Gooding, David: 8 - Highway to Holiness

In our last session, we were considering what Christ meant when he talked to his apostles about the divine persons coming to them and making their abode with them. The whole idea, of course, was exceedingly new and strange to the apostles. They would never have heard anything like it before. And if our own experience in these matters is any guide, at least if my experience is any guide, this was a lesson that they would find difficult to grasp the first time it was put to them. What does it mean to have Christ living in you? And how and in what sense can the Father come and make his abode with you? It is easy, comparatively easy, I suppose, for us to think of our Lord's second coming, to take us to be with the Father in his house. But what does it mean here and now in this life to make the divine persons a mansion, a dwelling place within us? So that just hearing it once would hardly be sufficient for them. For even when they had heard it and thought they had understood it, they would come days when somehow the lesson would disappear like a mountain in the mist. It is wonderful to see that our Lord had not overlooked the need that his disciples would feel and the difficulty in learning this lesson. Now, in verses twenty five of chapter fourteen and onward, he gives to them his provision to meet this particular need. So that in verse twenty six we read of help that is to be given them in learning his teaching, and what is more, in even remembering it. And then in verse twenty seven, he talks of a provision for peace of heart, and in twenty eight, of joy. And in twenty nine, of faith. For he himself was about to leave them. This lesson, so recently given, would be followed almost immediately by his departure, and his disciples would feel on their own. We too, I fancy, feel sometimes like that. We read the lesson in Holy Scripture, and yet we feel we haven't grasped it, or we would like to be able to ask someone what exactly it means, and we feel a little bit forlorn. But we needn't feel in that way forlorn, because let us look to his first provision. There is to be provision for our learning this lesson, and provision for our constantly keeping it in mind, and that is the sending of the Holy Spiriter, uh, the Holy Spirit, the great Comforter. But the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you. Now, doubtless, this promise applied in its full and first strength to the Holy Apostles themselves. It was a guarantee that when the Lord Jesus went, the Holy Spirit would come, and he would enlighten them further as to what Christ actually meant when he taught them these lessons. And secondly, it was a guarantee that when he came, he would bring to their minds perfectly and without mistake the teaching that our Lord had given them in the time that he spent with them. Now, that is exceedingly important. It underlies the validity of practically the whole of our New Testament. How may we know that when we read our gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, how may we know that we have a valid and accurate record? After all, the men who wrote were some of them fishermen, and none of them perhaps more expert than an income tax inspector, though I'm sure income tax inspectors are very expert at keeping details of accounts and things. And Matthew was an income tax inspector, but even with the best will in the world and the best brain in the world, how could they manage accurately to remember all that Christ had taught them? Here is our Lord's provision for that ma- for that thing, which is fundamental, of course, to our Christian faith. The Holy Spirit would come, and in his divine and superhuman way, he would bring to the apostles memory of the things that they had heard Christ teach, so that we may be sure, when we read our New Testaments, that we have what Christ intended for us. And he would help them to understand what they remembered. He shall teach you all things, because it is evident that when you look at the New Testament, you have not just a plain, straightforward record of what Christ said and did. You have record plus interpretation. Now, in this, uh, modern age, many people have, on this ground, found fault with their New Testament. They have said, you know, you haven't just a plain objective record of the life and teaching of Christ. You have already in your gospels an interpretation of that life and record, which perhaps doesn't coincide exactly with what he said or with what he meant. You have the church's interpretation. Well, suppose it is, and it is the fact, that in parts you have not only the record, but the significance of that record given, not only the acts, but the significance of those acts pointed out. In a word, you have not only history, but interpretation. What, what if you have? Here we have the guarantee of the authority that lies behind the interpretations that you will find in the Gospels, the interpretations of the earthly ministry of our Lord. They come from the Holy Spirit and are our guarantee that we have the correct interpretation. Just let me take one thing by example, the death of Christ our Lord. What does it mean? Merely recorded as an event, it would, I suppose, mean something to us, but we should left to wonder and to worry as to its exact significance, should we not? Was it an accident? Was it a tragedy? Was it an example of heroism? Or was it an atoning death, a sacrifice for sin? Merely to have the record would scarcely inform us on any of those points, would it? And therefore, it is exceedingly important to see that when the apostles record for us both our Lord's statements as to the significance of his death as a sacrifice for sin, and their consequent explanations of this in the epistles, that they are interpreting this great event as God intended it to be interpreted. The Holy Spirit, the Comforter, coming, he taught them, and he brought to their remembrance what things Christ had said to them. But when we have allowed for that primary meaning of that promise, I'm sure that we are not doing something illegitimate when we take the promise also to ourselves. For if there is a, a, a part of the teaching of Christ where we need special help to understand it and to grasp it, it is this. What does it mean to have Christ dwelling in me? And then, not only what does it mean, for when I got the lesson clear, there will come days, Mondays and Fridays and Wednesday afternoons, when somehow the crowding in of life, uh, makes the matter disappear, and I shall have to be reminded. Now look, old fellow, didn't you, uh, grasp it the other day that in situations like this you were to remember, um, that the divine persons are dwelling with you? Not a question merely of you're trying to struggle through and find somewhere the right reaction to this particular situation or this particular flood of emotions. Remember that the Lord is with you and in you and waiting to live his reaction to this set of circumstances through you. So then, in the first place, there is this help in learning the teaching and in remembering it. But now again, in view of the fact that he, their teacher and Lord, was about to leave them, he points out that he has made provision for their peace of heart. If we are going to get a solid grasp of any particular lesson, we shall need, I fancy, to be, uh, at peace in ourselves, to have a certain freedom of heart. And this our Lord provides. Peace, he says, I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Now let us notice immediately what those verses do not mean. Sometimes we hear them quoted by one Christian to another, as though it meant that it would be wrong for a Christian at any time to feel himself in a bit of a flutter, wrong for him to feel grief, uh, because he is supposed to have the peace of Christ with him. So let us notice that the Savior who spoke these words at this point, peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, had himself said about a quarter of an hour before that, verily, verily, I say unto you, one of you shall betray me. And saying this, he was troubled in spirit. That is recorded for us in chapter thirteen, verses twenty one and twenty two. So, in the one breath, so to speak, he could honestly admit that he was troubled in spirit, and yet at the next breath talk of his peace, and obviously he saw no contradiction in that. Presently, he was to leave that upper room and go out into the garden, and there to be sore troubled and amazed, and to say, my soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death. And yet we are to understand that this peace that he had was not suddenly washed out by these other experiences, for it's a kind of peace that exists at that deep and fundamental level, a basic peace of heart that even when the storms come ruffling the surface of the waters, leaves the hidden depths unruffled. So it is not inconsistent, uh, for us at times to feel the natural sorrow of things, the anxiety of things, the disappointment of things. The peace he is talking about is something far deeper. And he describes it further, uh, by a contrast. Not as the world gives, give I unto you. Now, at this juncture, we find a concept introduced into our Lord's conversation that is going to grow import- in importance in the coming chapters. It may be worth our while, therefore, to stop a moment and to consider, uh, at some length what the term means. Not as the world giveth. What did our Lord mean by this term, the world? We shall have ample time, as I say, when we come further, chapter sixteen and, uh, preeminently chapter seventeen. We shall have ample time to consider and reflect upon the concept. Let me sketch it in, therefore, now somewhat as follows. The term world is, in its origin, a term denoting something perfectly good. The great physical world that God made, he pronounced it good when he had made it, and all its things good. How then, may we ask, has this term world, which begins life as denoting something good, how has it gone, so to speak, to the bad? For obviously here it's not, uh, being used in the best of all senses, is it? Not as the world gives, I give unto you. Presently we're going to read of the world that hates the apostles and hates Christ and hates God. Very soon we are going to read of a prince of this world, and that prince is none other than Satan himself. He is mentioned i- in the very next breath in verse cha- uh, verse 30 of our chapter fourteen. Prince of this world. It is Satan. How then is it that this world, this term world, has thus gone to the bad? The simple answer would be, perhaps, that while the world in itself was perfectly good, and in itself remains perfectly good, as something that God made. The cunning, fiendishly clever thing that Satan has been able to do is this. He has taken this something good that God made, and instead now of using it as a something which leads men's heart nearer to God, which forms the physical and temporal basis upon which they might build a deeper spiritual fellowship with God, and a fellowship that will grow into an eternal fellowship, even when the temporary world is done. Satan, I say, has taken this world and used it as a bait to draw men's heart from God. The result, of course, is disastrous. But if you use the world as a something to get in the place of God, if you take the giver's gift and use that gift not to bring yourself nearer to the giver, but further away from the giver, then you have a lamentable and tragic situation. We may illustrate it perhaps by the toddler. He knows that mum has brought some ice creams, and she has them in the fridge. And, uh, he knows he shouldn't go to the fridge and take the ice creams. The ice creams are perfectly good. They are designed for the toddler's birthday party happening at half past three this very afternoon. But mum goes out down the street, and, uh, toddler, he can't resist the thought of the ice creams. He's only going to look at them anyway. No harm in looking at them, is there what? So he opens the fridge door. Um, well, now how would you be sure that they would taste right when the other children come in the afternoon if you haven't first sampled them? So he inspects them and samples them, and presently there's not much ice cream left at all. And now what's happened? The very thing that mum was going to give him, and as she gave it, would have been a thing to lead his little infant's heart nearer to mum and think she's a wonderful person. Ice cream and mother as well. Now he's had the ice cream without mother and in defiance of mother. Now he begins to think, oh, mother will be coming home shortly. Wow, what do you do now? And instead of mother being the one who gives him these wonderful things, she's become a threat to his whole system. He hopes she won't come home too quick, or somehow she won't find out. And now he begins to equate mother not with the, uh, niceness of ice creams, but with the fear of losing all the niceness. And precisely that is what Satan has done with the human race. The book of Genesis tells us how he deceived Eve into taking the fruit in independence of God. And now he presides, does this prince of this world, over a whole system in which men have taken God's world, a beautiful and good thing, and still, insofar as it has not been corrupted, a good and beautiful thing, and taken it in independence of God, the giver. In consequence, instead of having both this world and God, they've got this world, but with a fearfully un- fearful uneasiness deep down within them. And God is felt to be a kind of a threat on the fringe of things, and they hope he won't come in the front door too soon. In fact, they try and prove that he doesn't exist, for they now have a system that they want to keep a closed system. And the trouble is that God always keeps threatening to break in. And indeed, their world, it's a very fragile system, isn't it? It is compassed around with vast natural forces that man cannot control. Easily the pie crust of his little world will be broken through by a few cosmic rays, a volcano, a this, that, and the other. And death stands at the door. So whatever kind of security you can build up in the system, you always basically feel threatened. Peace I leave with you, says Christ, but not as the world gives it, which at best is a very fragile thing and depends on circumstances. I give you my peace. That very peace that not only fortified Christ through life, but through which, in the strength of which he was able to face even Gethsemane and the cross. That come what may, this is God's world. Come what may, the man who wills the will of God must triumph. Come what may, there is ultimately nothing to be feared. My peace I give unto you. We see that, as I said in an earlier session, in the life of a man like Saint Paul the Apostle. He wasn't asking God for a life free of sorrow. He never attempted to represent Christianity as, uh, I'm HAPPY and I'm singing all the day long, every day. A man whose life was burdened with a tremendous amount of care and physical suffering and disappointment, and sometimes gross physical dangers. He's saying, yes, it's being a Christian, in one sense, it's like living as a sheep destined to the slaughter. But yet, in it all, and in spite of it all, persuaded that nothing can separate him from the love of God, and therefore basically, and in his heart, at peace. And then our Lord makes provision for their joy. He is going away, and naturally they would be apprehensive and sorrowful that they should lose a man whose teaching had so brightened their lives and given them purpose. Now he begins to say a, a paradoxical thing. If you love me, you would rejoice because I'm going. We should have thought it would have been, if you really love me, you would be sorrowful that I'm going. If you didn't like me, you would rejoice that I'm going. But no, he says, if you loved me, you would have rejoiced because I go unto the Father. And the reason is, the Father is greater than I. It cannot mean that the Father is more important or greater in basic essence, for Christ and the Father are one. But in what you might call an administrative sense, the Father was greater. For, in the interest of our salvation and to accomplish our redemption, the Son of God, who has, was, ever continued to be God in essence, didn't think it a thing to be kept onto, held onto at any price, says Saint Paul in Philippians chapter two, to remain on equal terms with. For God the Father was at that moment of his speaking in his throne above. The Son of God, now limited to a human body, walking by foot across the plains of Palestine. No longer on equal terms with the Father, of the same nature with the Father. As we may, eh eh eh, to illustrate it as we may, the young duke, who in order to keep the family fortunes, uh uh, turning over at their accustomed level, agrees with his father that he will go and live camp out in the gate lodge of the great estate so as to take the entrance fee from the tourists who come to view the stately home and its gardens. The young duke is still of the same blood as his father, in nature and essence the same as his father, but now that he's camping out in the gate lodge, he's not on equal terms with his father. His father is in the beautiful d- uh, thousand-sprung bed, snoring his head off at peace, in all the comfort of the stately home. The boy is roughing it on an old camp bed in the gatehouse, not on equal terms with his father. And our Lord, for the time of his earthly ministry, was content to be a servant, suffering the limitations, uh, of human life on this world. Now he was going back to the father. And that would mean that they would not merely have a Jesus Christ of Nazareth in a human body sitting that other side of the table, but omnipotence coming to make the his abode with them. The Father is greater than I. If Jesus Christ were here on earth at this present time, think what we would miss. There would be some fortunate few Christians in Palestine that could get near him. We in these remote parts of the globe would feel ourselves distant from him. It was better that he went, wasn't it? For the Father is greater, the Father is everywhere at the same time. In this we can rejoice. This new phase is not something less blessed than the time of our Lord's earthly ministry, but more blessed and greater in its potential. And finally, he makes provision for their faith. For their faith in the very basics of Christianity. He was going. The term hides the fact that his going would be by way of the cross, torture, and death. There would come days when the disciples would stand by that cross and by that tomb, shaken to their very foundations. How could this possibly be the Messiah? How could a man suffer like this? How could the world triumph over him like this, and you still have any rational grounds for believing that he was the Messiah. And he said, well, I'm going to tell you beforehand what's going to happen, so that when it happens, you may be able at least to look back and say, well, he said it's going to be this way, and your faith in my knowledge and my foreknowledge will be strengthened. And when he went on in the subsequent chapters to, um, uh, develop this notion, we shall find that not only had they come to faith in his knowledge and foreknowledge, but they should find that this his going was a vital part of the plan for their salvation. So let's break off there. We shall find this notion now of his going loom ever more important in the lessons. Let us observe that we can grasp it at the first place as a stimulus to our faith that Jesus Christ is the true Son of God. He foresaw it all, he planned it all.