THE MATTER SPOKEN OF, Part III(ODell)

Dily

John 14:1 “Let not your heart be troubled, ye believe in God, believe also IN ME.”
 
In the previous message we closed with this lesson: “As soon and as far as a man receives power from God to “believe in God,” just as soon and just as far is that man taken up into God and is to the same extent made to live upon God and is delivered from those things which are below God.” It is our hope today to take this one step further into the truth of the matter spoken of by Christ.
It is not bare believing there is a God that Christ is here speaking of. Rather, A belief that is rightly rectified as to its OBJECT, which is why he adds the words, “believe also IN ME.” When our sweet Savior said, “ye believe in God, believe also IN ME,” He did not have two objects in mind, one being “God” and the other “me.” This very matter had already been addressed by Christ in Chapter 10 of John’s Gospel. In verse 30 he declared, “I and my Father are one.” It was for this very reason the “Jews took up stones again to stone him,” verse 31. In that case, Jesus answered them, “Many good works have I showed you from my Father; for which of those works do you stone me?” (verse 32). Their reply then is the same as all modern Pharisees, which is: “For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy; and because that thou BEING A MAN, makest thyself God,” verse 33. Such is the sound of every proud mental scientist who believes they are on the path to being “Christed” as Jesus was because He was only a “man” like themselves, in their perception of Him.
 

He saw Himself as the sufficient OBJECT of His disciple’s faith…

That Christ did not intend two objects of faith here is further proven by His own testimony to Philip in John 14:9, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” This is consistent with John 10:32 when He declared: “Many good works have I showed you from my Father.” He also testified in John 14:10, “The Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works.” Wherein, He disclaims the personal performance of his own works of any kind. All of which is harmonious with such teachings found in I Tim. 3:16, “GOD WAS MANIFEST IN THE FLESH,” Being the very “WORD (that) WAS GOD…MADE FLESH, AND DWELT AMONG US,” John 1:1&14.
 
Therefore, when Christ said, “ye believe in God, believe also IN ME,” He was in as much as saying, believe “in God” as He is held out and set forth “IN ME.” To declare, I AM THE PERSONATOR OF GOD! “I am THAT I AM” which is “God manifest in the flesh” and “without Him was not anything made that was made,” John 1:3. “I AM” that very same “Word” that “was with God and was God…in the beginning.” That very “Word” which “dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth,” John 1:14. In short, He was instructing His disciples to “believe in God…IN ME…also.” Because a mere belief in God is not enough to deliver a troubled soul from sinful fear! It is certainly not enough to deliver a proud Pharisee from Hell seeing even the “devils also believe and tremble,” James 2:19. There are multitudes who believe in God, are members of Churches by baptism in one form or another who yet and still are in “the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity,” Act. 8:23.
 
Consistent with the way of Christ in the care of His disciples in all His teaching, He continues to undergird them by saying, “Let not your hearts be troubled.” Wherein He essentially instructs them to look away from themselves and their circumstances by focusing their faith on “GOD…IN ME.” This is the path to the deliverance of troubled hearts and the only way to have peace. This is exactly why Jesus declared in John 16:33, “These things (chapters 14-16) have I spoken unto you, that IN ME ye might have peace.”
 
This is the matter spoken of. Even as Paul taught the Corinthian saints in II Cor. 5:19, “GOD WAS IN CHRIST, reconciling the world (of the elect) unto Himself.” Again, hear the apostle John in 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, even His son Jesus Christ, THIS IS THE TRUE GOD and eternal life.”
 
Here is the lesson: Christ’s words considered this way are full of proof of His true Deity, Underived, Uncreated, as He considered Himself! He saw Himself as the sufficient OBJECT of His disciple’s faith, being the only sure foundation for solid peace and comfort during afflictions and persecutions in their present evil world circumstance. This adds a new dimension to a verse like Phil. 2:5, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”
 
Where is your faith, right now? If it is not found in Christ ALONE who said: “Believe in God…IN ME”? He Himself went on to remind these same disciples in the next chapter (15:5), “Without me, ye can do nothing.” It is Christ alone and nothing BELOW Him, Who is “the way, the truth and the life” of your life, or you have no life at all! CHRIST ALONE IS YOUR DIVINE CONSOLATION! Only Jesus Christ is sufficient to meet your every need, doing in you and for you that which you cannot do for yourself.
 
Next lesson, we hope to discover THE CONCLUSION OF THE MATTER. Let us pray to that end.

Dan O’Dell, a debtor to mercy, if my heart does not deceive me. 

Weslaco, TX. 1.23.2024.