John 1: 4-5, 9-13
Romans 5: 20-21; 6: 14, 17-18, 22-23
Exodus 10: 21-23
1 Peter 3: 7
Romans 8: 14-17
JDG I thought we might consider together the matter of life and light as it bears on the life of a believer. It came in in Christ, available for men, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men”. It has an effect on all of us as we come into an understanding of it and are affected by it.
In the first scripture it secures those who receive Him, persons affected by the light, and the life is affected by the light, they are 'born of God', are children of God. Then in Romans there is the side of responsibility. A challenge comes up as to how we are going to live our lives in the light of John 1. I would like to take it up from that point of view. There are persons here who have had a transaction. We belong to the children of God, but then we find ourselves in responsibility here in this world, but grace overabounds, and we prove the blessing of overabounding grace and how that affects our lives. Light affects the life of the believer. So light and life are correlative in that sense in relation to the life of the believer so that he comes into the understanding of the light, and his pathway is a separate pathway. He is walking “in newness of life” (Rom 6: 4), and it also says, “reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus”, Rom 6: 11. So he then takes account of his members and he is rejoicing that he is abstaining from sin and becoming a bondman to righteousness. Then Paul takes it up again at the end of the chapter, and he emphasises, “But now, having got your freedom from sin, and having become bondmen to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end eternal life.”
It is easy to see the connection with Exodus. They “had light in their dwellings”. The children of Israel were against the state of things in the world, which Romans considers. I suppose it follows on from the aspect of, “reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus”. As we have been taught, it relates to the land of Goshen where the saints are. They are in the midst, with Egypt around them, but there is light in their dwellings. I would like to raise the matter with us further. We are living in relation to the light we have, and I linked that in my mind with the households; “light in their dwellings” is light in the Christian households. That is why I suggested the passage in 1 Peter, especially that statement “fellow-heirs of the grace of life”. I might dwell on that when we come round to it. That suggests the household in Goshen. Here in this epistle the background is suffering, the Lord’s suffering and then the saints’ suffering, but here is the place in the midst of suffering where there is another kind of life in evidence.
Lastly, in Romans, what I thought of was being led in relation to the Spirit. It is still in the wilderness but He is leading in relation to the inheritance; so that we might consider what that might be in our pathway.
These are the thoughts I had in mind that we might consider together. I am counting on the brethren to fill it out a bit.
RJC Does 'born of God' mean that we have a certain capacity to absorb these things? We are not born of any other means, 'born of God'. There is the thought of derivation here, is there, and we are able to absorb the light and life that there is in Christ? These are transposable, are they not, light and life? They are seen in Christ, but we have to be affected by them, have we?
JDG Yes. According to this passage in John 1, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men”. The only persons that got the gain of it were those who were born of God. I thought we should see the divine intent. It says, “All things received being through him, and without him not one thing received being which has received being”, (v 3), and that is the completion of the creation, but then Scripture goes on to bring out that God is coming in in Christ in relation to men.
CKR What a significant development this was, Christ coming in and light coming in, appearing in darkness. Something had come into manifestation that had its source in God Himself.
JDG Yes, this is the light that came in but the darkness did not apprehend it. There were persons who apprehended it, but it is life, life in relation to humanity, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men”. He has come in in relation to humanity, and it is humanity that has fallen.
CKR The perfect demonstration of it was in Him, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men”. There is something that has come into perfect and full manifestation in Christ personally in sonship in manhood.
JDG That is right. There is no imperfection in the Lord Jesus. The thing was fully displayed in Him and communicated to where it found exercise to receive it. There were those that received it. It says that, “He came to his own, and his own received him not; but as many as received him …”. There is a state there that is able to receive Him in this way. How we can be thankful, dear brethren, for the light that has come in in Christ! How we can be thankful that we belong to a company that has received that light! There is a darkness around us that we will speak about later too. Some were not able to apprehend it, being in moral darkness. How dark it was! It typifies this in the setting in Egypt, but the light shone. I think it has been said already, it was not that the company that received it had any less perverse will than those who had refused it, but it was how God had worked.
JTB Does the reception of the light create in us a desire to follow, and create instincts after Christ? “He that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life”, John 8: 12.
JDG Yes, that epitomises what I had in mind. The light was received and brings about formation and substance in us. So there was a desire to follow. In Romans there was a desire to follow Christ amidst all the exercises that come up in that chapter.
DBR It has been said that from verses 4-13 is an epitome of Christ’s history here on earth with the consequences that either “the darkness apprehended it not” or those that were born of God did apprehend it and receive it. So these verses are very important as covering the whole period of Christ’s life, do you think?
JDG Yes, it is very helpful to bring that in. I like your word, ‘the epitome of His life here’ because that is what it was. The light was available to all. Responsibility enters into it too. “He came to his own, and his own received him not”. They regarded Him really as a carpenter. Those who received Him not just thought He was a carpenter. The Lord says in John 3, if you recall, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except any one be born of water and of Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God”, v 5. That is Nicodemus. That is the beginning of the work of God. Nicodemus saw more than a carpenter or a carpenter’s son in the Lord. So he comes to Him, by night. It is the first movement, drawn to Christ, and he comes out into the light eventually. What has come up is interesting, to see the effects of Christ coming into the scene, but what an opportunity for all that this Person of the Godhead, known as “the Word”, the Son of God, comes in to convey to men life that was the light of men. There was no light like this before. In contra-distinction to what God did in Genesis 1, this is a new movement to bring to light, you might say, a new race.
JCG In John 12: 46 the Lord repeats in His own testimony, “I am come into the world as light, that every one that believes on me may not abide in darkness”, the testimony that there was no need to stay there as long as Christ was there as the shining Light.
JDG Yes, it says there in John 12: 36, “While ye have the light, believe in the light, that ye may become sons of light”. That conveys the thought of formation. Then it says there - it is an interesting scripture - “Jesus said these things, and going away hid himself from them”. I remember it being said, ‘Did they miss Him?’. Would we miss the Lord if He hid Himself from us? Here they were - they did not miss Him. They were against Him, some in that chapter. Jesus went away and hid Himself from them. That was because of their refusal. But here in this chapter 1 He is coming in, He is available to all.
WL I was just wondering if there was a connection with verse 18 and verse 4, “No one has seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”. I was wondering if light and life were related to Him in manhood from the standpoint of “the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father”.
JDG Yes, I think that verse is quite helpful because it shows that there is movement with the Lord. It is really a condensed statement that we have in verse 4, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men”. But then as you move into the Gospel, what you have brought out is helpful. This is one aspect of it, “No one has seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”. That is making the light available to us, is it not? “The life was the light of men” involves the unfolding of the Trinity, the economy, does it not, and that would be part of what is in mind in verse 18? So the Lord brings to light the economy as known in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
WL So the Lord brought in with Him in manhood these features that were unique to Him. This is an absolute statement, is it not? We reach things as we come to Romans through moral exercise, but He never needed that.
JDG “In him was life, and the life was the light of men” is a condensed statement, but then, as you get into the Gospel, you find it unfolding. That is why I quoted John 3. He is reaching out to help a soul that is enquiring, is He not? So the Lord never turns us away. Even although we come to Jesus by night, the Lord discerned that there was something working in that man that was of God.
RG In the woman in John 4, there is darkness, but He introduces interestingly the Father and the Spirit, and then she says, “Come, see a man” - the light had shone in her heart - “who told me all things I had ever done: is not he the Christ?”, v 29.
JDG Yes, that is movement out from this position He took up as coming in, is it not? “In him was life, and the life was the light of men”. There by Sychar’s well He begins to unfold to that woman the truth of the worship of God: “the Father seeks such as his worshippers”, v 23. And what you have brought out introduces the thought of the Spirit. Then she grasps hold of a Man, and that is the Man who came in. She belonged to the family that was born of God, did she not? Light brings responsibility, man will be held to account for rejecting the light, but it brings responsibility also to those who receive it. It says, “to them gave he the right to be children of God”. It is a very blessed matter which I would like us to take home to ourselves before we enter into the body of the reading that if we are persons who have come to Christ, and belong to this company who are children of God, we have a right to take that place. It carries with it responsibility as well as blessing.
JAG The Lord leads Nicodemus along the moral road, referring to the serpent of brass (John 3: 14), and then, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal”, v 16.
JDG I used to think that the Lord stopped speaking to Nicodemus at verse 12, “if I say the heavenly things to you, will ye believe?” but He does not. It dawned on me not too long ago that the whole section was addressed to Nicodemus. What a fullness there was as He brings him to the idea of the brazen serpent, and judgment of sin in the flesh in Christ. But then, “For God has not sent his Son into the world that he may judge the world, but that the world may be saved through him”, v 17. And, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son”. I came across a remark by Mr Pellatt, who said, ‘One can hardly think of the world, especially in the light of John, being an object of complacency, or even those who composed the world being objects of divine complacency or delight, but it is the love of omnipotent pity, of infinite compassion’, Selected Ministry vol 1 p115. He loved because of His great desire to have man recovered to Himself, so He gives His only-begotten Son “that whosoever believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal”.
DBR To be brought into this life, redemption and the Holy Spirit is necessary. Does that link on with what has been said?
JDG Yes, we have to bear that in mind. It is a condensed statement, as you said earlier on, verses 4-13, the epitome of the Lord’s life but for us to be brought into it involves redemption. It involves what we have been speaking about in John 3 that God gave His Son. It involves the blood of Christ; it involves the suffering of Christ.
DBR Is the idea of being 'born of God' like a divine root in the person? I mean, Christ was His own root in manhood, and nothing could be added to that, and He needed no development in that sense; but I wondered if being born of God is the establishment of a divine root in men, and it is only on the basis of that that we can understand this, do you think?
JDG Yes, I was wondering in my own mind whether it might link on a bit with what Paul calls the new man. There is something substantial which takes place in the believer when He comes to Christ. It is a divine work so we are all furnished with the same blessing. There has been an impartation to us by God’s operations through new birth coming to a climax where there is something in us that is born of God and has its root in Him. It involves a new nature.
DBR So the new man is really a creation of God in that way, is it not? The creative power of God comes into that in a moral sense in the new man.
JDG Yes. What is in my mind is that, as born of God, there is something imparted to us that is of God. We partake of what belongs to Him. Just as a family partakes of the father’s features, so in the divine family we partake of what belongs to God, and that expresses itself, just as the new man expresses itself. So this feature, 'born of God', expresses itself,. Paul is appealing to that side of things in Romans that is in the believer, “grace has overabounded”. Grace belongs to what has been born of God. It is one of the characteristics of the divine nature.
JAG The new man “is created in truthful righteousness and holiness”, Eph 4: 24. That is from God’s side, and yet we have to come to that. The boards stand in two bases of silver, Exod 26: 19.
JDG Yes, and your “fruit unto holiness” at the end of Romans 6, “ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end eternal life”. There is a capacity in me of God that can take on these features and express them because they have been imparted to me. We ask for grace, and that is right. We ask for grace in the sense that we want to express it, but it belongs to me as having the work of God in me. It is not something I have to ask to be given exactly, it is something I have to ask to use - at least that is how it appeals to me.
Life is worked out in the believer. Growth takes place in the life of a believer, but each one has been given the essence of the work of God that carries all these features with it and are developed.
WL Some confuse “born anew” and 'born of God'. It would be helpful if you say something.
JDG Well, all I know about that is that “born anew” in John 3 is the beginning of the work of God, and “that which is born of the Spirit is spirit”, v 3, 6. There has been a change in your spirit and my spirit, when it might not have been discernible to others, by the Spirit of God. It is completed fully in the work of God maturing and developing from an embryonic condition to full maturity. Is that right?
WL Yes, that is helpful. Some confuse the two. 'Born of God' would involve the gift of the Spirit, the indwelling power of the Spirit; born anew, not necessarily.
JDG “Born anew” is the beginning of the work of God, but it would be difficult to say about a soul that he had been born anew. You may consider he may be born anew. If you consider it in your own history, you can trace back to when you could say, ‘Yes, God was working there before I confessed Christ as my Saviour’. Confessing Christ as my Saviour was like a completion on the way, one of the completions. Is that right?
WL Yes. It is a very solemn consideration. Unless a person is born anew he has no part in Christianity at all.
JDG But it does say, “It is needful that ye should be born anew”, John 3: 7. Now, that may be a verse to me in the gospel in the sense that I be exercised to be born anew, but it is the sovereign operation of God.
CKR Romans 3, 4 and 5 are light coming out then in righteousness, power, and the love of God. Then it says, “What then shall we say?”, Rom 6: 1. So there is a responsible life being fulfilled now on a new principle.
JDG Yes, that is right. That is why I began there at the end of chapter 5, “grace has overabounded”. Paul says, “What then shall we say? Should we continue in sin that grace may abound?”, but grace has overabounded. I would like us to approach this scripture, today anyway, from the point of view of persons who have received Christ, persons who have been born of God. This chapter is not written to unbelievers. That does not mean we cannot preach the gospel from it; we can, but it is written to believers. So the question comes up, grace has been shown to me, I have been born of God and I take account of myself as that. Now light comes into my soul.
ASH Do you think that when Paul says, “But by God’s grace I am what I am; and his grace, which was towards me, has not been vain” (1 Cor 15: 10), that the working out of the introduction of the way Christ would operate in his soul as light shone in that soul?
JDG Yes. It says here in verse 14, “for ye are not under law but under grace”. Grace becomes a motive power in the believer, does it not? He is affected by what has been shown to him, what has been secured in Christ. Grace becomes the power. It is not law that becomes the power. Law will never help me in the exercises of chapter 6 of Romans. It will never help me in my Christian life because I will not be able to fulfil it any more than the Israelites were prepared to fulfil it in the Old Testament. But grace is the power within the believer, the power of gathering. It draws us to Christ.
RG I was thinking about all those to whom the Lord had appeared that Paul speaks about, and then he says, “But by God’s grace I am what I am”, 1 Cor 15: 10. “And last of all … he appeared to me also”, v 8. So that is how He has appeared to us, do you think?
JDG Well, I think we really could take ground like that, “But by God’s grace I am what I am”. We know what we were. The old man is what I was, is what you were, after the flesh. All it desired was to sin. That is the desire of the old man. To be crucified with Christ, God has shown publicly the crucifixion of Christ, and He has ended that man. In the death and burial of Christ the old man is out of sight from the divine viewpoint. Now I have to learn that the resurrection of Christ, the baptism and resurrection of Christ, the death and resurrection of Christ has affected me; so I walk in newness of life. I suppose that is just walking as a Christian, walking true to the work of God in me apart from the world. What we find in this section is that it is Christ or the world.
WMP That expression “of his resurrection”, it is not only that we appreciate it or are identified with it. What do you see in it?
JDG Well, it says there in verse 5, “For if we are become identified with him in the likeness of his death, so also we shall be of his resurrection”. It seems to me that we are suited then to be associated with Christ in resurrection. We take on the features of Christ in resurrection, but it says, “For if we are become identified with him in the likeness of his death”. The note says, ‘grown up with’ Him. Another has said that it does not happen in a moment, growing up with Christ in the likeness of His death. It is something that is worked out in the believer's life. So we are not all taken to heaven when we come to Christ as Saviour but we are left here to go through this world and be true to what God has wrought in us.
WMP We were looking at Psalm 139, “Thine eyes did see my unformed substance … during many days were they fashioned, when as yet there was none of them”, v 16. That is how the work of God develops in the believer and how things develop too in our local meetings. It is on that principle.
JDG Yes, that is very helpful. It is a secret thing, secret to you and me. The brethren see the evidences of growth in me, growth in you. They see the evidence of that, but the secret of growth is with the believer and with the Lord and helped by the Spirit. What was brought out, that being born of God involves the reception of the Spirit, is important. So we develop in the features that belong to that state. Growth takes place. 'Born of God' is arrived at as something mature and we have everything in essence there, but it is developed in the believer in capacity in the time of his life by his searching out, and being with God, and enquiring of God to acquire substance in the truth. We need to acquire substance and capacity. There needs to be a desire with us to follow this line. We are not going to continue in sin but we are going to continue so that grace does abound to us and help us in the pathway.
RJC So it is intended to lay hold of us in our lives here apart from the world. It is completely apart form the world and apart from the domination of sin. You are apart from that. So Paul says, “Far be the thought”. Why should we continue in sin? We have a life in Christ which forms us so we should be here pleasurable to God apart from sin.
JDG This is individual. We all individually here have to come through these exercises and then arrive at, “reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus”, v 11. Gradually as you go in for the things of the Lord, the truth begins to open up to you. “In Christ Jesus” is another sphere of life over against the world, linked with a Man in heaven. He is looking forward to divine purpose in that. This is all to encourage us to take up the pathway of identification with Christ in reproach, a pathway with Christ as “raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father” (v 4), to see that that blessed Man has been raised by the glory of the Father, a definite matter taken up by the Father to raise Him from among the dead.
JAG If you go back to John 4, you can see newness of life very distinctly, arriving quickly at the fact that He was the Christ. John is writing that believers might believe that.
JDG That is right, and how effective it was. What a name He received there by the Samaritans, “Saviour of the world”, John 4: 42.
DBR Why do you think the idea of crucifixion comes in? It says, “knowing this, that our old man has been crucified” (Rom 6: 6); not only death, but He was crucified. Have you some thought about that?
JDG We were speaking a week or two ago about circumcision in Joshua, circumcised with stone-knives (chap 5: 3), which is the secret side of things in the believer’s history. The crucifixion, it seems to me, is how God publicly regards this old man. It says, “our old man has been crucified with him”. What I have derived from Adam, the whole stock of Adam, God has crucified in the death of Christ. He has made it a public, shameful thing to be identified with the old man so that we do not want to be any more identified with the old man. He has been annulled “that we should no longer serve sin”.
DTP The footnote helps when it speaks of being ‘discharged’ from sin. '”Free” is ambiguous. It is justified, cleared, discharged. From sin...' It is complete in the divine purpose of God and the believer lays hold on it.
JDG It says, “For he that has died is justified from sin”, v 7. That means he can no longer be charged with it. “We have died”, v 8. It is a statement by itself there. “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ having been raised up from among the dead dies no more” and so on. But it says, “that the body of sin”, the totality of it, “might be annulled”. The result of God viewing the old man as crucified should exercise me that he has no power any longer over me, and power is given in the Spirit to secure that, an answer in me.
DBR The idea of “the body of sin” is the whole totality of the thing. God has dealt with that and there has been a public demonstration that it has been dealt with. That is clearing the way for us to come into this newness of life.
JDG So if I express, or you express, or anyone expresses features of the old man, God finds no pleasure in that and I think, as judging ourselves, we take no pleasure in it either. At times when I may fail in expressing something of the features of the Christ, then I have to judge myself and in doing so learn to see what God has done with that old man He has crucified in the death of Christ.
CKR How thankful we should be for the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the glory of the Father involved in it in Romans 6, and the believer living now in the new principle of “alive to God in Christ Jesus”, a glorified Man. It opens up a whole new world, but also a whole new principle for living in the world in which we are.
JDG Yes, so 'born of God' has been reckoned to be like a new race. This chapter brings out the new world and I begin to walk in the light of it. I am not in it yet but I am in the light of it. So then it says in verses 13 and 14, “Neither yield your members instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but yield yourselves to God as alive from among the dead, and your members instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under law but under grace.” How thankful we are that we are under grace, and it draws us to follow this blessed Man because what a wonderful deliverance we have received through Him! What a way He has gone to secure that deliverance!
JTB Does the widow in 2 Kings 4 illustrate this? “Go, sell the oil, and pay thy debt”, every liability was discharged, “and live thou and thy sons on the rest”, v 7. Do you think she was living now in the sphere of life, this newness of life was the scene in which she was walking?
JDG Yes, so we might say, “Now, having got your freedom from sin, ye have become bondmen to righteousness”, and in the next part of the chapter, “But now, having got your freedom from sin, and having become bondmen to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end eternal life”. That was the principle of her life now, over against being under law and in debt, God given riches. What a challenge to us! Are we prepared for “having got your freedom from sin, ye have become bondmen to righteousness” and for “having got your freedom from sin, and having become bondmen to God”? How wonderful it is to address God and acknowledge Him as the Master!
DCB Is this chapter helping us that sin is not to have dominion, as distinct from chapter 7 in which sin dwells in us. So can we see this as something that is completed because of the work of Christ? The dominion of sin over the believer has been broken.
JDG Yes, I am glad you bring that out, because what is in mind as discussing this chapter is that we are alive in the world in which all these things apply where sin is, and all that is surrounding us. We are living there, but it is not to have dominion over us. We have to come to a judgment of our eyes and our tastes that belong after the flesh, but which is part of the old man which has been crucified, and make way for what is spiritual, what is of God. I say again, we have been given something from God, that is born of God, that would be true to itself if we make way for it. You do not ask it to be true to itself, it will be true to itself if we make way for it. It belongs to each one of us. All we have to do is ask God for help, the Spirit for help, to express what belongs to God in me and it will do it. That is expressing itself in life.
WL Is “bondmen of God” one fruit that you are born of God?
JDG Yes, and you are rejoicing in it. It is not bondage. You have freedom from sin, “But now, having got your freedom from sin, and having become bondmen to God”, it is not bondage, it is liberty.
JCG Say some more about this positive side of yielding. It is mentioned once or twice, “yield yourselves” and then “reckon yourselves dead to sin”. There is some kind of assertion of the work of God in that, is there?
JDG Yes, I understand we get help by the Spirit as we yield ourselves. God has given us the Spirit of God to help us. Someone else has said that nature is character, but power comes from the Spirit to express these things. What I have been saying, we have the nature. It belongs to us as born of God by divine workmanship in us, divine operations. The Spirit will cause those features to develop in me and you and express themselves, and they will express themselves along the pathway of “not of the world”, John 17: 16. Would that be right?
We come to Exodus. The thought there, as would be evident, was the dwellings. First of all you have persons individually. According to Romans 6 you are in this world but apart from it because you love the Lord and have been drawn to Him, have affection for Christ. You do not want to be in the world that cast Him out, but He died and He is risen. He is related to another world, and I want to be related to that world and have my tastes there, my joys there. We come now to persons who have households, “But all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings”. This is the land of Goshen. It is in Egypt, but it is the land of Goshen. This is the time of the plagues or the signs, plagues for Egypt, signs for the children of Israel. God distinguishes the children of Israel and distinguishes their dwellings in the land of Goshen. There is light there. That was the light that came in in Christ. “In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” That is that light that is in these dwellings.
RJC On the other hand there is thick darkness in Egypt. I thought of that when the Lord came in, “He came to his own, and his own received him not”. That was darkness religiously when the Lord came into this scene. But there is light in their dwellings, there is tremendous contrast between thick darkness and the children of Israel having light in their dwellings.
JDG At the present time in which we live, if there is one thing registers with you in this country, it is that the darkness is increasing, but there is light in the dwellings of the saints. Do I live in relation to that light?
DBR Delightful to God! I was thinking for instance, a young brother and sister saying they will go and learn, morning by morning, to get on their knees, that is the life of Christ. That is the kind of life He lived and that would be seen now in our houses. I think, too, the older you get the more precious it becomes. It would be that we can just simply speak to God.
JDG That is right. That was in my mind, the protection of a believer’s home, heirs together of the grace of life, a very beautiful suggestion. We have both got an object in life that is going to go beyond the natural. The natural is wonderful as it is but it will cease, but heirs together, husbands and wives and children can live in an environment where there is light and safety.
CKR Say more then about what this light is that is in the dwelling. It must be a heavenly light. Paul drew a lot initially on households and light coming in. There was light in the house of Judas in “the street which is called Straight”, Acts 9: 11. There was light as he visited place by place, as though there was something of this principle developing as the truth of the assembly began to fructify.
JDG Yes. You mentioned the assembly. It was in my mind that we should speak about walking in the light of the assembly, but the household is part of that. It is an environment related to the gathering of the saints. It goes before the gathering of the saints. What kind of light is in my house? Am I living in the light of Christ glorified and the Spirit here. As surrounded by a world of darkness, do our children see a difference in our houses compared with what they might meet with their peers at school?
GAB These three days must mean something. Is it not the death of Christ that sets my household apart from a worldly household?
JDG You are referring to the three days in verse 22, “there was a thick darkness throughout the land of Egypt three days” bringing out the death of Christ? We have been affected by Christ raised from the dead. We were speaking about it in Romans 6, but there is no doubt there is darkness in Egypt, darkness in the world. In this setting we are in Goshen. It is the setting of the testimony in the world in which we are in which we have to work out our daily toils amongst men, apart from men. But you return to your home, and it is a respite.
JAG Does this light relate to the leadership of the Spirit, and the inheritance, and sonship.
JDG Yes, it does, and these features are expressed livingly in the believer's life. We are speaking about persons being married here and households, but it does not exclude persons who are not married because they have a household too and have to take up their households. So there is light in all their dwellings there too. Persons may come into the house of a sister and can see there is another kind of life there that is according to God. But I was thinking that marriage in the Lord is not just for one day. Our brother here undertakes marriages for us, and we are thankful for that, and marriage in the Lord is stressed, but it is not just for one day. In a Christian marriage there is husband and wife and the Lord, and that always has to be carried through. It is not just for one day in their lives, marriage in the Lord. It is to characterise the whole of their lives as husband and wife, and as children come on they are all related to the Lord and His authority.
JAG Everyone who has the Spirit has intelligence in capacity to appreciate the light and where it is leading to.
JDG Our homes are different; we are not trying to say they are not, but we need to protect them. We need to protect them and protect the children. Particularly as technology has affected our homes of necessity on account of business and other matters, but we need to protect the children so that there is a difference in the home from a worldly home. Time is not spent on certain practice the way the world spends their time, but the believer’s house has opportunity given for prayer and for reading the Scriptures with the family. There is a protection in that.
WL The jailor was baptised, “he and all his straightway”, Acts 16: 33.
JDG What a joy to come into a house where there is rejoicing. They rejoiced household-wise. Why? Light had come into his soul and had affected his arrangements and his home, affected the whole of his life. It is not just for one day. It becomes a life practice, and it is a joyous practice because, what is life? We are speaking about life. Life is enjoyment of what God has given you in your being and the environment where you can enjoy the blessings of what is in Christ Jesus now before the day of glory comes.
RG “If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord“, that is like Romans, “come into my house and abide there”, Acts 16: 15. That is what we have here now.
JDG That is very fine, to have light in our dwellings, to come into a home where that kind of light is shining, another kind of light, light from heaven shining in the believer, shining in our homes. Our children are brought into that environment. Outside there is darkness in Egypt, but we want to lay hold of this, heirs together of the grace of life. In Peter, there is an exhortation to the husband but it does not exclude the sister either. It says, “Ye husbands likewise, dwell with them according to knowledge, as with a weaker, even the female, vessel, giving them honour”. Then it says, “as also fellow-heirs of the grace of life, that your prayers be not hindered”. That is a wonderful attitude to have. It is really the elements of what comes from Christ and the assembly. “Husbands, love your own wives, even as the Christ also loved the assembly”, Eph 5: 25.
TDB I was thinking that John speaks in his epistle of things that we have seen and contemplated and handled, 1 John 1: 1. That was substantial in the life of Jesus, was it?
JDG You see it in our homes. There is to be an expression of that kind of life in our homes, that “had light in their dwellings”. What a privilege to be in such a house! What a privilege in responsibility to maintain such a house, to maintain it day by day, every day. There are ups and downs in life. We have to work the truth out together, work things out together in the pressures of life, but if you have something together of the grace of life, that is not only the light of another world but the enjoyment of it together. There is a bond formed in the marriage that is going to be greater than the marital bond in the end really. The marital bond will not go through, but “fellow-heirs of the grace of life” is something that is formed spiritually and will go into eternity.
WL What is “the grace of life”?
JDG It is just enjoying the Lord. What do you think?
WL That is helpful. It is not fellow-heirs of life, but “fellow-heirs of the grace of life”. There is something deep in that.
JDG It is an expression in the believer of the choiceness of the favour of God which I can enjoy in my life and in my household.
JAG I was thinking the mutuality of love in Priscilla and Aquila and their being in all these different places as being a manifestation of it.
JDG Yes, and you are linked up with a living God. There is life according to God expressed in the home.
JAG And all are welcome there.
JDG That is right, and there is a mutuality of joy as you entertain the saints in your home. It is evident there is an atmosphere there in the home that is in the enjoyment of this kind of life. I know there are problems, and toilsome life, and we have many exercises, and going through this scene is not easy. We know all that, but what a joy to come home from the toils of business whatever they be, and find a person there who is a fellow-heir with you of the grace of life. What an adornment! What an atmosphere!
JCG “Giving them honour” is an acknowledgement really by the husband that there is the work of God in the wife, and the children can see the mutuality that exists there. It provides an atmosphere of love.
JDG They will see natural affection too, but they will see something else. When it comes to Lord’s day morning, what will they see? Persons desirous of going out to remember the Lord Jesus, persons who spend the Lord’s day committed to the Lord Jesus, persons who, as far as they are able, spend the Monday evening in prayer in the assembly, persons who are committed, as far as is possible, to working out life here below to be amongst the saints on the week nights. I often think of one brother who gives the announcements and speaks of ‘the mid-week city reading’. I like that, because it is a place we should always be at. Why? Because you are going to taste something of the grace of life there, in the midst of a world of toilsomeness, which is greater than the home. The home has certain characteristics that are similar to this, but it is greater than the home. You come in to see other persons, to use an expression that you get in the Old Testament, that are acacias. They have been in the world and they are acacias. They have been through the wilderness, acacia-wood, formed after Christ, and now they are released in an atmosphere in which you touch something of eternal life in the mid-week. Oh brethren, why do we not be there? Why do we not live this kind of life as far as is possible? Why do we not live it? It is for our enjoyment. It is going to be for our blessing in our households, blessing in our families. We all have exercises in our families, there are very few households that do not, but for our enjoyment to have this kind of life .
JCG Mr James Taylor likened the company of prophets in Samuel, and the hill of God (1 Sam 10: 5), to the middle of the week, vol 60 p497. The company of prophets would express what was of life by the Spirit.
JDG That is a good expression, “the hill of God”. There were the Philistines there, so you need strengthened. It is a strengthening occasion to help you to continue for the next three days, you might say. It builds you up in your soul to go back to your home, and out the next morning to your work, back into the toils of life and back in the evening, “fellow-heirs of the grace of life”. Wonderful!
DBR What did you have in mind in your opening remarks about communication of life?
JDG I just thought that, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men” was going to be communicated to us, imparted to us. Has it not been communicated to you? I am sure it has.
DBR That is this verse here, “the grace of life”. It is what has been communicated, what we have been introduced into by the same blessed Person.
JDG Yes, “the grace of life” would not be far from the sphere of eternal life, would it?
Well, what I thought in Romans 8 was that the Spirit identifies Himself with us, as the sons of God. There was just one touch I had on my spirit, “The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit”, that is the Spirit objectively. He indwells us but He is also there objectively, “that we are children of God. And if children, heirs also: heirs of God, and Christ’s joint heirs”. I thought it is an added gem there, because the rest of the chapter goes on to the question of toils and we are not sure how to pray as is fitting, and the Spirit helps us in that, but He just touches your heart here. You are on the heavenly way. You are on the way to the inheritance, and I link it in my mind with what we have just spoken about. He would say to you, ‘Well, if you want to enjoy the inheritance in the mid-week, seek the company of the saints as they are gathered’. It is possible. That should be the objective of our lives.
These are the only impressions I had. I trust they have been some encouragement to us. No condemnation! May it be an encouragement to us as we set our feet again on the highway and are strengthened in it by the Spirit!
Glasgow
26th April 2008