We concluded our opening article with the statement that we should
now proceed to the examination of Scripture to discover whether there
has been written a book, epistle, or a section of the New Testament that
embraces all the peculiar conditions that characterize the outer circle
of faith among the Gentiles today. What are these peculiar conditions?
1. During the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus, He limited Himself
to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and at the close commanded His
disciples to go into all the world. One of the conditions that belong to
the present enquiry is that the message shall be pre-eminently
world-wide.
2. It is evident to the most casual reader that the bulk of the Bible
was written for Jews. The present condition, however, demands a book
that shall give evidence that non-Jewish readers are in view.
3. The Gospel of Matthew does not speak of the rejection of Christ by
Israel until chapter 12; Paul's earlier epistles give considerable
prominence to Israel, whilst Peter at Pentecost calls upon the nation to
repent and be saved. The book we seek should take it for granted, or
should early state that Christ was rejected by Israel, and that its
message is addressed to those who have believed after that rejection has
reached its climax.
4. The Lord's Supper is directly connected with "the new
covenant"(Matt. 26:28; 1 Cor.1 1:25), so that the message we seek will
of necessity omit this feast of remembrance, seeing that its terms
cannot be put into operation until Israel as a nation are restored (Jer.
31).
5. The present position of the Lord Jesus is that of ascension,
ascribed to Him in the prison epistles, and we must find our message in
a book giving due prominence to this exalted position.
6. The epistles of the mystery do not speak of Christ as the Son of
Abraham, or the Son of man, but go back behind all these to the wondrous
title of the Image of the Invisible God, Who is, moreover, the Creator
of all things, visible and invisible. This revelation of His Person will
colour the message that is addressed to the outer circle today.
7. We shall find in that message the great desire expressed by the
Lord, that, though He was rejected by His own, the world might yet
believe and know that He was the Sent One of God.
8. There will be an indication that the gift of "miracles" possessed
by the church, as at Corinth, no longer obtains.
By common consent the Gospel according to John was written when
Paul's ministry was finished, and corresponds fully to the conditions
suggested above, as well as to many more to be entered into later. Let
us for the present, however, confine ourselves to noticing how John's
gospel deals with these peculiar conditions.
1. The World
- "The world was made by Him " (John 1 :10).
- "The Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world"
(John 1:29).
- "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten
Son" (John 3:16).
- "The Christ, the Saviour of the world" (John 4:42).
- "Giveth life unto the world" (John 6:33).
- I am the light of the world" (John 9:5).
These and many more come immediately to the mind, and it is common
knowledge with students of the Word that John's Gospel is preeminently
the presentation of Christ to the world.
Kosmos (world) occurs in Matthew's Gospel 9 times, in Mark 3 times,
in Luke 3 times, but in John it occurs about 79 times. Matthew's Gospel
tells us concerning the Lord that He was called "Jesus, for He shall
save His people from their sins" (Matt. 1:21). Luke's Gospel records the
Lord's Instructions to His disciples that "remission of sins should be
preached in His Name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem" (Luke
24:47). John, however, speaks of "sin" not "sins," "the sin of the
world' and "the sins of His people."
The reader will remember the wide scope in the standpoint of the
first Epistle of John: "He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for
ours only, but also for the whole world' (1John 2:2). John's Epistles
account for another 21 occurrences of kosmos, so that out of a total of
188 occurrences in the whole N.T., John's Gospel and Epistles use 100 of
them. If we seek for a message that has the world in view, can we find
one more suitable than this Gospel according to John?
2. Not written for Jews
Our next condition was that the matter should be tested not only by
the positive address to the world, but by parallel internal evidence
that Jews were definitely not in the writer's mind. Every Jew knew the
purpose of the six water pots at the wedding feast of Cana, but John
informs us that they were "after the manner of the Jews" (John 2:6).
Every Jew knew the history and importance of the Passover, but John
writes: "The Jews' Passover was at hand"; "The Passover, a feast of the
Jews, was nigh"; "the Jews' Passover was nigh at hand" (John 2:13; 6:4;
11,55). Added to these are the further informative statements: "There
was a feast of the Jews" (5: 1), "the Jews' feast of tabernacles" (7:2).
Again, note John 10:22: "It was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication
and it was winter," which is as though we should write, "It was
Christmas Day in London and it was winter."
Further, what Jewish reader of John's Gospel, though he lived at the
ends of the earth, would need the explanation given 'in 4:9: "for the
Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans"? Would a Jewish reader need
the added interpretation given to the name of the pool of Siloam-"which
is by interpretation, Sent" (John 9:7)? Would they not know, too, the
meaning of the name Cephas,"stone"? (John 1:42).
We have abundant evidence therefore that John wrote his Gospel with
the world of non-Jewish readers specially in view.
3. The rejection
The message that fits the wider circle of believers during the
present time must recognize the fact that the Lord was rejected by His
own people. This we find at the very forefront of the Gospel by John:
"He came unto His own, and His own received Him not, but as many as
received Him" (John 1: 11, 12). Here it is evident that the "Many" who
received Him are a different company from "His, own" who received Him
not. Matthew's Gospel waits until the twelfth chapter before rejection
is reached, but John opens with it. There is a foreshadowing of Acts 28
at the close of John 9: "For judgment I am come into this world, that
they which see not might see, and that they which see might be made
blind." The critical passage (Isa.6: 10) is quoted immediately after the
warning to walk while the light lasts, lest darkness come upon them, and
towards the close of the passage come the solemn words: "He that
rejecteth Me, and recelveth not My words, hath One that judgeth him"
(John 12:48).
It will be remembered that where Matthew quotes Isa. 6:10, we find
the parables of the kingdom of heaven, which, while revealing the
interval of failure and corruption, nevertheless look forward to the day
when, under the new covenant, the word of the kingdom shall be received
in an honest and good heart (Jer. 31:27-33). The quotation of Isa. 6:10
in John 12 is not accompanied by the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven,
but focuses attention upon the rejection of the Lord by His own people.
4. The Lord's Supper
It is not our purpose to discuss the vital association of the Lord's
Supper with the new covenant - that can be seen both in Matt. 31 and 1
Cor. 11. The terms and parties of the covenant are distinctly set out in
Jer. 31 and repeated in Heb. 8. It is not a matter for discussion, but
of believing what God has said. The Gospel according to John makes no
mention of the Lord's Supper, and the omission is as eloquent as the
non-Jewish and world-wide evidences already brought forward. During the
Acts period Gentile churches observed this feast of remembrance, but
with the setting aside of the covenant people, the covenant feast was
discontinued, and John, who was present and knew all about it, was as
inspired to omit it as Matthew, Mark and Luke were inspired to include
it.
5. The ascended Lord
Paul's prison ministry is impossible apart from the ascension "far
above all." Matthew's record ends without reference to the ascension;
Mark and Luke close their accounts with it, but John speaks of it as
early as the third chapter: "And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but
He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man, which is in heaven"
(John 3:13). Again, in John 6, the Jews objected to the Lord's statement
that He was the true bread that came down from heaven, saying: "Is not
this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is
it then that He saith, I came down from heaven?" (John 6:42). Also, when
the disciples were offended with His teaching He said: "What and if ye
shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was before?" (John 6:62). It
is John alone who tells us that the Lord's first message after His
resurrection, and that He ascended to the Father on that first day of
the week, 40 days before the visible ascension from the Mount of Olives.
"Touch Me not; for I am not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My
brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto My Father and your Father;
and to My God and your God" (John 20:17).
The reader should add to the above the passages which use the phrase:
"Because I go unto the Father," and similar expressions.
6. "The image of the invisible God�the Creator."
John's Gospel is distinguished from the synoptics (Matt, Mark, Luke)
by the opening words: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God�All things were made by Him�No man halh
seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, Which is in the bosom of
the Father, He hath declared Him " (John 1:1-18).
Here also, in close harmony with the standpoint of the dispensation
of the mystery, are the wondrous words of John 17:24:
"Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me
where I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me; for
Thou lovest Me before the foundation of the world."
True, beholding this glory, and being manifested with Him in glory,
having this body of humiliation fashioned like unto the body of His
glory (Col.3:4 and Phil.3:2 1) are very different, yet if there is a
circle of believers, called into blessing during this parenthetical
period, but not constituting the body, it is appropriate that their
blessings should in some way be associated with the ascended Christ, and
the glory that was His before the world was. The distinction to be
observed between the glory of John 17:24 and that of the epistles of the
mystery must be considered in some future article, for it is too great a
subject for the present survey.
7. The Prayer that the world may know
If the standpoint of John's Gospel be as we have indicated, we can
understand the burden of the Lord's prayer in John 17, in which He asks
that though "His own" refused Him as the Sent One, yet that the world
might believe and that the world might know that the Father had sent
Him.
8. Discontinuance of miracles
The word usually translated "miracle" (dunamis) is entirely absent
from John's Gospel, and in its place we have a series of "signs".
While the unity of the body is not mentioned in John, there is a
unity which is very close. This and many other items of importance must
now be reviewed, and we trust that the result of these studies will be
not only a deeper appreciation of the supreme blessedness of the calling
that places us "far above all" at the right hand of God, but further
ability to speak with no uncertain sound to saints and sinners who while
giving no evidence of being destined to this high calling, yet cannot,
by reason of the dispensational conditions in which they find
themselves, yield faith or obedience to pentecostal and new covenant
messages.
NEXT>
<BACK