“Believe in God…IN ME…because I live, ye shall live also.” John 14:1,9 in part.
Previously, we were blessed to discover the First of six lessons to be learned from the matter spoken of in John 14:1. Which is, THE LIFE OF BELIEVING IN CHRIST IS NOT ONLY FROM CHRIST BUT ACTUALLY IS IN CHRIST. Wherein we learned the nature of the excellency of Christ is such that He is the OBJECT, SUBSTANCE, and ACTOR of the faith of God’s elect. This being so, there is nothing BELOW Him that will afford comfort to a troubled soul. This leads us to the second:
SECOND: THE POWER THAT PRODUCES GOSPEL FAITH IS A SUPERNATURAL REVELATION OF CHRIST TO US THAT HE ABIDES IN US. This is what Paul testified in Gal. 1:16, “It pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by His grace, TO REVEAL HIS SON IN ME…” And later (Gal. 2:23) he explained, “Before faith (Christ) came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith (Christ) which should afterward be REVEALED.” I speak this to point out that truth must first take hold of us before we can take hold of it! A subject we hope to advance moving forward as enabled by our Redeemer King in His time.
THIRD: THE SUPERNATURAL REVELATION OF CHRIST BRINGS JOYFUL SUBMISSION TO CHRIST. That soul, when blessed to truly see Christ in His transcendent excellency, is so overcome by the enlarged sight of Christ, being the only way, truth, and the life of his life, is so carried up into the love of Christ, he joyfully submits to Him as his “all and in all,” Col. 3:11. This is the Gospel faith of Jesus Christ “which worketh by love” and not by law. See Gal. 5:6.
FOURTH: THE REVELATION OF CHRIST RENDERS HIM “ALTOGETHER LOVELY” TO THOSE BLESSED TO SEE HIM IN HIS TRUTH. When souls are brought to see Christ as He is in truth, they see nothing more lovely than Christ Himself. Anything BELOW Him is not sufficient to meet their needs in any respect. It is then, at that moment, and in increasing amounts moving forward, Christ becomes, “the chiefest of ten thousand” to the believing saint. Like the Shulamite woman, they cannot find another lover for their souls saying: “Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth…draw me, we will run after thee…behold Thou art fair, my Beloved…He brought me to the banqueting house, and His banner over me is LOVE…my Beloved is mine, and I am His…His mouth is the most sweet: Yea, HE IS ALTOGETHER LOVELY!” See Song of Solomon 1:2,3; 1:16; 2:4,16; 5:10,16.
FIFTH: THE REVELATION OF CHRIST BRINGS DELIVERANCE FROM SINFUL FEAR. This is the very reason they do not need the law of Moses. Nothing BELOW Christ will satisfy their desire to live in those sweet beams of light and love that generously flow from God through Jesus Christ. It is Christ Who is both light and life to them. This is what the book of Galatians is about. Please find two passages there in our old time-tested KJB [these will not read correctly in any version beyond 1890, D.O.] and study them out as blessed to do. These are Gal. 3:22-26 and Gal. 4:3-7. The key verse is 3:22. Notice, “the promise by FAITH OF JESUS CHRIST might be given to them that believe.” Whose faith is given, to them that believe?
SIXTH: THE REVELATION OF CHRIST IS YOUR DIVINE CONSOLATION. All the above truths are bound up in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ concerning His Eternal Vital Union to His people. Hence, we hear Him declare: “Because I live, ye shall live also,” John 14:19. Christ “lives” as “God manifest in the flesh.” He lives the same life as the Father, partaking of the same Divine Nature and possessing the same excellencies from everlasting. He shall so “live” to everlasting in worlds without end. Christ “lives” as man. First a private and then public life attended with reproaches, sorrows, and suffering. His life was filled with devotion to good and benevolent acts upon the souls of men. He answered the Law of Moses and at last, endured the penalty of that law in the room and stead of His elect people. His life was given for them and now, as man, He lives for ever more. Christ “lives” as a MEDIATOR. Having been “set up” in His office capacity from everlasting to see the “travail of His soul and be satisfied” with the fruit of His suffering as a man and to make perpetual intercession for His people and “rule until His enemies are made His footstool.” Please see Prov. 8:22-31; Isa. 53:11, Psa. 110:1. Because of these three truths regarding the life of Christ, His people “LIVE ALSO.” They are brought by Christ to “live” a spiritual life in real-time. From natural life to a life of grace, imputed holiness, and faith in Christ alone as the OBJECT of it, “ALSO!” Sometimes they are graciously brought into a sweet communion with Him wherein they desire nothing BELOW Him. And they shall “live also,” in the afterlife, an eternal life of perfection and pleasure for evermore in an unspeakable state of glory with Christ as joint heirs with Him.
THIS IS YOUR DIVINE CONSOLATION. Between these two lives, i.e., the life of Christ and the life of His people, there is an ETERNAL VITAL UNION. The life of His people is dependent on the life of their Redeemer King. Their life is secured and preserved by Him as their sufficient supply for every need. Hear Him declare, “Because I live, YE SHALL LIVE ALSO!” He knows the spiritual life of His people is from Himself along with the maintenance of it. The same life which is in the Head is in the members! The same life in the Vine is in the branches. It is not so much that His people live, as it is He lives in them! Therefore, their spiritual eternal life can never be lost, it being bound up in Christ’s life, hidden safe and secure within God, out of reach of both men and devils! Even the corporal life of the saints after death is secured by the life of Christ. His resurrection is the pattern and pledge of their resurrection with Him. He undertook to raise them, and He ever lives to act that out accordingly. As sure and certain as His dead body was raised and now lives, Christ declares, “BECAUSE I LIVE, YE SHALL LIVE ALSO.” By virtue of this Eternal Vital Union which death cannot dissolve, they shall be raised and “live also.” Further, because the saints in Christ Jesus are the “dead in Christ” He promises they shall “rise first,” I Thess. 4:16-17. These profoundly sublime truths bring new meaning to such verses as I John 5:11,12, “And this is the record, that God hath given 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.” I John 5:20, “And 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.”
Finally, Col. 3:4 says, “When Christ who is our life, shall appear, then shall we appear with him in glory.” Is this the Christ you have been brought by grace to see? Next lesson we hope to discover Christ as the WAY of the believer’s life. Let us look to Him to that end.
Dan O’Dell, S.S., Weslaco, TX., Jan. 30 ,2024
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