Gooding, David: 1 - Knowledge of the Living Lord

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, sir, for those words of cheery welcome, and be all assured, all of you, I count it an honor and a pleasure to be with you here this weekend. Particularly, I am happy to make a small contribution to your noble work in spreading the glorious message of the gospel by John. I have just come up to from London, and there I received a copy of the breakthrough edition of the Gospel of John that I believe you will be distributing in your effort. It is certainly elegantly produced. Congratulations to you or whoever it was that designed it, and may God encourage you and give you tremendous joy as you see the lively effects of this glorious gospel, uh, in the lives of your friends and colleagues. Tonight, as you have heard, I want to speak to you on Jesus Christ our Lord, first of all, as the source of life. And when we have thought of that for a while, I want then to speak to you about Jesus Christ our Lord as the means of life. Source of life on the one hand, means of life on the other. And so that we can get this into our heads and hearts at once, let us pause first to look at the obvious difference between the term source of life on the one hand and means of life on the other. So let us look at the analogy of physical life, and then from physical life transpose ourselves to the level of spiritual life. Most of us will agree that we do not get our physical life by eating bread and butter. I didn't, I don't suppose you did either. We do not get physical life by eating bread and butter, sausage rolls, or other delectables. We get it by an altogether different principle. We get it as a direct and instantaneous gift from our parents. They are its source, and they get it from God. So it is in spiritual life, we get our spiritual life directly, instantaneously, as a gift from Christ. He is the source of spiritual life. But to return to the physical, because we receive our physical life as a gift instantaneously from our parents, none will be so absurd as to say that thereafter we don't need the bread and butter. We, of course, need the bread and butter not as a source of life, but as a means of life. And it is an elementary observation, isn't it, at that level? It is true also at the spiritual level. We need Christ first as the source of spiritual life. But as much as we need him as the source of spiritual life first, then subsequently we need him as the means of spiritual life. Maintain the life that first we receive from him as its source. Source of life, means of life. Not source without means, and not means without, uh, source, but both. So let's look at scripture itself. If you still have your Bibles with them and have not cast them away, let us, uh, uh, look at chapter five and see these things explicitly said in the words of scripture. This is John chapter five and verse 26. For as the Father has life in himself, even so gave he to the Son also to have life in himself. We should notice particularly the little phrase in himself. It logically, it is exceedingly important. As the Father has life in himself. And when the Bible says that God has life in himself, it is not merely saying to us that God is alive. Of course God is alive. He is the living. But then he's more than alive. We too are alive, for the time being at any rate. But God has life in himself. That is, he ha- he is the source of life. He doesn't get his life from anyone or anything else. Indeed, John chapter one, talking about the great creation, says as follows, that all things were made by him, and without him was nothing made that was made. In him was life. And that life was the light of men. If you ask, where did God get the life from to make this vast universe, with all its teeming life and all its different life, from caterpillars to archangels, from butterflies to monkeys and to men, elephants and giraffes, not to speak of donkeys. Where did God get all this amazing variety of life from? The answer is he didn't get it from anywhere. In him was life, says scripture. He is the source of all life, the self-existent, ever existent God. Now, as the Father has life in himself, says Jesus Christ our Lord, to the utter astonishment of those, and particularly the theologians, that listen to him. As the Father has life in himself, so also has he given to the Son to have life in himself. Pause to take in the dimensions of the claim that Jesus Christ our Lord is making. He is the source of life in every sense as God is the source of life. He was the source of life to the created universe and to all creatures within it. We shall discover later tonight that he is the source of life at the spiritual level, and all who receive spiritual life do and must receive it from him. Jesus Christ, the source of life. But then if we go to the very next chapter in the Gospel of John, chapter six, we shall hear our Lord proclaiming himself as the means of life, the bread of life. And he does so in many a verse. Verse, uh, uh, uh, thirty three: for the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven and giveth life unto the world. Or again, verse forty eight: I am the bread of life. Or again, uh, he says, verse fifty: this is the bread which comes down out of heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die. And then he sets up the analogy, verse fifty seven, as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he that eateth me, he also shall live because of me. So here our Lord proclaims himself directly as the means of life, the bread of life. Chapter five, then he is the source from which we receive spiritual life. In chapter six, he tells us he is the bread of life which we need to sustain the life that once we receive from him as the source. That then will be the main bearing of my message to you this evening, the glorious sufficiency of Jesus Christ our Lord. God, you see, has thought of everything. We need Christ as a source of life, but not only as its source, we need him too as the bread of life. And we need them, we need him in that order, don't we? We need him first as the source of life, and thereafter as the bread of life, to revert to our analogy with physical life. At what stage do you need the bread and the marmalade? You say, no, it doesn't help you to be born to eat the marmalade, it's rather difficult at that stage. No, no, you need the source first. You need first to get the light from the source, first that. It must be in that order, and it's only when you have received the light that then you need the bread and the marmalade to maintain the life, isn't it? And what is true in spiritual life, uh, physical life is true in spiritual life as well. First you need Christ as the source of life to give you, and give you it instantaneously, the gift of life from life source. And then thereafter, you will need Christ as the bread of life to maintain the life he has given you. And here there are two elementary mistakes that sometimes many people fall into. Some try to feed on Christ as the bread of life, without ever having come to Christ and received life from him as the source. That is a sad mistake, and it doesn't work. No, we need first to come to him and receive life as a source, as a gift from him as the source, as a gift, and then to feed on him as the bread of life. The other mistake is even more, i- i- i- is likewise widespread, isn't it? There are those who f- come to Christ, they trust him, they receive him, they repent, they believe, and in that moment they receive from him instantaneously the gift of eternal life. But then sometimes they are in danger of thinking, because they have come to Christ and received the gift of life, that's all they need. I have eternal life, they say, good for me, and uh, well, that's all I need, really. No, it isn't. You certainly need first the gift of life from Christ, the source of life. Thereafter, you will equally need the bread of life, Christ as the means of life, to maintain the life he has given you. Two things then, and not one. So let us begin by talking about Christ as the source of life. And merciful to us, John has, uh, included in his gospel at the beginning of chapter five a beautiful story of a miracle that Christ did at the physical level, that like all the other signs in the gospel of John, to become in their turn, uh, parables, illustrations of the great salvation that Christ has at the spiritual level. In chapter six, for instance, later this evening, we shall see Christ first multiply loaves and fishes and feed the people by a mir- miracle at the physical level. Very soon that miracle, a real historical factual miracle at the physical level, will become also a parable at the spiritual level to illustrate how Christ feeds and maintains us as the bread of life. So here in this story too, of a physical miracle Christ did to illustrate the fact that he is the source of life. There was this man, and he had been to this pool in Jerusalem called, and the translators have a job translating it the right way around, so let's not call it anything, eh, called, uh, in Hebrew something or other, and in this place was a portico and pool of water, and it would appear that from time to time, uh, there was an inrush of mineral water of some kind into that pool, intermittently an inrush. Wasn't there all the time on tap, but from time to time there came an inrush of mineral waters that people had found, uh, helpful to alleviate certain illnesses and diseases. A very interesting example of what you'll find in nature in sundry parts of this world. Nowadays we should call them medicinal spas, you'll see. They're very keen on them in Hungary for some reason or other, and in certain parts of Germany. Waters, mineral waters that contain salts and this, that, and other that have been found useful to alleviate, if not cure, certain diseases. And we may thank God for all such means of healing that God has put within his creation. We're meant to use them, aren't we? God has put all kinds of means of healing into our world, thank God. Rhubarb, for instance, is good for certain things, and uh, uh, uh, uh, prunes and what have you, and uh, uh, mustard plasters and all kinds of means and methods and dandelion leaves and, and uh, things, uh, quinine and goodness knows what else. Uh, means that God has put in nature that we are meant to use for healing. There have been centuries in the past particularly, and sometimes in the present, when Christians have felt that they are above using means for healing and expect God to do a miracle every time they get ill. That, as John Wesley long ago pointed out, is not right attitude to these things. God who makes the corn to grow, we turn it by milling it into flour and bake it in our ovens, has given us means to feed ourselves. He expects us to use them. And God has put all kinds of means of healing in our world, and he expects us to use them likewise. It's not super duper spirituality to say we don't need to use any means of healing. We expect God to do a miracle every time we get ill. That's not true. So here was a means of healing, and apparently many people had profited from it. But there was one man there, says John, who e- wi- ill and weak as he was, was unable to use the means. It was okay for people that were not so weak and could get into the pool, you'll see, while the input of mineral water was still strong, but obviously the mineral water would grow diluted and lose its power, and that was that. This poor chap was so weak that he couldn't use the means of healing. And the moving story it is, I don't know whether he he lay on his mat all thirty eight years solid, or whether he came now and again to it, but it'd been thirty eight years like that. I can picture the man, can't you? Levering himself forward when the water was stirred, getting a ringside seat on the edge of the pool, waiting now for the, for the staff to, this time I shall be in first, and then know somebody got in before him. Not willing to give up hope, hoping one day it would happen. There for thirty eight years, unhealed, because unable to use the means of healing. And one day Jesus Christ our Lord came where he was and saw him and understood he'd been there thirty eight years, who with compassion came to him and said, old fellow, would you like to be well? But you know, the man was so obsessed with this cool thing, the only means of healing he could think of, that he didn't answer the question. The question simply asked for a yes or no answer. Would you like to be made whole? Yes. Would you like to be made whole? No, whatever. But in his head, the only way of getting healed, as he knew, was to get into the pool. And so when Christ said to him, wouldst thou be made whole, he said, sir, but I've no one to help me when the water is troubled, to help me into the pool. I suppose he imagined that he looked up into the face of Christ, that here was some kindly stranger who perhaps might go so far as to give him a helping hand into the pool. That would be marvelous, he thought. Christ nearly exploded. I don't need a pool, my man. I don't need a few mineral salts. Get up, man. With that word of divine command, that creative word, the man was healed, got up and carried his bed home. How could Christ do it? Because he was himself. His source of life. Here is the one of whom it is said in chapter one, we repeat, all things were made by him. As it is written in the book of Genesis in chapter one, and God said, and the universe came into being. And God said, and the divine word of power coupled with all its information, not only created matter, but planted intelligent design in matter and the mechanisms that would lead to our developing universe. That same one now stood here incarnate. In him was life, source of life as God is source of life. Speaking a word, he healed the man and made him whole. That was a physical miracle, but of course it becomes for us, as all the other miracles, a sign, a parable, a picture, and its relevance to every one of us is clear from Holy Scripture. But just as that man was physically weak, so all of us without exception, are spiritually weak. Let me remind you of that notable paragraph in Paul's letter to the Romans in chapter five, where Paul lists a catalog of our ugly sins and deficiencies. We were ungodly. We were sinners. We were enemies of God. But among that ugly cavalcade of sinfulness and brokenness, this also is included. We were weak. While we were yet weak, says the great apostle, in due season Christ died for the ungodly. It is good for us when we f- discover it and face the fact that we are not whole men and women. Not only physically, but morally and spiritually. We are dented, paralyzed in some part, weak. Weak. It's not only that we are weak and cannot, uh, do as we should. The more serious news is this, we are so weak, we cannot save ourselves. There have been those in this life who have imagined that God gave us his holy law, so that we should, by keeping it, improve ourselves, little by little maybe, or sometimes in big jumps. And gradually improving ourselves, we might make the grade at last, we might even squeeze into his heaven. Improving ourselves, improving ourselves gradually by our honest effort to keep God. And that's hoping one day that when we present ourselves before God's throne, God will act the kindly university lecturer and say that fifty percent, well, it's a good two-two. Forty-five percent, well, it's a third. You only got forty-one, never mind, you meant well, considering your circumstances let you through. So the law were means of our salvation. It is very important that we should discover as soon as we possibly can, but that is a delusion. Sin has weakened us. As Paul the Apostle himself confesses in his own history. In my mind, I delight in the law of God. Who wouldn't? It's the only intelligent way to live according to God's law. But I see another principle actually working in my bodily members. When I would do good, evil is present with me. The fact is that we all not only have sinned in the past, but we do come short of the glory of God. And if you and I were to meet each other when we are both ninety nine point nine years old, then our honest confession to each other would still be this, not only have we sinned in the past, but we still come short of the glory of God. Faced with that straight diagnosis of scripture, many people seize upon Christ. They say, ah, now I see the point of Christ. I can't keep the law in my own strength, and therefore I have no hope of getting saved. So, oh, thank God Christ has come, and he's in the business of helping me, you see, and he'll give me a hand to keep the law so that then, uh, I shall, uh, qualify for salvation, you see. Of course, when he's done it and I passed with flying colors, or passed anyway, eh, uh, I shall say it's all by the grace of Christ because he helped me, you see. But, uh, of course, I've got to ki- I've got to do it, I got to keep this law, and, uh, Christ has come, thank God, to, um, give me a helping hand so I can keep it. He's done no such thing. People who think like that are thinking like this man at the pool. When he first heard Christ say, would you be made whole? That's precisely what he thought. Oh, thank God, someone's come at last to give me a helping hand so I can use the pool to get healed with. But Christ has come to do no such thing. Christ has not come to give us a help to keep God's law, that therefore, by the keeping of the law, with his help, of course, we achieve salvation. All the gospel is infinitely more wonderful than that. We are weak and could never keep his God's commands or thus achieve salvation. And what we could not do, Christ has come to do. Stand by us in all our weakness and give us the gift of life. That is the gift of eternal life. How does it happen? Well, our Lord first claims that he has, uh, the ability, he is God incarnate. As the Father, uh, quickens whomsoever he will, so Christ quickens, that makes alive whomsoever he will. He is the one by whose word creation came into being. He then goes on eventually to tell us, that because he is the source of life, one day the hour is coming, says he, in which all those that are in the grave, dead and gone yesterday, last week, last year, last century, a thousand years and more, all those that are in the grave shall hear his voice and come forth. Blessed Lord shall not come around each tomb and give them a helping hand to climb out. He shall speak his commanding word, and physically the dead shall rise. It's the source of life, physical. More important for us just at this moment is that he is the source of life, spiritual. Listen to his statement. The hour comes and now is when the dead, not now the dead in their graves, but the dead that is the spiritually dead, shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and hearing in that instant, shall live. He puts it this way, truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes him that sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death to life. The thing that rejoices my heart exceedingly, so I can go hopping for joy. Metaphorically speaking. Is that combined with this as utterance, our Lord also claimed another significant thing. For the Father, he says, judgeth no man, but hath given all judgment unto the Son, that all may honor the Son even as they honor the Father. This matter, therefore, of judgment, Christ is going, is the judge. Christ will be the final judge. When you see the judge upon the final throne, that brings history to its end, the one you will see is Jesus Christ. He's going to be the final judge. He painted a very picture when, a very vivid picture when he was here on earth, how the nations would be gathered before him. He should separate the sheep from the goats. He should say to the goats, depart from me. To the sheep, he should say, come, you blessed, inherit the kingdom, and the sheep shall pass into eternal life, because now it's the life of eternity that he gives them. But you see, because he is final judge, he doesn't have to wait till the final judgment. He is the judge already. And therefore he is able to say to us here this evening, verily, verily, I say to you, he that hears my word and believes him that sent me has, has this moment eternal life, that is the life of eternity. What Christ gives the believer i- i- is not a few liters of petrol to get going on with, to make and to begin the journey to heaven. What Christ gives to the believer is the life of the ages. It is the eternal life. It is, in fact, the life of God. And he can give it now. And because he is the judge, he can pronounce the final sentence now. Listen to him as judge pronounce that final sentence. He who hears my word and believes on him that sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment. How can he say it? Because he is the judge. God has passed over already from spiritual death into spiritual life. Happy the man and woman that has thus encountered Jesus Christ personally in this life, in all their weakness, the futile struggle. And has heard the voice of the living Son of God, the source of life, spoken to their very hearts. Found that he creates within them a gift of eternal life. And pronounces his final sentence, they shall not come into condemnation. They have passed now and forever from death to life. He is then the source of life. Did I hear somebody say, well, now you can stop your sermon, Mr. Preacher, because I've had that experience, and I have eternal life, and I know I shall never perish, and I shall never come into judgment. Thank the Lord, I, I, I met Christ, you know, some years ago, nineteen hundred and four on the fifth of December. And I, I, I, I, I got it now, you see, I got eternal life, you see, so... I don't need anything more. In fact, I can get along a good many days without Christ. There are those, not here, of course, I hope not, um, who treat Christ as I treat my garage man. I have an excellent garage man. I could sing his praises, uh, uh, uh, wide and far, you'll see. And when the car goes wrong, which is generally when I take it to him, uh, I will say, he is exceedingly helpful and generous and good man and knows all about cars and things and puts them right, you'll see, and gives them back to me, you'll see. And when he does that, I say, thank you very much, garage man, you're a jolly good fellow, you see. Uh, I only invite him now, please get into my car and drive me and tell me how I ought to drive it and where I ought to go, and come and live with me in my home. No, no, no, not a garage man. Now I only go to him when I need him. Sometimes the temptation in some people's mind that because they've come to Christ and received eternal life, that's all really they need. Goodbye for the present, Lord. Meet you in heaven. No, you don't, says Christ. For if now you have received life from me as the source of life, now you will need me as the means of life, as the bread of life. Listen to his outright statement. Jesus therefore said unto them, verily, verily, I say unto you, except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have not life in myself now, eternal life in myself, I don't need Christ. That is not true. If you have eternal life, that life is Christ. You don't have it apart from Christ. Christ is your life, says Paul in Colossians chapter three, And your life is hid with Christ in God. He is your life. And therefore he acts not only as its source, but as its means, daily to maintain that life. To help us see the point and the necessity of having Christ as the means of life, as well as the source of life. John reminds us that when our Lord did the miracle of feeding the five thousand with loaves and fishes, the Passover, the feast of the Jews, says John, was near at hand. And we would be wise people to take the hint from John and to ask ourselves what the relevance is of that little remark that John shunts in at that stage. We're about to see Christ do a miracle to feed five thousand with miraculously multiplied bread and fish, and on that basis to proclaim himself by analogy the bread that came down from heaven. So why does John suddenly nudge us in the ribs and say, oh, please remember at this stage that this happened when the Passover was near at hand. Well, one reason seems obvious to me. The Passover in among the Jews, as you remember, was a yearly religious feast in which the whole nation remembered the fact that centuries before they had been slaves in the brick kilns of Egypt, and then God had delivered them and set them free through the Passover sacrifice and through his almighty power destroying Pharaoh at the Red Sea. That they had to remember every year as a great historical event that set their nation free. But right from the very start, and particularly the first time they did it, they were required to eat this lamb whose blood had been shed for their protection. They were required to eat it, not just any how, the thing had to be roast, you'll see. And then when they ate it, they couldn't eat it just any old how. They had to eat it with a staff in their hand and their shoes on their feet and their loins. People all those centuries ago had loins, eh, as you'll see, and their loins girt about, you'll see. Uh, uh, ancient language, that is. The middles, in other words. Their middles girt about. You say, why did they have to eat it? Must have been uncomfortably difficult. Bit of roast lamb in the left hand. Uh, uh, some bit of herbs, how did he get hold of them? Uh, uh, uh, and the wine that went with it, awkward like a, like a, like a champagne party, isn't it? Sure. Eh, but uh, uh, that's how they had to do it, not just any old how. And why with staff in her hand and the loins girt and shoes on her feet? Why? Because when God came down to deliver his people out of Egypt through the blood of that Passover lamb and his almighty power, that wasn't the end, that was a beginning. God simultaneously promised them that he would take them out of Egypt, and out there in the blue was an inheritance flowing with milk and honey. And indeed, the deal was this. It was a composite deal that through faith and doing what they were told in this thing, God would, one, deliver them from Egypt, two, bring them into the Promised Land, and you had to take both bits of the deal. You'll see. You couldn't opt for one without the other. You will have noticed that in your own reading, the way Moses preached the gospel to the Israelites and the way he didn't. He didn't come to the Israelites and say, it's uncomfortable here, isn't it, under the lash of the cosmos? It's jolly uncomfortable, it is. I tell you what, God has got a salvation for you. Now, it's quite a salvation.