II.

THE LIFE AS COMMUNICATED, WITH ITS ACCOMPANIMENT IN THE BELIEVER.(Chap. 2:23-17:)
The life now manifested in the person of the Word made flesh is in the second part of the gospel displayed as communicated to man, in its various aspects, and with all its wondrous accompaniments as they are found in the believer in Christ. These arc given in regular and perfect order, beginning with new birth in the third chapter, and ending in the thirteenth and four chapters following with the apprehension of the Father and the Son, communion and the fruits in which it issues. Of this part there are four sections, which successively give us, first, chap, iii, iv, the two divine gifts which are fundamental to Christianity-eternal life and the gift of the Holy Ghost; secondly, chap, 5:-vii, the position in which believers are thus placed in relation to the world; thirdly, chap, 8:-xii, the bringing to God in the power of resurrection; and lastly, chap, 13:-xvii, the practical fruits for walk and testimony.

I. (2:23-4:) Life in the Spirit,

There are, in the first section, two distinct but related parts. The first, new birth, the absolute prerequisite to the other, the gift of the Holy Ghost. The one forms the vessel, the other fills it:the one sets right the affections, the other satisfies them.

(I) 2:23-3:New Birth. The last three verses of the second chapter belong evidently in subject to the third, to which they form an important introduction. The condition of man is shown, not in the case of enemies or rejecters, but of those convinced and orthodox in belief, to whom yet as alien in spirit the Lord could not commit Himself. Convinced by miracles, the glory of Christ was yet unseen by them; there was no link of true faith, no response of heart. In Nicodemus' case, while he takes similar ground to theirs-that of the miracles, yet he comes to Christ, showing personal need. The Lord insists on the necessity and character of new birth, man being naturally only "flesh;" a birth which the Word and Spirit unite to produce. Until this is accomplished, man, Jew or Gentile, does not live; and this life is in the sovereign gift of God alone.

But Israel rejected the testimony of One who spoke with perfect knowledge, even when He testified in the line of their own prophets-of earthly things. And He had more to communicate. How would they receive what would have no authority but His to commend it to them? how would they believe when He spoke of heavenly things? Moreover, not for testimony only had He come, but, as antitype of the brazen serpent, to be lifted up, made sin for sinners, that whosoever believeth in Him might not perish, but have eternal life, God having so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son for that purpose. "After these things came Jesus and His disciples into the land of Judea, and there He tarried with them, and baptized." Baptism is burial, and thus the Lord confirms the testimony of the cross as to man's condition. It is life man needs as dead; eternal life that he receives.

The heavenly things the Lord has not yet declared ; for as far as He has yet gone, another is permitted to testify with Him. John expressly says of himself, "He that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth," and yet he bears witness of the Son, and of eternal life being the possession of him who believes in the Son. Not, of course, that eternal life is in its own nature earthly, as surely the Son of God is not; but they can be and are received on earth, while Christ's testimony opens heaven itself.

(2) 4:1-42. The gift of the Holy Ghost-the living wafer. It is now significantly noted that "Jesus Himself baptized not," He confirms the Baptist's witness to man's condition, but not as if it were His own proper sphere of truth. We now find Him, moreover, in Samaria, a Gentile scene. Here He announces the gift of the living water, the Holy Ghost, to an open sinner; for it is the gift of grace, which surmounts, therefore, all legal restrictions also. The Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans; but He is no Jew, but Himself the gift of God to men:of Him, of whom one has but to ask to obtain living water. Moreover, he who drank of this should not merely find satisfaction for a time, as with all mere human joys, but possess the spring of it-for it is not "well," but "spring"-in himself, perpetual and eternal, "springing- up unto eternal life." Here the indwelling of the Spirit is plainly declared to be forever.

The woman's conscience being now reached by the confronting with her past life, she confesses the Lord as a "prophet," and then appeals to His decision between Jerusalem and Gerizim. He declares the worship of God apart from all question of locality, and only possible in reality as resulting from the knowledge of an object which could produce it. God must be known, and salvation was that by which He was known, who was the Father, now seeking, in His grace, true worshipers. The thought of Messiah springs up in the woman's heart. The Lord declares Himself to be Messiah.

This completes the work in the woman's soul. Christ come, and with perfect knowledge of her, revealing to her heart the Father's love, she leaves what had occupied her to tell in the city her new-found joy, her words revealing the secret-" Come, see a man that told me all things that ever I did" On the other hand, the Lord's joy is revealed in the fact that the disciples, who had left to obtain food for His need, come back to find Him no more a hungered:"I have meat to eat that ye know not of," He replies to their wonder. "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work."

The "two days" in Samaria speak, I doubt not, of the present time of grace among the Gentiles. Their apprehension of Him is fittingly as "Saviour of the world"

We find, then, here the Holy Ghost as "living water," indwelling, satisfying the soul; Christ revealing the Father in connection with a known salvation, and, as the result, true, spiritual worship awakened in the heart. This testimony among Gentiles, and to the Saviour of the world. This, with the third chapter, gives the two great factors of Christianity.

(3) 4:43-54 The nobleman son, typifying Israel's conversion. The last part of the fourth chapter seems a supplement to the rest, in which God's grace is seen going out once more to Israel, after the present dispensation is ended. Here we return to Cana of Galilee, marked, too, as the place of the former miracle. We are prepared thus for a connected meaning.

The "nobleman," or "servant of the king," depicts, I doubt not, the nation sunk into the character of courtiers of the world, but now under the judgment of God, as the son smitten apparently to death at Capernaum (elsewhere doomed for the rejection of Christ,) plainly points out. This distress brings him to Christ. The Lord reproves him for the unbelief common to the nation:"Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe." But the man's need is urgent:"Sir, come down ere my child die." And the ready answer of grace is, "Go thy way; thy son liveth." The deliverance brings both himself and his house to true faith.
July 1886