“I AM COME THAT THEY MIGHT HAVE LIFE”
Andrew Martin
John 3: 14-16
John 4: 13-14
John 10: 10-11
There are many reasons why the Lord Jesus came; He gives many reasons Himself, and in the last verse that we read, He said that He came that we may have life. We are in a condition that is bounded by death, and we are in circumstances that are bounded by death. Everything around us is marked by death. The psalmist speaks of passing “through the valley of the shadow of death”, Ps 23: 4. Some might think that refers to when someone is very ill or really old, but we are all in the valley of the shadow of death, all the time. From the time we come into this world, we find ourselves in the valley of the shadow of death; that shadow is on everything, but Jesus came that we might have life.
When the Lord Jesus was speaking where we read in chapter 3, He referred back to an incident in the history of Israel. Remember how the children of Israel had come out of Egypt; they travelled through the wilderness for nearly forty years, but still they had a lesson to learn. There was something in the heart of man that was unchangeable. The children of Israel were murmuring against God after all that time they had been sustained in the wilderness; they had come out of Egypt; they had proved the shelter of the passover lamb; they knew that the destroying angel had not come near them. They had gone through the Red Sea; they had seen the whole power of Egypt destroyed in the Red Sea, and God had brought them through and He carried them in wonderful grace. He brought them to Himself and then He maintained them for forty years in the wilderness. You think of it - every weekday for forty years, He gave them manna to eat. There was never any failure in all that, and at the end of that time, they murmured against God. It just brought to light there is something in man’s heart, man’s nature, that is against God, which cannot be subject to God. “The mind of the flesh … is not subject to the law of God, for neither can it be”, Rom 8: 7.
We read how they murmured against God: “your murmurings are not against us, but against Jehovah” (Exod 16: 8), and the result of that was God showed them a lesson; He sent serpents, Num 21: 6. Those who were bitten by the serpents were going to die. Think of the awful state of the children of Israel at that time. But God’s thought was, ‘I have an answer. I have an answer in a Man of another order’. The instruction to Moses was to make a serpent of brass. The instruction was actually to make a fiery serpent; Moses knew that it had to be a serpent of brass because it was a matter of judgment. “Make thee a fiery serpent” (v 8), was what God had said. You see, God has to deal with each one of us. The flesh that is in us that murmurs against God is something that God will take issue with. It is a question of His righteous judgment. He said, “make thee a fiery serpent”. The fire speaks of the test of God’s holiness and His judgment. Moses realised that if he was to make a serpent, it had to be of something that would stand that test and he made the serpent of brass. God did not tell him to use brass, but brass is that which withstands the fire. Remember it was the brazen altar - it was that which could bear the judgment. So the serpent of brass was lifted up and the apostle Paul tells us that God has “sent his own Son, in likeness of flesh of sin”, Rom 8: 1. That was what the brazen serpent represented. There was no bite in the serpent of brass. The serpent of brass suggests One who could bear the judgment of God. The serpents on the ground were spelling death to the children of Israel.
The Lord Jesus said, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, thus must the Son of man be lifted up”. You think of Him as taking that place. In the midst of lawless men, He was lifted up - lifted up to die. As lifted up, beloved, He showed that there was One who was able to sustain the judgment of God and He bore that judgment, that judgment against sin in those terrible three hours on the cross. You think of the greatness of what Jesus did, the immensity of it. There was sin reaching its depths and being exposed as never before, when all was united against Jesus and He, as lifted up upon the cross, bore the judgment of God against sin. It could righteously have fallen on all who were around that cross, but it did not; it fell upon Him. Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, “thus must the Son of man be lifted up”; there was no other way in which God’s righteous claims could be met. Nothing else could sustain the judgment of God. No one else could intervene on behalf of men before God.
It required the Son of man to be lifted up “that whosoever believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal”. The whole world is going on, not believing on the Son of man - that is the way to perish, the way of destruction. Death comes in on that line. The wise man in Proverbs says, “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man”. People might think that they are doing what is right, that they are living a good life. “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof is the ways of death”, Prov 14: 12; 16: 25. It is death at the end of it. Think of how Solomon as a great observer of men could come to that conclusion, so much so that that verse is twice recorded in the Proverbs, as if to emphasise the fact. No matter how much a natural man may be doing that he thinks is right, the end of it all is death.
So the Lord goes on with this marvellous verse that we all have learned, “For God so loved the world” - that was what was behind it. The gospel message starts with God; it must start with God; God is behind it all. He is the Originator of it. And what we find is that what motivated God in what He did, was His love. “God so loved the world, that he gave” - love delights to give - and “he gave”. He so loved the world that He gave, and what would He give? He gave His only begotten Son - what was most precious and dear to Him, He gave, in order that “whosoever believes on him”. That is faith; that is what we were speaking about in the reading – faith - that “whosoever believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal”.
God desires, and indeed His thoughts for men, are that men should live and not die. And God has provided the means for men to live. It does not mean that these bodies are going to live forever; these bodies are going to be changed. I trust these bodies are going to be changed, because it is those who are alive whose bodies are changed. Those who have died, I think, arise with new spiritual bodies, but our bodies will be changed. If the Lord should leave us here, these bodies will go into death but there is that which goes through, which will never see death - that which is entirely God’s work in the soul. So, God has provided a way in Christ in which we can have life. We can be relieved of that awful thing that lies before us, death, which men dread, because beyond it, as far as men are concerned, they want to believe it is the unknown. But, man’s conscience knows, actually, that he does have to do with God. The Lord Jesus was lifted up in order that we should have life and not have fear, in that sense, of death.
But, we may be left here and we need life while we are here to sustain us in the pathway. And the Lord Jesus has the answer to that as well. He says that whatever you do, however you go to satisfy yourself in the pleasures of nature and what is around, you will not get lasting satisfaction. This was said to a woman who had sought to find lasting satisfaction five times in her life, in the greatest possible way, and five times she had been disappointed. What a poor woman she was; your heart goes out to this woman. She must have felt the awfulness, the absolute poverty of nature. So much so, that she even gave up assuming an outward appearance of respectability at all. She might have said, ‘Why do I bother, when everything ends in disappointment?’. But the Lord Jesus says to her, ‘I have something for you that does not end in disappointment, something that sustains you, something that keeps you satisfied’: “whosoever drinks of the water which I shall give him shall never thirst for ever, but the water which I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life”; it is something within the believer.
The Lord Jesus was lifted up so that we should be saved from the consequences of what we are as sinners. He was lifted up upon the cross and bore the judgment of God. He went into death Himself and shed His precious blood in order that all our sins should be forgiven - this is what He has done. And our faith in Him makes that secure to us, but here is something that is in the believer. The believer has something - the gift of the Holy Spirit - you think of the greatness of that, as ensuring life down here. Faith in the Lord Jesus and His finished work gives me life in heaven, gives me life eternally. With the Holy Spirit there is a source of life down here. It means that I am no longer looking for satisfaction, for joy, for comfort, from the things around, but my source of refreshment is in a divine Person who links me with Christ in glory. The Lord Jesus is now in glory in heaven at God’s right hand - the Holy Spirit links me with Him there. It is as having a link with the Lord Jesus there, having a link with a Man in the glory by the Holy Spirit, that we have that which is springing up in the heart. So a believer is a happy person; he does not need all the resources of this world to make him happy. The believer can be happy without anything like that - He can have Christ. He has Christ. How does he know he has Him? Because he has the gift of the Holy Spirit. What more would he want?
I suppose we have often been affected by that account of that woman in the heart of London city:
In the heart of London city,
’Mid the dwellings of the poor,
These bright golden words were uttered,
“I have Christ - what want I more?”
By a sick and dying woman,
Stretched upon a garret floor;
Having not one earthly comfort -
“I have Christ - what want I more?”
He who heard them ran to fetch her
Something from the world’s great store;
It was needless, died she saying,
“I have Christ - what want I more?”
Mary Jane Walker, née Deck (1816-1878)
That woman had a link with a Man in heaven. She had a link with Him by the Holy Spirit here. The Holy Spirit is the Source by which we have life springing up. Even though we go through a hostile scene, the Holy Spirit is here, in this setting as given by Jesus. The Holy Spirit as given by Jesus is to enable us, to strengthen us as we go through this world. It is to provide a resource within as we go through this scene, in view of being here for Him, maintained for Him, not dependent on the things that men depend upon, but as being here in simple dependence upon Christ.
In chapter 10 there is something else. Jesus says, “I am come that they may have life, and might have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep”; the Lord Jesus has done that. We see how the Lord Jesus, in the laying down of His life and the work that He accomplished at Golgotha, accomplished that which addressed the whole matter of our sins and the whole question of sin. By simple faith in Him, we know our sins forgiven. We see in the giving of the Holy Spirit, He has given us a resource that is within ourselves - greater than ourselves - but within ourselves - wonderful thing, so that we can go through this scene, maintained in the freshness of our links with Him, with the Lord Jesus Himself.
But this chapter is emphasising something else and that is, there is a flock. We have one another; there is a sphere where life can be enjoyed. You cannot fully enjoy life on your own. There is what you can enjoy on your own, but you cannot enjoy life in its fullness and the Lord Jesus says, “I am come that they might have life, and might have it abundantly”. The abundance of life involves that we are set together and we enjoy life together. “I am come that they might have life, and might have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd”. He brings that in immediately. “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep”. I often feel that we have occasions where we enjoy things together; I suppose the Lord’s day morning is particularly such an occasion; we enter into things together, and we enjoy them and we find that there is that something that is springing up in such an occasion. Let us never forget the basis of it all: “have life, and might have it abundantly”, and then He says, “The good shepherd lays down his life”. The basis of it all, the basis of everything we enjoy is the fact that Jesus has laid down His life - He has laid down His life for the sheep. He saw us in our need; He saw us under the shadow of death and He, to whom death did not attach, laid down His life for us, in order that we should be secured for Him, saved and preserved for Him in relation to another world, a world where death does not attach, and it is our blessing that we should have part with Him where He is.
This was the simple thought I had, beloved. The Lord Jesus has come that we should have life. Life is in Him, life is in the Holy Spirit, life is enjoyed in the flock. It is a wonderful thing, the sphere of life. No man can produce life - it is God alone that can produce life; men cannot do it. The Lord Jesus has done it for us and it is for our pleasure and enjoyment until He comes, and then we will enter into it without any cessation. We will see His face. We will be in the enjoyment of life with Him, participating in His life in that world of which He is the centre where everything is for the glory of God, but until He comes may we just be preserved in life, for His Name’s sake.
Buckhurst Hill
23rd October 2022