Life Known and Enjoyed.

“He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made Him a liar; because he believeth not the record [or witness ] that God gave of His Son. And this is the record [or witness], that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son, hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God, hath not life. These things have Iwritten unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life.”¹

It is a serious thing to make God a liar, but this is what the man does who believes not the witness that God gave of His Son. Instead therefore of spending time in weeping over his general badness, he ought to see the dreadful character of his particular sin of unbelief, the sin of sins, and immediately turn from it with hearty acceptance of God's testimony. The sum and substance of that testimony from the first of Genesis to the last of Revelation is, that God hath given to us eternal life, not sold it but given it, not exchanged it for something we had or did, but given it, and this life is in His Son. It is nowhere else, not in feeling, not in repentance, not in faith, not in culture, not in what the world calls an honourable career, not in doing the best we can, not in baptism, not in the Church, but in Christ. He that hath the Son by believing on Him, hath life. He is not trying to have it, nor hoping to have it when he comes to die, or to stand in the judgment, but he HATH it now. He that hath not the Son of God, hath not life, whatever he may have in the way of rank, power, influence, intellect, wealth, or religion.

Moreover the believer may know that he has life, for “these things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life.” The very purpose of the writing was that we might know it, and we know it by what is written, or in other words, by the testimony of God in the inspired scriptures. Most of the knowledge we have is due to testimony, and yet it is properly called knowledge. Our knowledge of all the facts that have occurred in the history of the race, except the few that have fallen within the limited range of our personal observation, we owe to testimony. Our knowledge of the geography of the world, except the small portion we may have visited, we owe to testimony. Our knowledge of the distance and size of the heavenly bodies, of the strata that form the crust of the earth, and of other scientific discoveries, rests entirely upon testimony, except with one here and there out of many thousands, who has made the discoveries and conducted the investigations for himself. Not a person now living ever saw Alexander the Great, or Julius Cæsar, or Luther, or Cromwell, yet no intelligent person would hesitate to say, I know that these men really existed.

“If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater,”² for all human witnesses may be mistaken, or may testify falsely; but God knows of what He affirms, and tells the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, undimmed by the faintest shadow of ignorance, or error, or deception. “The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies;”³ and yet through necessity, the business of the world is carried forward upon the principle of faith in the testimony of men; the wheels of commerce turn upon faith in the testimony of men; the courts of law are established upon faith in the testimony of men. Let it once be conceded that nothing is to be believed except what we see or feel, and there will be an end of all enterprise and social order and administration of justice. But if we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater, and this is the great truth to which God has witnessed in the Bible, that He hath given unto us eternal life, that this life is in His Son, that whosoever has the Son by faith, has life, and that whosoever has not the Son of God, has not life.

How, then, does the believer know he has life? The answer is, by what is writtten, which is just the same as if God spoke to him with His own voice, and in audible tones. When Jesus said to the disciples, “Rejoice, because your names are written in heaven,”⁴ how did they know their names were written there? They did not see nor feel that they were, but they knew it in a surer and better way, by the testimony of the Son of God. When the inspired Apostle wrote, Help those women which laboured with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellow-labourers, whose names are in the book of life,”⁵ how did these persons know that their names were in the book of life? Only in one way, by the testimony of the Holy Ghost. When he wrote again, “Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus,”⁶ could they doubt that they were indeed the children of God? Surely not. But how did they know it? Not by looking within, but by looking without, accepting as true the written testimony.

The epistles of the New Testament were not addressed, as sermons are now generally addressed, to the converted and unconverted alike, but to the “beloved of God, called to be saints,”⁷ who were gathered by the Holy Ghost unto the name of Jesus in Rome and Corinth, and Galatia, and Ephesus, and Philippi, and Colosse, and Thessalonica. Besides these seven Gentile Churches, certain epistles were sent principally to believers of the Jewish race, as the epistle to the Hebrews, and the epistles of James and Peter. Besides these, we have general epistles as 1 John and Jude, and then some addressed to individuals, as Timothy and Titus, and Philemon, and Second and Third John. In not one of these epistles is salvation presented in the form of doubt or uncertainty; but those to whom they were sent must have known by what was written, that they had passed out of death into life.

For example, we turn to the epistle to the Corinthians, who were sharply rebuked for the divisions and other evils that had crept among them, and some of whom had been the vilest of sinners, and we read, “Such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”⁸ Could any believer present at the meeting when the epistle was read doubt whether he was saved? Would he not know upon the written testimony of the Holy Ghost, that, whatever he had been in the past, he was washed, sanctified, and justified?. Or when the precious words were read in the hearing of the Galatians, “Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father,"⁹ would they not know that they were sons? Or when the Ephesians read, “Now, in Christ Jesus, ye who some times were far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ,”¹⁰ would they not know that they were made as nigh to the heart of God as the blood of Christ could make them? Or when the Philippians read, “Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice,”¹¹ did not their rejoicing spring from the knowledge of their acceptance in the Beloved? Or when the Colossians read, “Giving thanks unto the Father, which HATH made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: who HATH delivered us from the power of darkness, and HATH translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son; in whom we HAVE redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins,¹² did they not know by what was written that they were already saved? Or when the Thessalonians read, “Ye turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God; and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come,”¹³ they surely knew, if they believed the written testimony, that no wrath could come upon them in the future world.

Thus it is in all of the epistles, and hence the experience of the early Christians differed widely from the experience of most modern Christians. Then it was an experience of joy; but there can be no joy where there is no certainty of salvation; and there can be no certainty, where there is no personal acceptance of the written testimony of God's word as true, concerning the finished work of Christ in behalf of sinners, without seeking to add to it any feeling or obedience of our own. There is a little clause in the brief epistle to Philemon, which shows clearly the ground on which the first Christians stood, and which explains fully the secret of their joy. The Apostle writes about Onesimus, whom he sent back to his master, “If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee aught, put that on mine account.”¹⁴ The last five words, “put that on mine account,” are used to translate only one Greek word, which is elsewhere rendered impute: “Sin is not imputed when there is no law.”¹⁵ As the Apostle says concerning Onesimus, if he hath wronged thee I will be answerable for it, if he oweth thee aught I will see that the debt is paid; so the Lord Jesus has made Him self answerable for all the wrong the believer has done God, and has paid to the last farthing the debt he owed God. All the sins of the believer, outward and inward, of heart, thought, word, and act, of omission and commission, are imputed to Christ, or put on His account; and all the value of Christ's precious blood, according to God's estimate of its worth, is imputed to the believer, or put on his account.

Hence we read of his sins, that they are removed from him as far as the east is from the west;¹⁶ that they are cast behind God's back;¹⁷ cast into the depths of the sea;¹⁸ all forgiven;¹⁹ even remembered no more.²⁰ It is the purpose of the gospel, which means the good news, the glad tidings, the joyful message, to make known as an accomplished fact that Christ has died upon the cross for sinners, and that the sins of believing sinners can never be brought into judgment against them, until they can be brought into judgment against the risen and glorified Christ. We are not to have fear, but boldness in the day of judgment, because as He is now, in all the acceptable ness of His person and in all the merit of His accepted work in our behalf, so are we, though still in this world.²¹

We are not surprised, therefore, at the language of certainty and confidence that rings like a trumpet-call to victory throughout the New Testament. “We KNOW, that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”²² “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.”²³ “We have known and believed the love that God hath to us.”²⁴ “We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true: and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.”²⁵ Forty-two times the Greek words, translated know are found in the first epistle of John, showing the earnest desire of the Holy Ghost to lead the believer out of the cold and dark region of doubt and dread into the liberty of the children of God. “Behold [know, or see], what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God [and we are, add all the ancient MSS.]; therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is. And every man that hath this hope in [on] Him purifieth him self, even as He is pure.”²⁶

With such an assurance and such a hope, it is not strange that the words joy and rejoice shine like bright and beautiful stars in the four gospels, in the Acts of the Apostles, in the various Epistles, and even in the book of Revelation. They occur eighteen times in the short epistle to the Philippians, and are used to define a Christian in contrast with those under the law. “For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.”²⁷ “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,” and other graces that lodge in the heart, and adorn the hidden man, and may be called underground fruit, very precious to our Lord²⁸ The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.”²⁹ He does not wish His children to be gloomy, but happy, happy as the day is long, happy in the night of affliction, hearing His word, “Casting all your care upon Him; for He careth for you.”³⁰

It is obvious, then, that the chilling mist of uncertainty, which hangs about many professed Christians in these days, does not arise from the word of God. It comes rather from false teaching that has accustomed them to look into their own hearts, in a vain search for something that deserves heaven, instead of looking simply and singly to Christ, as all our salvation, and all our desire. They have been taught that it is presumption to believe they are saved without any righteousness of their own, and without any ecclesiastical ordinances, and consequently as they have no real joy in their thoughts of God and eternity, and the heart craves happiness, they answer the description given of religion at the close of the pre sent dispensation, when men shall be “lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.”

But, turning away from their formality and worldliness and discontent, let the intelligent believer catch the happy strain of true Christian experience, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: whom having not seen, ye love: in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.”³¹

1) 1 John v. 10-13.

2) 1 John v. 9.

3) Ps. lviii. 3.

4) Luke x. 20.

5) Phil. iv. 3.

6) Gal, iii. 26.

7) Rom. i. 7.

8) 1 Cor. vi. 9-11.

9) Gal. iv. 6.

10) Eph. ii. 13.

11) Phil. iv, 6.

12) Col. i. 12-14.

13) 1 Thess. i. 9, 10.

14) Phil, 18.

15) Rom. v. 13.

16) Ps. ciii. 12.

17) Isa. xxxviii, 17.

18) Mic. vii. 19.

19) Col. ii. 13.

20) Heb. x. 17.

21) 1 John iv, 17.

22) 2 Cor. v. 1.

23) 2 Tim. i. 12.

24) 1 John iv, 16.

25) 1 John v. 20.

26) 1 John iii. 1-3.

27) Phil. iii. 3.

28) Gal. v. 22, 23.

29) Rom. xiv. 17.

30) 1 Pet. V. 7. 4

31) 1 Pet. i. 3-9.