know as much as this, we cannot have anything like full
fellowship with the father and the son, but in proportion as we study
the details of their work–and perceive the adaptation of what they are
doing to the great end they have in view–we shall be sure to have
fellowship with them. So, Beloved, when you are yourselves saved, study
to know more and more about both Christ and the Father! Dive deeply
into the great mystery of the Divine Purposes of Love and Mercy. See
how the Father ordained, before the foundation of the world, that in
the race of mankind He would find exponents of His boundless love who
will make known to principalities and powers, in the heavenly places,
throughout eternity, the manifold riches of His Grace. See, too, how He
laid upon His Son the work of healing this sin-smitten world. Study
every detail that you can ascertain concerning the Father and the
Son–the minutest touch upon the canvas is worthy of a century's study,
so full is every point of deep mystery and rich instruction to the
soul. And I am persuaded that as you increase in the knowledge of the
Father and of His Son Jesus Christ through the Revelation of the Divine
Spirit, you will also increase your fellowship with the Father and with
His Son!
We advance still further when this work, which is being done by those
whom we are in such close contact, commands our intense approbation and
admiration. Turning, for a minute, simply to our illustration, think of
the heroic father and of his self-denying son and say to yourself, "How
amazing it is that these plague-stricken people should be allowed to
come and howl and rage against him under his very window! Yet all the
while he is living for them–how strange it is that these very people
who in the madness that follows from their disease, even seek the life
of his son, the great physician! Nevertheless they are the objects of
that great physician's sedulous care and he is ready to lay down his
life for them if he may save them!" You would thus find your heart
going out in admiration of that father and son and such undeserved and
disinterested love as theirs would bring you into fellowship with them.
Now lift the illustration again into the higher sphere, and see,
through it, the grand design of God to make His foes His friends, to
change rebels into loyal courtiers, to make ingrates into sons and
daughters and to lift up the heirs of wrath and cause them to sit with
Him as kings and priests upon His Throne! When you see how Christ comes
down to raise this world up from the gulf into which it had fallen and,
like another Atlas–only far greater–to bear upon His shoulders the
weight of the world's sin, you cannot help admiring Him! And as you
admire and approve, you enter into a still higher measure of fellowship
with the Father and with His Son.
You get on to a further stage when, at last you are able to enter into
sympathy with the Divine Workers. Suppose (to go back to our
illustration), you lived in the house with that father and son and saw
this work of mercy going on day after day–poor starving and dying
people being picked up, placed in the hospital and healed–and that
great physician, the son, perpetually suffering in order that he might
heal them, enduring all manner of insults and ignominy at their hands,
yet always determining to save them? You would come, at last, to feel
such sympathy with both father and son that the plague-stricken people
would be almost as much the objective of your care as of theirs! You
would be worked up into enthusiasm for the poor sufferers and you would
feel that it was such a blessed work to help in caring for them that if
it were possible, you would wish to be engaged in it. You begin to take
an interest in all the details of the service and you rejoice as you
hear of one and another of the sick ones being restored. You feel that
you must love the self-denying physician who is giving up comfort,
ease, honor–everything–to save the suffering and dying people. You
feel such sympathy with him in the work that he is doing that you could
kiss his feet. And when you hear of his being despised and rejected,
you feel that you could wash his feet with your tears of regret that he
should be treated in so shameful a fashion.
You are getting into fellowship with him now! And when I look at my
dear Lord and Master and think of the Father and the Son planning and
working with heart and soul for the salvation of the chosen. And when I
see sinners saved one by one, or even by hundreds delivered from sin
and made fit for Heaven, my soul feels a deep sympathy with this
glorious work! Do you not also feel it, dear Friends? Do you not wish
that sinners may be saved? Do you not pray that they may be? Does not
your heart feel intense sympathy with the eternal purpose of the Father
and the gracious work of the Savior? If so, you are having fellowship
with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ!
I can suppose that living in the house with that father and son, you
would want to go still further and share their work If you had been
cured by the skill of the physician, you would feel so intensely
sympathetic with him in the great
work that he is carrying on that, somewhat timidly and humbly, you
would venture to say, "Can I be of any use? Can I carry the medicine,
or put on the bandages, or give a cup of cold water to fevered lips, or
wipe a tear from a weeping eye, or sit up at night with the sick who
need to be watched and tended? Or can I even clean the floor of the
house, or unloose the laces of the physician's shoes?–
"My God, I feel the mournful scene, My heart yearns over dying men And
wishes my pity would reclaim And snatch the firebrands from the flame."
And if, as will be sure to be the case when you are doing something for
Christ, some of the patients begin to mock you, as they mocked Him,
that will reveal to you another phase of fellowship with Him. Then you
will understand why He was so patient, for you will need to ask Him to
make you patient. And when your words of warning, or instruction, or
comfort are rejected, as His were, you will go to Him and say, "O
Savior, I understand now a little of what Your griefs were when You
were despised and rejected of men, for they have rejected Your Word
which You did put in my mouth." In struggling to do good to others, you
will meet with such rebuffs, misrepresentations, difficulties and
direct oppositions that you will go to the Savior and say to Him, "O my
Lord, I can now understand You better–not that I am anything like what
I ought to be, but even my failures help me to see more of Your
Sovereign patience and Your mighty love. O Divine Self-Denier–wondrous
Self-Sacrificer–I would never have had such fellowship with You as I
now have if You had not permitted me to take some humble part in this,
Your great and glorious work!"
So now you see. You have reached a point a long way ahead of where we
started. You are now enjoying fellowship with the Father and with the
Son because you have become a co-worker with God! We put our puny hands
to the great work which He has undertaken and He strengthens our weak
hands to do marvels for His name's sake. He works mightily within us
and so we are able to work for Him and to have fellowship with Him. To
come to the climax of all, I will suppose that you are living in that
house of mercy which has been my figure all along and that you throw
your whole soul so completely into the work that is carried on there
that you say to the father and son, "This work so fully commands my
sympathy and so delights my heart that I am quite carried away with
enthusiasm for it. I admire the characters and I love the persons of
those with whom I dwell–and now I ask that all I am and all I have may
be used for the furtherance of this work–that I may not be reckoned
merely as a lodger in this house, but be regarded as one of the family
and that from henceforth, I, in my poor, humble capacity–for I am less
than nothing–may never be personally mentioned again, but may be
considered as part and parcel of this great mysterious firm whose
existence means nothing but good to the city, and whose influence is
all being employed for the health of the inhabitants."
You know what I mean–lifting the illustration to the higher
sphere–and it is well if you can say to the Lord, at last, "My Lord,
henceforth for me to live shall be to do what You will and to give
myself wholly up to seek those for whom Christ lived here below and
upon which the Father's heart has always been set. Father, You will
that Your Truth should be known wherever lies have, at present, the
dominion–then give me Grace, I pray You, to will it, too, and to
publish Your Truth everywhere according to the measure of my ability.
You will that the nations of the earth should be subdued unto your Son
and become His loyal subjects–then, I pray You to put me into the
ranks of the legions by whom You will achieve this glorious victory."
Brothers and Sisters in Christ, you will indeed have fellowship with
the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ when you are nothing and
Christ is everything! When you do not live to make money, or to attain
to earthly honor, or to gain comfort, or anything else for yourselves,
but when each of you can say, "This one thing will I do, for Christ
will I live, and for Christ will I be content even to die so that to
the utmost ends of the earth His name and fame may be made known."–
"I want to live as one who knows Your fellowship of love. As one whose
eyes can pierce beyond The pearl-built gates above. As one who daily
speaks to You, And hears Your voice Divine, With depths of tenderness
declare,
'BBeloved, you are Mine!'"
II. Now, in the second place, I have to briefly answer the second
question–HOW MAY FELLOWSHIP WITH THE FATHER AND WITH THE SON BE
ENJOYED IN THE CELEBRATION OF THE LORD'S SUPPER?
As you all know, the Lord's Supper is the memorial feast in which we
are to show, or proclaim, the Lord's death "till He comes." Come He
will and our hearts cry to Him, "Even so, come quickly, good Master!"
This Supper sets forth His death and the way in which we derive benefit
from it, namely, by receiving Him spiritually into our souls even as we
take the bread and wine literally into our bodies and assimilate them
so that they become part of ourselves. Well, then, how can we have
fellowship with God in showing forth the death of Christ by means of
this memorial supper?
I think we can do so, first, by coming to the conclusion that the
Sacrifice of Christ was an absolute necessity. We are fully persuaded
that God the Father would never have given up His only-begotten Son to
die for human guilt if there had been any other way of saving lost
sinners–and also that Jesus Christ would never have taken upon Himself
the awful burden of human guilt and agreed to be bruised of the Father
if it had not been absolutely essential that He should die, or that man
should, or that justice should–it had to be one of the three! God the
Father agreed with God the Son that this colossal Sacrifice was
necessary. My Soul, do you also agree that it was necessary? Do you see
that there was no loophole for your escape except through the bleeding
Savior's wounds? Will you now admit with all your heart that the
Father's wisdom was right and that the Son's wisdom was right? Has the
Spirit of God taught you that this was the best plan of salvation that
could possibly have been devised? Looking all around, have you come to
the conclusion that there is no salvation by works, no salvation by
tears and no salvation anywhere but by the blood of God's only-begotten
and well-beloved Son? If any of you have come to that conclusion, you
have thereby entered into fellowship with the Father and with the Son,
for they have long ago come to the same conclusion!
Then, next, dear Friends, while you are sitting around the Communion
Table, endeavor to think of the sufferings of Christ so that you will,
in your measure, enter into the moods of His mind while He was
suffering for you. As He felt a great horror of sin, pray the Lord to
make you feel intense horror of it–and let the very thought of it
wound you as it wounded Him. He felt the shame of sin–then ask the
Holy Spirit to teach you how shameful it is. In your mind and heart,
crown sin with a crown of thorns like that with which it crowned your
Lord. And spit at sin, and scoff at sin, even as sin did scoff and spit
at your Lord! Yet further, our Lord Jesus felt that justice must be
honored–so feel in your soul, as you come to the Table, that the
Justice of God must be honored, magnified and glorified. Have
fellowship with Christ in feeling that, cost what it may, God is never
unjust. Agree to that in your heart of hearts and you will be having
fellowship with the Father and with the Son while you are so agreeing!
Go over in your mind all the griefs and woes that your dear Lord
endured and remember how He resolved that for the joy that was set
before Him, they were all things to be despised. Do you feel that any
losses and cross which you may have to bear for His sake, or any scorn
or persecution that may ever come upon you because you belong to Christ
are things that are only to be reckoned as the small dust of the
balance in comparison with the glory of God? Then you are drinking of
Christ's cup and being baptized with His Baptism–and having fellowship
with Him in His sufferings. Let your thoughts travel along the road to
Gethsemane and from Gethsemane to the accursed gallows on the hill of
Calvary. In your meditation follow your Lord and ask Him to let you
drink of the brook by the way, as He did, that you also may lift up
your head–and in that way you will have fellowship with the Father and
with His Son Jesus Christ. You may even adopt the rapturous language of
Faber and sing–
"I love to kiss each print where Christ did set His pilgrim feet, Nor
can I fear that blessed path Whose traces are so sweet."
Then, again, Beloved, I pray the Holy Spirit to help you and to help me
to glorify God concerning the death of Christ while we are at His
Table. As you eat the bread and drink the wine, think of what Christ
suffered and of the mysterious way in which His sufferings have brought
Glory to the Father's name. I do verily believe that when Christ bore
the sins of His people up to the tree–and away from the tree–the
Justice of God was more honored than it would have been if all the
elect had been sent to Hell forever! If our sins had been punished upon
ourselves with the utmost rigor of the Divine Law, that Law would not
have been as honored throughout the entire universe of intelligent
beings as it now must be when they hear that God, Himself, would sooner
pay the penalty of sin than allow His Law to be broken with
impunity! O august death of Christ in which God, Himself, becomes the
sacrificial Victim and bleeds and dies rather than that on the spotless
tablets of His Law, any stain should be made, even though it should be
by the finger of His mercy! Glorify God, then! Praise Him and let your
whole soul extol Him for this wondrous arrangement of Grace–
"So just to God, so safe for man"– for so you will be having
fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. You probably
remember that the line I just quoted was written by Dr. Watts in praise
of the Gospel. And I hope that you can say with him–
"What if we trace the globe around,
And search from Britain to Japan,
There shall be no religion found
So just to God, so safe for man!
How well Your blessed Truths agree!
How wise and holy Your commands!
Your promises, how firm they be!
How firm our hope and comfort stands!
Should all the forms that men devise
Assault my faith with treacherous art,
I'd call them vanity and lies,
And bind the Gospel to my heart." Next, you can enter into fellowship
at the Communion Table by loving Christ, your Mediator, as well as by
glorifying God the Father. You know that God loves Jesus Christ. I
mean, the Man Christ Jesus, God and Man in one Person. He loves Him not
only in His essential Godhead, as He must always love Him, but He also
loves Him for His work's sake. With what delight do the Father's eyes
rest on His Son! How sweetly does He say to Him, "Well done!" How does
He delight to honor and glorify Him! Do you not also feel something of
the same sort of love to Christ as you gather around His Table? Ask the
Spirit of God to cause you to be enamored of Christ and to make Him to
be "altogether lovely" in your eyes. Pray for such a view of Him that
your inmost heart shall melt under the Divine passion of love to your
dear Lord. Let His wounds be the charm to win you. Let His spotless
Character be the beauty to enthrall you. And when you thus love Christ,
you will perceive that as God the Father loves Christ even more than
that, you will have fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus
Christ!
We do not invite you to come and kneelaround the Communion Table, for
there is nothing upon it to be worshipped. But when the breaking of
bread is being celebrated, we ask you to sit as much at your ease as
you can, just as the Last Supper was instituted by our Lord. Those who
gathered round that table reclined in the Oriental posture of repose.
We cannot do that, nor would it be in harmony with our usual idea of
what is reverent and seemly. At the paschal feast they stood with their
loins girded and their staves in their hands, for they were about to
depart in haste into the wilderness. You have no need to do that, but
you may sit at this Table as one who is at rest–and so you may have
fellowship with God–for do you not know that this feast celebrates
Christ's rest? His blood has been shed, His body broken–He has become
food for our souls! His Redemption work is finished! He has gone His
way until He shall come, the second time, to drink the new wine in the
Kingdom of His Father. Christ rests, so if you also rest you will be in
sympathy with His finished work.
Remember also that God rests. When Noah offered a sacrifice to God,
Jehovah smelled a sweet savor of rest–not in Noah's sacrifice, but in
what Noah's sacrifice typified and symbolized–that is, in the
Sacrifice of Christ. If I may use such an expression concerning You, O
blessed God, Your Sabbath was broken by man's sin. It grieved God that
He had made man because he so rebelled against Him and dishonored Him.
And, therefore, the Lord had no rest. But when He saw Christ on the
Cross–a Man who had done all His will, suffering all His will–God, as
well as Man, bearing human sin in His own Person–it pleased the Lord
to bruise Him and to put Him to grief. But when He had done it and the
Son had finished His Sacrifice and come home, then the Father rested!
He could rest in His love and rejoice over His Church with singing, for
the ransom price for her Redemption was paid, the battle was fought and
the victory won forever! Sin was overcome, the old serpent's head was
broken, Hell was vanquished and death was doomed to die! And it is now
only a matter of time when the gleaming banners of Christ, lit with the
light of victory, shall be borne aloft after the final fight of
Armageddon–and when that is over there shall go up this mighty shout
which every star shall hear–while
Heaven's heights shall echo and re-echo the strain and the deeps of
Hell are stirred with the wondrous chorus of the redeemed, "Hallelujah,
Hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigns"–reigns because of the
Cross–reigns because Christ was there able to say, "It is finished!"
Come then, Beloved, and rest, for so you will have fellowship with God,
Himself! Let no sense of sin disturb you– no distracting thoughts
annoy you. Say to yourself, "God is satisfied with Christ's work and so
am I. God has said, 'It is enough' and what is enough for the Infinite
God is surely enough for me." The Lord bless you, as you come to His
Table, for His Son's sake! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 1 JOHN 1; 2:1-6.
May that Divine Spirit who inspired every Word of this wonderful
letter, bless it to all our hearts as we read it!
1 John 1:1. That which was from the beginning, 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. You remember how John begins
his Gospel–"In the beginning was the Word," and how, a little later,
he says, "In Him was life." The Holy Spirit seems to have recalled
those expressions to his mind, for He moves him to use them again. Note
how clearly, how explicitly John writes concerning the Logos, the
eternal Word. He says, "That which we have heard, that which we have
seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have
handled of the Word of life…that declare we unto you." The facts of
Christ's history on earth are recorded by eyewitnesses who could not be
deceived concerning them. They exercised their various senses with
regard to Christ–hearing, seeing and touching Him again and again.
They were veracious witnesses and they died in testimony of their faith
in what they asserted. And when anything has been heard, seen,
inspected and even touched and handled by a company of reliable
witnesses, the testimony of such witnesses concerning it must be
accepted as true.
2. (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness,
and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and was
manifested unto us). John and his fellow Apostles were eyewitnesses of
the coming to earth of God in human flesh–the indwelling of the Word
of Life in a body like our own.
3, 4. That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that you
also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the
Father and with His Son Jesus Christ And these things write we unto
you, that your joy may be full Hear this, you people of God! The
objective of the Revelation of Jesus Christ is that you may have
joy–yes, that you may have a heart full of joy and that you may know
what full joy means, for here below we get but drops and dashes of joy
unless we are brought into fellowship with God through Jesus Christ!
But then, we have the very joy of God in our souls! Oh, the delight of
it! Oh, that you could all know it to the fullest!
5. This, then, is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare
unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all That is
to say, God is knowledge, God is truth, God is purity. "God is light,
and in Him is no darkness at all." There is no darkness of sin, or
ignorance, or error about God.
6. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we
lie, and do not tell the truth. He who walks in ignorance and sin is in
fellowship with the powers of darkness–he is certainly not in
fellowship with God who is light!
7. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have
fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son
cleanses us from all sin. So that in the very highest state to which we
can attain in this world, namely, walking in the light, as God is in
the light and having fellowship with Him, even then we shall sin and
shall still need the blood of Christ to cleanse us from its stain. So
those exceedingly err who say that the Christian can or does live
utterly free from sin! Either they have lowered the standard by which
they judge the actions of men, or they excuse themselves on some
Antinomian principle–or else they must be altogether ignorant of the
Truth of God about the matter–for "if we walk in the light, as God is
in the light" and have fellowship with Him, still, "the blood of Jesus
Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin." And, therefore, there is sin
needing to be cleansed, for Christ does no work as a superfluity! But
what a mercy it is for us to feel the continual cleansing of the
precious blood of Jesus so that if we sin through ignorance, or if we
sin by omission or by commission, that precious blood constantly keeps
us so pure that we can still walk with God!
8. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is
not in us. It does not matter, either, in what sense we say it! We may
try to beguile ourselves with the idea that we say it in some peculiar
Gospel sense, but, "we deceive ourselves" if we say it in any sense
whatever, for we have sin and we do sin!
9. If we confess our sins. That is the point! And he who says that he
has no sins will not confess them! He who believes himself to be
perfect cannot enjoy the blessing described in this 9th verse. To deny
that we have any sin is to walk in darkness and to show we are without
the light which would reveal our sin to us! And if we are walking in
darkness we cannot be in fellowship with God. But to see sin in
ourselves from day to day–humbly to confess it and mourn over it–is
to walk in the light. And walking in the light we shall have fellowship
with God who is light. "If we confess our sins"–
9, 10. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse
us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make
Him a liar, and His Word is not in us.
1 John 2:1. My little children, these things I write unto you, that you
sin not. That you may abstain from it, abhor it and not indulge in
anything that would lead you towards it.
1. And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus
Christ the Righteous. We are to seek to live a perfectly holy life, but
inasmuch as we constantly fall short of that ideal, here is our
comfort–we still have an Advocate– we still have One who undertakes
our cause and pleads for us before His Father's Throne!
2. And He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but
also for the sins of the whole world. Whoever comes to Him shall
receive deliverance from sin. Neither Jew nor Gentile is exclusively
considered in the offering of the Atonement of Christ–those for whom
He died are of every race, color, class and kin.
3-6. And hereby we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.
He that says, Iknow Him, and keeps not His commandments, is a liar, and
the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, in him verily is
the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in Him. He that
says he abides in Him ought himself also so to walk even as He walked.
May the Holy Spirit graciously lead us all to this extraordinary walk
of Grace, for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.