LOVE FOR CHRIST MAINTAINED

John 1: 29, 35-39; 14: 15-26; 15: 9-15

DJW We read in the first meeting in Revelation 2 of Ephesus falling from their first love. It was not intended to dwell too much on that, but to use it perhaps as a backdrop. What I would like us to be occupied with together is to see how our love for the Lord Jesus can be maintained in freshness in such a time as we are in. God in His grace has provided things Himself that would help us, and we might also be occupied with certain features that marked persons who love our Lord Jesus Christ.

I thought we might look in this reading at the title “the Lamb of God”. It is most attractive to us; and it is that One who takes away the sin of the world. It speaks of Him walking, and His way was from the manger to the cross; and He attracted disciples to whom He became the Centre in their affections. And flowing out of that, in the part we did not read, He becomes the Centre of what is collective. I was encouraged by the opening hymn we sang -

Thou art, O Lord, the Centre

Of that vast world of bliss (Hymn 259).

Andrew finds his own brother Simon Peter, and Philip finds Nathanael, and they bring them to Jesus. So you see how the Lord Jesus becomes the Centre. He must be the Centre, dear brethren; nothing else will subsist. Then there are other features in chapters 14 and 15, features that are to mark those that love our Lord Jesus Christ. He says, “If ye love me, keep my commandments”; that flows out of affection for the Person. It is not a legal requirement, but it flows out of affection for Christ if we keep His commandments. And that seems to be ground which paves the way for the reception of the Holy Spirit: “I will beg the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, that he may be with you for ever, the Spirit of truth”. I think the Holy Spirit has a vital part in maintaining us in affection for Christ because He would occupy us with no other man. He links us to the ascended Man; He links us to a world in which Christ is the Centre. It is a wonderful thing that a divine Person is still here. He dwells in the believer, and sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts, Rom 5: 5. He also indwells the assembly, where He is able to maintain everything in relation to the Person of Christ. As we converse together on such an occasion as this, how dependent we are upon the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. As we know, the Lord is preparing His own for His departure in chapters 13 to 17, and this is what He speaks of. He will send another Comforter; it is not that the Lord Jesus ceases to be a Comforter to us; He is in the glory and is a comfort to us, but additionally there is the Holy Spirit here. It is a wonderful system of support that, entered into vitally, would keep us fresh in our affections for divine Persons.

In verse 23 it says, “Jesus answered and said to him, If any one love me, he will keep my word”. Notice the change of word from “commandment” to “word”. We could say that for us the commandments are in the Scriptures. They do not change. His word is the conveying of His mind to us, whenever that may be. We spoke in the first reading of discerning His movements; I think we discern His movements by His word. And, as it comes, we will keep it: “If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him”; that is another additional thing.

I trust that we will find these things attractive to us, dear brethren, that these conditions bring us into a conscious sense, not only of the Lord’s love, but of the Father’s love. Then He adds, “and we will come to him and make our abode with him”, and you see how everything is carried forward in the Holy Spirit, “whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and will bring to your remembrance all the things which I have said to you”. As you read through the gospels, you see time and time again that the disciples did not really understand what the Lord was saying to them, but they had what could be brought to remembrance after the Spirit came and they understood.

Then, in chapter 15, you get the expression, “abide in my love”. I think that is something attractive and something important for us, because it is a love that is unchanging. We are in a world that is unstable, where everything keeps changing; but abiding in His love brings a real sense of support and stability in a changing world. Then it goes on to the matter of friendship, another very attractive thought for those that love Him: “Ye are my friends if ye practise whatever I command you”. He has said, “I call you no longer bondmen, for the bondman does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends”. Abraham, you will remember, was called, “Friend of God”, Jas 2: 23. God made known to him His mind in relation to Sodom and Gomorrah. So it opens up a relationship in which His mind is conveyed particular to those that He calls His friends. The young ones may know what it is to have a friend; you can tell them things that perhaps you would not tell others. James tell us that “friendship with the world is enmity with God” (Jas 4: 4), but what a close relationship is known in these bonds of affection. “I have called you friends, for all things which I have heard of my Father I have made known to you”. He has not held anything back. What the Lord has conveyed to us!

DMW Would you say a little more as to the title “the Lamb of God”?

DJW It is a title that goes through; at the end of Revelation, you get that title maintained, the One that was slain. And there was the lamb introduced into the households at the passover (Exod 12); the Israelites would have become attached to the lamb. But that lamb had to die, and the Lamb of God is the One that has laid down His life. We have that sacrificial course from the manger to the cross; and I think therefore it is a title which attracts us to Him initially.

DMW I was thinking that it is an attractive title. Would it also convey as to His Person, that He was great enough to do this? The reference you made in Revelation to the Lamb that has been slain (chap 5: 12) is a different thought, a diminutive; but this One spoken of here in John 1 is great enough to undertake what is before Him. It is interesting that the first thing here seems to be that persons are being attracted to Him.

DJW He is the only One great enough to take away the sin of the world. What a thing that is; how everything hinged on the Lamb of God. Everything for God hinged upon Him, and everything for us hinged upon it, taking away the sin of the world. Think of it being taken away, never to be brought up again. The sin question has been resolved once and for all for God and for us in that precious death.

HWJ The sacrifices were often a bullock or a ram, or a goat; you think of this as the Lamb of God, the wonder of presenting the taker away of the sin of the world in a Lamb! It is marvellous to think of it; it is so attractive to us!

DJW Yes, I wondered that; and that is the first step, the principle of attraction to the Person. It goes on to attachment and affection, FER vol 3 p69; vol 16 p322. That is the way that true affection for Christ is arrived at.

NJH Was the sacrificial life and death of the Lamb of God not only to meet the sin question, but also to bring men into the presence of God?

DJW I wondered if that is what comes out in the later verses we read. It is not so much a question of our need there, but it is a question of being in the presence of the One who has become so attractive to us. John the baptist is a model servant to two of his disciples. He says, ‘He is the one you are to follow’: “Behold the Lamb of God”.

NJH The Lord is really leading them into tabernacle conditions; “the Word … dwelt among us” (v 14) involves tabernacle conditions which have eternity in view.

DJW They do. There is something very attractive about that, and by the presence of the Spirit we can touch something of it now.

JW Isaiah says, “he was led as a lamb to the slaughter”, chap 53: 7. I was thinking of the feature of submission that was found in the lamb.

DJW Yes, He was “as a lamb is dumb in presence of him that shears him”, Acts 8: 32. Think of the One who stood before the governor, One who was falsely accused but answered not so much as one word. The moral glories of Jesus shone out in those sufferings at the hands of men. But then there were also the sufferings at the hands of a righteous, sin-hating God.

TRV I was struck by it being “of God”, not just “the Lamb”. Why is it “of God”? Does it bring in what you spoke about, the complete satisfaction of God bringing men before Him for His pleasure?

DJW God has approached man in a Man. In order to gain man, God has approached us in that way, the most attractive way.

DMW So John’s gospel opens with His title “the Word”; and then the title “the Lamb of God” comes in. His personal glories are involved, are they not? Genesis 22: 8 says, “God will provide himself with a sheep for the burnt-offering”. So “the Word” is God Himself in Manhood to express the heart of God and to describe the relationship that God had in mind for man, sonship; that this whole matter - not my sins exactly but the sin of the world - had to be dealt with by One who personally could do it. He was great enough to do it.

DJW That is right. He is therefore set before us as unique - apart from every other man, because He came into a condition of flesh and blood but sin apart. No other offering for sin was acceptable to God but the offering of the body of Jesus Christ. It must be One “who by the eternal Spirit offered himself spotless to God”, Heb 9: 14.

WSC Do you have something to say about the verses between the two statements about the Lamb of God, where John speaks about Him and also about his own place in the matter?

DJW John the baptist was the forerunner of the Lord Jesus; that was his specific service, to go before Him. And something had to be removed. John the baptist’s ministry provided for that in order to pave the way for receiving the ministry of grace exemplified in the Lord Jesus. So we come into something far greater than John the baptist did. He completed his service, and he speaks of another coming after him, “the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to unloose”, the Lamb of God: He is the One to follow. No doubt he had made Him attractive to those disciples of his, so that he did not seek a following after himself, but he drew attention to the One who was after him who was greater than him.

WSC I was just thinking about the preaching, and our testimony and what it would be, and how He is magnified beyond any self-seeking on our own part.

DJW Well, I wondered if that was not one of the great values of the gospel preaching, because it is another occasion in which the Lord Jesus is magnified. There is no other One to preach about; it is “God’s glad tidings … concerning his Son … Jesus Christ our Lord”, Rom 1: 1-4. We end the Lord’s day with that.

HWJ I was thinking of what was mentioned, and it is remarkable, that after saying what he did in verse 29, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”; then he testifies about the Spirit coming down upon this Man, this Lamb of God; and that He is the Son of God. I suppose that was something also which these disciples heard from his lips?

DJW Yes I think so; so that He was distinguished as unique, the Holy Spirit descended upon Him and abode upon Him, v 32. He had not done that - could not do that - to anyone else. There was nothing to repel in the Lamb of God.

AML Would there be attractiveness and glory in the movements of Jesus here? I was just struck that John sees Jesus coming, and then we have the thought of Jesus walking. Christianity is a living system, is it not? And it is going forward, going on.

DJW Well, there were persons who witnessed that walk in the gospels. There was no other man that had ever entered this scene in perfection, and there has not been since. But they saw Him walking, and they followed Him. His course took Him from the manger to the cross. Now it is in this gospel also that the Lord says to Simon Peter, “thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me after”, chap 13: 36. We sing -

None could follow there, blest Saviour,

When Thou didst for sins atone; (Hymn 298).

As we have said, it was only He, in His greatness and in His perfection, that could deal with that. But we follow after; that is our day when the Spirit has come when we can follow Him. But now He is a Man in the glory.

AML Would it be right to link what we are saying now with the word in Revelation, the One “who walks in the midst of the seven golden lamps”, chap 2: 1? Would that be the present movement of the Lord Jesus?

DJW Well, that would be included in it, so that He moved among the golden lamps in a judicial way there, did he not? He took account of the condition of things in the assemblies. But then also in Revelation 2 and 3 you get the Spirit’s voice to the overcomer: he that hears what the Spirit says to the assemblies. So that there is what has been added in that way in the Spirit’s constant speaking. Now, who does the Spirit draw attention to? He draws attention to the Lamb of God.

TRV Are Philip and the woman of Sychar to be taken as representative of us in our day. Can we say, as Philip did, “Come and see”, v 46? It is that line of attractiveness to that very One that the Spirit would bring before us. Then in John 4: 29, what the woman says is, “Come, see a man”. So these would represent those indwelt by the Spirit and attracted by the Spirit to that very One?

DJW Yes, I think that is right. We get the onset really of what is collective, and the Lord Jesus is the Centre of attraction; He is the great magnet to us in our affections; He is a great rallying point to our affections. That is one of the great things about the Supper when we come together; it is a great rallying point to us in our affections. It says in chapter 3: 35, “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things to be in his hand”; that gives the idea of an administration set up under His hand; and the next chapter shows what that administration does in the securing of that woman as a worshipper; to “worship the Father in spirit and truth”, v 23. Now that is the end in view; it is not just a question of our needs being met, but that we can have part as being subjects of grace, to be brought into this administration of grace. The Father has committed all things into His hands.

NJH John is a characteristic follower, is he not, from this chapter through to chapter 21?

DJW Yes, he is. The Lord had to say to Peter: “But he said this signifying by what death he should glorify God. And having said this, he says to him, Follow me. Peter, turning round, sees the disciple whom Jesus loved following, who also leaned at supper on his breast, and said, Lord, who is it that delivers thee up? Peter, seeing him, says to Jesus, Lord, and what of this man? Jesus says to him, If I will that he abide until I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me”, John 21: 19-22. Irrespective of what others do, we need to follow Him.

DMW Would the title that they give Him be important in understanding His administrative authority? They give Him a title when they say, “Rabbi, where abidest thou?”. Would that be an important feature of being a characteristic believing believer?

DJW Yes, and they would have got the full gain of that in going to the place where He abode. They would get the full gain of His teaching. I was thinking of Mary who sat at His feet and was listening to His word, Luke 10: 39. She had chosen the good part which should not be taken from her, v 42. She would have appreciated Him as the One who was the Teacher.

DMW Quite so. Do we not learn everything from the Lord?

DJW Yes, I think that is right. In Matthew 11: 28, 29, we have, “Come to me, all ye who labour and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart”. Everything, every aspect of the truth, was set out in perfection in Him, and He is the One who is available to us to go to, to learn from Him.

KRO Say some more about verse 39; they had heard Him, they had seen Him walk, and they follow Him, but their occupation is with where He abides.

DJW You get to know a person best, do you not, by going to where their abode is? You get a greater knowledge of a person by going to where their own abode is. You get the atmosphere and the characteristics that mark the person. I think that is involved in this; it brings us close, do you think?

KRO We will be with Him where He is in due course, will we not?

DJW Just so. John gives us the spiritual side of things; he does not describe the abode, but the fact is that a Person was there. Now, the cave of Adullam was mentioned this morning; there was nothing attractive about the cave of Adullam, except that it was David that was there. Is that what attracts us, do you think?

MTH Do we get the other side to what we have mentioned this morning in Luke 24? It says, “And they constrained him, saying, Stay with us”, and it goes on to say, “And he entered in to stay with them”, v 29. Then we get what is opened up to them both before and after. It says, “And having begun from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself”, v 27. But is “Stay with us” the other side of what you are speaking about?

DJW Yes, I think that is right. So, on that journey, there was something about the Lord that attracted them, and they did not want Him to leave them. They were going away to Emmaüs, persons who were downcast because things had not worked out in the way they had thought - and maybe we have been a bit like that, a bit downcast and saying things have not worked out in the way we thought. So, He made Himself known to them, He broke the bread, and they recognised Him. Now, who can make our hearts burn other than the Lord Jesus? He did not tell them to go back, but from that touch they knew exactly where they had to go: back to Jerusalem, into the circle of the brethren, where the eleven were and where they had something to contribute from their own experience with the Lord.

GMC Is it as abiding with Him that we learn about the Father? I would like to know more about the Father, because that is a unique thing that was coming in where we are reading in John’s gospel, something new that was being opened up; and I was wondering if it is not related to where He abides.

DJW I think it is. The Lord could say, “He that has seen me has seen the Father”, John 14: 9. All that we know of the Father is seen in Him. So I am sure what you say is right and important, that as we love Him and keep His commandments, we then come into the conscious sense of the Father’s love. It is a most attractive thought.

SWS I was wondering as well, when they ask Him the question, “Where abidest thou?”, if there was definitely an exercise on their part to experience a place that would take its character from Christ. I was wondering if that was instructive to us as well, to realise that there are certain conditions that are suitable to His presence.

DJW I thought that came into the second two scriptures we read: “If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will beg the Father, and he will give you another Comforter”. It seems that there is that underlying moral condition which is suitable for persons to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Now, after the end of the gospel, you see persons at the beginning of the Acts, who went to the upper room; there were one hundred and twenty in the upper room and they represented the fruit of the Lord’s own ministry. And, after ten days, at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came upon them. They were persons who were suitable for the Holy Spirit to come upon. These things are most attractive, and these things are learned in the Christian circle such as we are in today.

DMW Taking away the sin of the world has tabernacle conditions in view, family conditions, where that contaminant of the human race has all been taken care of; so that we are in the Christian circle as free to love the Lord and to experience His presence - and to love one another.

DJW And the world knows nothing of that experience. The power and presence of the Holy Spirit in the Christian circle is something the world knows nothing of. It is a world that is agitated, a world that is unstable; and yet over against that we have the inner circle, which John 13 to 17 brings out; and persons who were the direct fruit of the Lord’s own ministry. They did not go back into the synagogue in Acts 1; they went to the upper room. There was a certain instinct about that, a moral elevation; and there was going to be a new beginning which had a new Centre.

DJK Is it helpful to see the way it is put in Exodus 12: 3, “let them take themselves each a lamb”? I was thinking about what is being said, that it is attraction of each one individually to Christ but it is worked out in the Christian circle.

DJW Yes. The lamb was taken into the household there. It was there from the tenth to the fourteenth day and they would become attracted to that, and it would have affected them that that lamb had to be sacrificed; that was the passover. The passover precedes the Supper (1 Cor 5: 7); we do not become so occupied at the Supper with the sufferings of the Lord Jesus in relation to the judgment of sin; we see them more in relation to the way that the love of God has been revealed to us in His death. But the passover has an important part in our preparation for entering into the Supper, do you think?

WSC Is there not another point in our experiences, that “he first finds his own brother”, John 1: 41? That was the effect of spending time with the Lord in His abode.

DJW You are emphasising “his own brother”? It is a sphere where affection is known, where brotherly love is known. And that paves the way for tabernacle conditions in which normal Christianity can be known and enjoyed.

WSC I was also thinking of Hebrews 3: 6, “but Christ, as Son over his house, whose house are we”. That really incorporates that idea of brotherliness, does it not?

DJW It does, yes.

DMW It has been said that the brother is a greater idea morally than a servant.

DJW Yes, that is right.

DMW The Lord stressed the fact that morally these are “my brethren”: “My mother and my brethren are those who hear the word of God and do it”, Luke 8: 21. We have the mind of the Lord in the Christian circle; it is not much of a circle if we do not have a Centre.

DJW The scripture you refer to as to those who do the will of God draws attention to the idea of brethren in a moral way, and that has to be in place if we are to enter into higher truths, what it means to be united to Christ. Hebrews 2: 11, 12 gives us the highest sense of it when it says, “For both he that sanctifies and those sanctified are all of one; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name to my brethren; in the midst of the assembly will I sing thy praises”. The moral aspect, in doing His will, paves the way for the experience of those verses.

DMW It does indeed. So “he that sanctifies and those sanctified are all of one” is manhood; “not ashamed to call them brethren” is one seed: it is manhood.

DJW In Judges 8: 18 it says, “each one resembled the sons of a king”. Gideon says, “They were my brethren”. We might say, each one portrayed some feature of Christ, suggesting for us manhood after Christ.

TRV Why is there another “if” in chapter 14: 15? And we know there are other “ifs” in Romans 8 relative to the Spirit as well - “for if ye live according to flesh, ye are about to die; but if, by the Spirit, ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live: for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God”, v 13, 14. I did not want to digress but there seemed to be a link, and I was wondering why there is an “if” in John 14: 15.

DJW He says, “If ye love me, keep my commandments”. It seems to be what flows out as a consequence, it is an “if” of consequence; “If ye love me”: the consequence of that is that you keep “my commandments”. It flows out of affection for the Person.

TRV That is very helpful; a simple obedience comes in then to His commandments; and the consequence is the blessing of another Comforter, actively working.

DJW I think that is right. There is the love of God being shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit; and also the Father sending another Comforter. There is a collective setting here; we get the gain of the Comforter’s service in its fulness as assembled as we are now. He has this important title of “the Spirit of truth”: He maintains the truth in its totality in a spiritual environment, an environment that is known in the assembly. He will guide us into all the truth: how dependent we are upon the Holy Spirit in that way. As we see in sects around, there may be a certain truth brought forward and it may be at the expense of other truth; but as the Spirit is made way for, ”he shall guide you into all the truth”, chap 16: 13. The whole truth is kept before us, and that preserves us from anything of a narrow character.

DMW So the Spirit dwells in us and is thus concerned with our state. I was just thinking of family conditions and tabernacle conditions, and how they work out; our affections are quickened by the Spirit. But we need light; we cannot live without light. For these affections to be developed and stimulated we need the Spirit of truth.

DJW You are thinking that the Spirit of truth brings in the light; and then there is a state which responds to that? The Lord’s word is something that constantly comes to us; we would look for that on an occasion like this. His word comes to us, and we have spoken of His movements. Do you think the Lord’s movements are discerned by the ministry which He gives by the Spirit?

DMW I think so, and I believe we can be strengthened in faith by taking account of that. There is feet-washing, and it is really the Lord doing it through vessels; so these family conditions, tabernacle conditions, are livingly maintained as we see Him moving in the circle of His own company.

DJW So you can see how the family side is strongly connected with John’s ministry.

JHH You drew attention to two statements - “If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will beg the Father, and he will give you another Comforter”, and “If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him”. You are drawing attention to keeping “my word”, and here we have the Father too, not only the Comforter but the Father making His abode. Would you open that up a bit more?

DJW “If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him”. Now, what does the Father love in us? It must be that He loves features of Christ in us, and it is that order of manhood that is so delightful to the Father. On Lord’s day morning, as coming into the presence of the Father, we are sons like Christ. Think of the delight that is to the Father Himself. Christ is standing in His own distinction of course, but we are sons like Him. It is that order of manhood that the Father delights in; He does not delight in anything else.

DMW It is the unity of nature coming through. I am thinking of verse 20 - “In that day”, which would be the Spirit’s day in which we are, “ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you”. Is that not the unity of nature?

DJW “In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you”. The same nature is developed in the saints; yes, I think that is right.

DMW Everything has been personified in the Lord Jesus Himself, but we all participate in Christ; “in the power of one Spirit we have all been baptised into one body”, 1 Cor 12: 13. We participate in Christ, so that it is the same unity being expressed, I think; and would it not help us to see Judas here - or Jude as he is also called - who has a very short epistle as to the very day in which we are? It seems to take on a new important meaning to us.

DJW Yes, I think that is right. Judas says here, “how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself to us and not to the world?”, John 14: 22. That points to an inner circle of things which the world knows nothing about, but it is something that we can experience now through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. I think that is very attractive, and perhaps something for us to set our minds to experience in a deeper way; but it must be underpinned by a moral condition that is suitable to it.

NJH Would the Spirit of truth have a very separative effect? It is a dispensational view; He stands over against all untruth and wickedness and everything that marks the world.

DJW It does. So it gives us a line of demarcation for our walk here, between light and darkness. John often speaks about what is true - “the true vine” (John 15: 1), “the true God” (1 John 5: 20); and all that stands over against what is counterfeit.

DMW Do we find what is counterfeit in Jude’s epistle? Then we have the expression, “but, ye beloved” (Jude 17 and 20); there were lovers of Christ in the midst of the seeds of apostasy sown here. We would want to fit into that - “but, ye beloved”, would we not?

DJW Yes, and it stands in contrast to what is all around us. I do feel the importance of this, beloved brethren, if we are to be preserved in a difficult day. Paul says, “in the last days difficult times shall be there” (2 Tim 3: 1), and we are in the midst of those days, beloved brethren. There is a provision, but to enter into it involves a moral condition suited to it.

WSC Would you commend Judas for asking this question?

DJW I would; would you?

WSC Yes, I would. I think it is a particular question which we sometimes wonder ourselves, and it is a good thing to be honest about it and ask the Lord. He will help us.

DJW It is remarkable what comes out of the question. You have been to a reading perhaps sometimes when a young person asks a question, and it is amazing what comes out of it. If it had not been asked, it would not have come out.

JHH You said that “If any one love me, he will keep my word” was more current? Can you open that up, please; that is what we need now, is it not?

DJW I think it is important for us, that if the word comes, as we trust it will as we are together, there is an answer to it in my soul. If there is an answer, it is my salvation; but if there is no answer to it, we expose ourselves to the devil.

JHH We are to wait for the word, and move when it comes.

DJW That is right; and if the word comes freely, it must relate to the place that the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, has in the company.

HWJ One of the prophets says, “The word … and my Spirit, remain among you”, Hag 2: 5. It is the same now, is it not? Those were remnant days such as we are in.

DJW Well, sometimes the word of God is testing: “the word of God is living and operative, and sharper than any two-edged sword”, Heb 4: 12. It dips into our inner thoughts, our very motives. But if we are ready for the exposure and answer to it, it paves the way for blessing.

DJK If there is an attraction to the Person? It would normally follow that there is an attraction to the truth, because it is in the Person.

DJW It is. The truth was fully personified in the Lord Jesus. He said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life”, John 14: 6. Everything was seen in perfection in Him.

GMC That would link with the Lord saying, “Will ye also go away?”, John 6: 67. Peter says, “thou hast words of life eternal”.

DJW That is right. John 6 is a testing chapter; it was testing to those that heard it. When the Lord says to Peter, “Will ye also go away?”, he says, “Lord, to whom shall we go?”. It is not ‘to what shall we go?’ He says, “to whom shall we go? thou hast words of life eternal; and we have believed and known that thou art the holy one of God”. That was an experience, was it not, that Peter could speak about, that he knew from his experience that the One in whom the words of eternal life were was the holy One of God? And when many persons were going away - and we are in a going-away time, and that in itself might be a discouragement to us - Peter’s answer is one that we should come to ourselves: “Lord, to whom shall we go?”.

NJH He speaks on behalf of those that remain - is it not a fine thing to gather up our brethren: “we have believed and known”? Those who went away walked with Him no longer, but with those who remain, we carry them along in devotion to Christ.

DJW I think that is right. Peter is often the spokesman in the gospels but the twelve are in mind. These are the persons who would launch the dispensation in which we are; they turned Jerusalem upside down. Think of the power of the preaching in Acts 2! These are the persons who had been in the company of Christ: “Lord, to whom shall we go?”.

DMW So we have believed based on their witness and report. And of course Paul comes in to set the standard especially at the end, for remnant days. So you get the further step in verse 24, “my words”; verse 23 is “my word”?

DJW “He that loves me not does not keep my words; and the word which ye hear is not mine, but that of the Father who has sent me”. There are many words, I suppose; the word may come many times in different ways, but persons have not responded to it. So he goes on to say, “the word which ye hear is not mine, but that of the Father who has sent me”. So your attention is immediately drawn to the source in the Father.

DMW I think that helps; it can come at any time. I was just wondering, since He is still speaking to Judas, about how in that epistle the writer would have spoken to them about their common salvation; but he writes as to the “faith once delivered to the saints”:. Would that include the detail of the truth that the Spirit is engaging us with as we continue together?

DJW I believe it is; and it seems to me that there are three things that go together that we are to love - we are to love the Lord, we are to love the truth, and we are to love the brethren. The three things go together.

KRO We have had keeping his commandments and keeping his word, and then in chapter 15: 14, we have to “practise whatever I command you”.

DJW Well, that is more than just assent; practice is seen in my walk and ways here. Persons can take account of our walk. “Ye are my friends if ye practise whatever I command you”. The Lord Himself takes account of our walk too. He took account of the walk of persons like Abraham; and where that walk is pleasing to Him, He is free to reveal His mind to us. It is another way in which we get the gain of His movements. It goes on the same in verse 15: “I call you no longer bondmen, for the bondman does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends”. There is an intimate relationship developed there.

KRO So we should be under no mistake that there is a practical - almost habitual - bearing to this. I feel measured by this myself; not only that I have to be attentive to what He is commanding us, but it is to be habitual with me.

DJW I think it is important for us to maintain those things; as we have said, it is a greater thing to maintain something than it to is to reach it. If we are to get the gain of these things in this most attractive form, it involves the maintenance of relationship with God and a conscious sense of abiding in His love.

SWS I was thinking about what was mentioned as to practice; it is something that would be characteristic of the saints. At least, that is what the Lord is looking for, and He is looking for consistency and continuance, especially in the day that we are in. I think that is especially important for us to realise. We have been much helped locally as to faithfulness, and I think this thought of consistency and continuance in this word “practise” would relate to what we are speaking about.

DJW I think that is good, consistency and continuance. I think it has been said that the proof of reality is in continuance. However difficult things may get, we continue. It is characteristic of saints.

MTH It is also important that it is “whatever I command you”. There was a time when some said, “This word is hard”, and they walked no more with Him (John 6: 60, 66), but it is “whatever I command you”. So it is consistency and continuance, and “whatever I command you”; that is a test.

DJW That is good; and as you spoke, I thought of Caleb, he “wholly followed Jehovah”, Num 32: 12. He did not pick and choose as to the words but he wholly followed Jehovah. And the land was in his heart, all through forty years in the wilderness; and therefore he continues. And his death is never recorded in scripture; so it is an element that goes right through.

DMW Would the reference to practice and walking lead us back to the Lord and the way He walked? I was thinking about, “walk about Zion” (Ps 48: 12); would we have the same interests before us as He has before Him?

DJW Yes; His chief interest is the assembly; and we come into much blessing by making that our chief interest.

JHH It says, “we are become companions of the Christ if indeed we hold the beginning of the assurance firm to the end”, Heb 3: 14. That is like Joshua and Caleb: they held the beginning right to the end.

DJW That is right, and they were the only two of that generation that actually went into the land.

JMB One of the features that runs through all this is love. I was thinking of your remark that hatred is something of the world. This is not known here where love pervades and underlies everything?

DJW We are affected by the love of God as it has reached us in Jesus, and that is what forms us; so that we come out in the same nature. “God is love” (1 John 4: 8), and we come out in the same nature; and that is what is attractive to the Lord, and what is attractive to the Father.

DMcF Help me as to the “all things which I have heard of my Father”. I am thinking of what was referred to earlier, as to what relates to our state, what we are able to take in because of our state? The Lord will hold nothing back if we are able.

DJW He has not held anything back. All the Father’s thoughts in blessing for us in purpose have come within our range in Christ. It involves His death; how affecting that is. But Paul could say in Acts 20: 20, “I held back nothing of what is profitable”; and he says in verse 27, “I have not shrunk from announcing to you all the counsel of God”. Now we see all the counsel of God in the epistle to the Ephesians; nothing has been held back. Paul did not hold anything back from the Ephesians, and in the epistle gives us the full light of that. We referred earlier to the way that Paul’s ministry stands in its own distinction, and you can see that if you study the book of the Acts. In the launch of the dispensation, it was the twelve who were important; but then the development of the assembly involved Paul’s ministry. It was given to him “to complete the word of God”, Col 1: 25. So it stands in its own distinction, and it is that ministry which the enemy attacks in the day in which we are, but it is that ministry in which we have the top note of what God has in mind for us.

AML Does the perseverance in the beginning of the Acts lead on to Paul’s teaching? Is the moral bearing seen in these features, persevering “in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles, in breaking of bread and prayers”, Acts 2: 42?

DJW It does have a bearing on it, if you see that those who truly love the Lord; and breaking of bread and prayers. That is something that we continue in. God in His goodness has seen to it that we have the Supper each week, to maintain us in the sense of the sacrifice that has been made to secure us, and for us to keep fresh in our affection for Christ.

At three-day meetings in Denton, Texas

14^th April 2017

Key to initials:-

J M Bedford, Birmingham; G M Chellberg, Wheaton; W S Chellberg, Wheaton; 
N J Henry, Glasgow; J H Hibbert, Calgary; M T Holland, Calgary; H W Jensen, Los Angeles; D J Klassen, Aberdeen ID; A M Lidbeck, Aberdeen ID; D McFarlane, New York; K R Oliver, Denton; S W Selman, Denton; T R VanderHoek, Denton; D M Welch, Denton; J Webster, Fraserburgh; D J Wright, Tunbridge Wells