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Now, you may well remember that at the end of our last session, we mentioned the point of view of those that say that whereas men will be condemned for not believing, that will be just because it was their fault they couldn't believe. The argument bases itself in part upon the famous second paragraph of the Epistle to the Romans, chapter five, where it is said that through one man's disobedience, sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all...
But here is a question of translation, uh, over which we must pause. The Greek has it, has its verb in the aorist, that is the past definite or past historic tense. And so it is quite, uh, right, if you wish so to do, to translate it by an English past definite and read it, death passed upon all men for that all sinned. On the other hand, the aorist past definite tense in Greek is not the completely the same field of meaning as the English past definite.
So much so that may there are many times in classical as well as New Testament Greek where a Greek past definite tense carries a meaning that can only be rightly expressed in English by a perfect tense. An example of that is to be found in Romans chapter three and verse twenty three, where in the King James Version of the Bible, and a good many other Bibles as well, we find the translation, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Notice that in the King James version, or at least the old one, the tense is a perfect tense, all have sinned, whereas in Greek it is an aorist and a past definite tense. The translators of the King James Version, of course, were well within their rights to translate it by a perfect all have sinned, because they judged that here is an example where the Greek aorist carries the meaning that only a English perfect can rightly express. And if on this occasion they had used an English erist and translated it for all sinned, it wouldn't make sense to an Englishman, nor even to those superior Englishmen that are Americans.
Eh, eh, uh, to get the intended sense of the Greek with both those groups of civilized people, you have to use a perfect tense in English, do you see? So therefore the argument raises, uh, rages over the translation of Romans chapter five and verse twelve, where the word for sin occurs in Greek in an erest tense, just like it is in chapter three twenty three And there, once more, the King James Version translated it, death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.
But the revisers and some other modern translations, observing it was an aorist, translated it here, not by a perfect, but by an English Aorist. Death passed upon all men for that all sinned. It was not only grammar that led them to this, but of course theology, and that's a very different thing from grammar. Theology it is that often dictates to a translator which of two possibilities he shall choose. And here these newer translations chose a Greek erist because they felt that what Paul was saying is this: death passed upon all men, not for that all have individually sinned in the course of their lives, but death passed upon all men for that all sinned when Adam sinned.
Or said. And they, to support this argument, will point to little babies. It couldn't be rightly said, could it, that little babies that die one day old have personally sinned, and yet they die. Why do they die, says this other view? They die because they sinned, even those little babies sinned in Adam. When Adam sinned, they sinned. It is therefore their fault that they die. Now, the relevance of that and the argument that rages about it and the many discussions, I hope, are conducted with Christian charity and spirit.
We shall consider, I suspect, in our question time. I have put out some of my reasons for thinking what I think on the second page of your notes this afternoon. You have time to go away, and if you so please, to prepare your cannon and your big guns to come at the appropriate moment to demolish my arguments and to put in place your well tried, and we hope well proven, answers, uh, uh, against me. I look forward to hearing it sincerely. We need to seek God's help to determine what his word means at this point. I leave the question, therefore, not to run away from this, uh, famous and formative passage, but because we shall have opportunity subsequently to discuss it.
I come this afternoon to another related topic. What it is, we shall see in a moment. But our main aim is this session, as in all, to study the character of God. We are discussing and enjoying together our, our thinking about the glorious gospel of the blessed, one might almost say the happy God. In Jesus Christ our Lord, we have the perfect expression of God. It is a pity, it seems to me, that in the histories gone by, when the church was discussing the person of our blessed Lord Jesus and gave long and sometimes painful thought as to how we were to understand that our blessed Lord could be both human and divine at the same time, how he could be man and God at the same time.
And the great church fathers spent hours and years of careful and devoted thought to trying to think this thing through and establish a correct, a statement about the person of our Lord Jesus and his relation to God. It seems to me a pity that in so doing they seem to have forgot, to Christian eyes, their view of God. Careful to establish that Jesus is the Son of God, as well as being verily human. It seems to me that on times their concept of God remained somewhat compromised, somewhat stained with their old concepts, pagan concepts indeed, of God derived from the Greek philosophers, and they did it without knowing.
They thought they were truly representing God. We therefore need to be humble enough to suppose that we do not know everything as we should about God. This principle we can adhere to, that in the life and death and resurrection and ascension of our Lord, we do see God as God really is. Jesus is, in that sense, God. And therefore, to this second session, we are to think together of Christ as the revealer of God, the light of the world, the creator of faith, and the giver of sight.
We are to study a while the wonderful wisdom seen in the way in which our Lord went about approaching men and women. How and by what methods he sought to fulfill his divine commission, being the word of God now incarnate, come to make God known to men. As he went about his task, what were his presuppositions about the people that he talked to. For his pre- presuppositions were God's presuppositions, of course. In this too, he makes manifest the Father.
And I trust, as we think this afternoon, though these things will be familiar to us, they may come with renewed power, filling our hearts with wonder at the wisdom and the grace, the faithfulness, the loyalty, the holiness, the insight, the compassion, and the long suffering of our blessed Lord as he went around to make God known to men. Why this matter of faith becomes relevant to this is as follows. Some theologians infer from Ephesians two and verse one that the unregenerate are dead through their trespasses and sins.
At least that they don't have to infer. They notice that scripture says so, that you being once dead through trespasses and sins. But from that statement of scripture that the unregenerate are dead through their trespasses and sins, they infer that unregenerate people cannot hear God in a meaningful sense of that term. They may hear the sound of the word that our Lord Jesus spoke. They may superficially understand its grammar and its syntax, but in the profound sense that is vital to salvation, these theologians hold that the unregenerate cannot hear why.
can't they hear? Because they are dead in trespasses and in sins. They are ruined by the fall. They are totally depraved. Not only totally depraved, but totally unable even so much as to hear God. In the only profound sense that matters, really. So you will find the more extreme expression of that view, say, to preach the gospel to unregenerate, unelect people, you might as well go to the cemetery off up the road and preach to the dead in their graves, the physically dead.
The physically dead can't hear you. And the unregenerate who are not elect, they can't hear you either when you preach to them the living word of God. They are dead, therefore they cannot hear. And then it these, uh, partic- this particular view says that because scripture says that the unregenerate are dead in trespasses and in sins, they cannot see in the spiritual sense. They don't have the faculty of sight about which we were talking in our first session. And so they cannot, here comes a third thing, because they are dead, they cannot repent.
And they cannot believe because they are dead in trespasses and in sins. You might as well ask a physically dead corpse to believe you, or to look at you, or to repent of its misdoings. It would all be in vain, for the physically dead can't hear, see, repent, or believe. And so, says this view, the unregenerate are dead in trespasses and sins, totally depraved, completely unable to hear, to see, to repent and believe. How then could they be saved?
According to this particular view, they cannot be saved unless somehow they can be brought to repent and believe. How is that to be done then? It is done by their regeneration, or to use the phrase of Ephesians chapter two, God quickens them. And how does he do that? Well, somehow, in ways that surpass our description, by his spirit, at some point in their lives, God, so to speak, inserts new life into these people.
Uh, they may not know God has done it. They haven't yet repented. They haven't yet believed. They may not even have sought after God. But God, doing it by divine decree and decision for his own reasons and quite apart from these people, decides to regenerate, to quicken this particular person, and so he puts new life in them. And now being spiritually alive, even though they may still be desperate sinners. When subsequently they hear the gospel, they will then eventually repent, and they will then believe.
They can't do either until first God gives them life. So first they need life, and God gives it to them, and then, because they have spiritual life, they're able to repent and believe. That is the theory and the interpretation of Holy Scripture. It f- uh, crystallizes in the idea cho- taken again from Ephesians chapter two, that faith by which we believe in the Savior or believe in God is the gift of God.
You will remember the context. For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. This particular interpretation says, but look what that verse is saying. It is saying that faith is the gift of God. The unregenerate man couldn't believe even if he wanted to, and he doesn't want to. He cannot believe until first God gives him the faith to believe with. And if God doesn't give the man the faith to believe with, the man will never believe, because he can't believe.
Nonetheless, he will be condemned to perdition for not believing. It is that against that background of that particular understanding of Holy Scripture that I wish us now to study a number of passages in the Scripture to see if these things be so. To study not only what Scripture says, but how our Lord Jesus went about the evangelization of the world, and on what presuppositions he conducted his ministry. So let us come to the first scripture on your list, John chapter three verses fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen.
You know them so well that we shall not need to read them. These scriptures will begin to answer the question. Which way round is it? How does a man get spiritual life? How does a woman become regenerate? Do you have to first repent and believe, and upon your believing you receive regeneration and spiritual life? Is it that way? Or is it so that all are dead in trespasses and in sins and couldn't repent and couldn't believe, and therefore God first has to give you spiritual life, first has to regenerate you, and then when you are now regenerate with new spiritual life, then you are able to repent and believe.
Which way around is it? If you think that I'm saying some very strange things this afternoon, well, allow me to assure you that these things are seriously said and have been said and still are said by highly famous servants of God, men of renown, men whose shoes I'm not worthy to unloose, but they have held it so. First, God has to quicken the sinner, give him life, reject. Then, because he's regenerate, then he can repent, then he believes.
And, uh, then, well, he's saved already, isn't he, if he has a... if he's already regenerate and has spiritual life, he's saved already, I suppose. So then he knows he's saved, perhaps. Wakes up with the fact he's saved. Are these things so? John three verses fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen will begin to answer that question. You will remember that speaking to Nicodemus, our Lord used an analogy, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. And Nicodemus, knowing his Bible well, would have remembered the detail of that Old Testament story.
The people had sinned against God. The serpents came and bit them, and through their poison many were dying. When God told Moses to make a serpent of brass and put it on a pole, and Moses commanded the people, and he said, whoever among you has received new life, let him look to the serpent. No, I think not. It's true that they were poisoned. It's true that they were dying, and some of them as good as dead. They were still exhorted to look to the serpent, and they could look to the serpent, and many of them did look to the serpent, and the scripture says, as many as looked, lived.
It doesn't say as many as lived, looked, does it now? And then our Lord, of course, applied the analogy. Though he had the wisdom not to stress too many of the details of the Old Testament story to Nicodemus, for Nicodemus knew it, and it would have insulted his intelligence to spell it out in too great a detail. Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Now, what follows next? That whosoever has been regenerate... may now believe on him.
That whoever has received spiritual life... may now repent and believe. No, no, no, of course not. It's the other way round, isn't it? The Sunday school scholar knows it is. Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believes first in him may in him have eternal life. In the analogy, it was looking to the serpent. In the reality, it is believing on Christ, and both the looking and the believing preceded the receiving of new life.
That is the gospel from the lips of our blessed Lord Jesus. We could take another scripture, couldn't we? John chapter five and verse 25. Verily, verily I say unto you, the hour cometh and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. We notice the order is consistent.
The hour is coming when the dead, that is the spiritually dead, shall hear the voice of the Son of God. And it does not say, and they that live shall hear, but they that hear shall live. What happened to Lazarus when he was physically dead in the grave, and our Lord called, Lazarus, come forth. And Lazarus came forth, and as he was coming out, he said, what's that noise I hear? And then he heard Christ speaking. No, no, no, indeed not, surely. Dead though he was, he heard.
And then he lived. And I do not need to stress these scriptures, eh, because you know them so well. The spiritually dead must and can hear the voice of the Son of God before they receive new life. I take the moment to quote just another scripture from verse forty of chapter five. Let's read verse thirty nine as well. You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and these are they which bear witness of me.
And you will not come to me that you may have life. Now we're beginning to pile up the verbs, are we not? Doubtless they are in some sense metaphorical. There's a question of seeing. They s- looked to the serpent and they lived. There's the question of believing, that whosoever believeth in him may in him have eternal life. There's the question of hearing. The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. And now it's a question of coming. If you want life, what have you to do, said our Lord to the Pharisees. You will not come to me that you may have life.
To get life, you have to come. Looking, seeing, that is, believing, hearing, coming. They all precede, precede life, not follow it, according to our blessed Lord Jesus. At least I take comfort in this, if one preached here the verses that our Lord said, one couldn't be accused of misrepresenting the Bible, could one? Is it true?
Can we begin to suppose it is true? That Paul, going up the Damascus road in all his fury and hate, persecuting the living Son of God, was already a regenerate man. And that's why, when the Lord Jesus appeared to him, he was able to repent and believe. But Saul of Tarsus is already regenerate. If he was already regenerate, then he didn't need to be saved, did he? We come to the very heart of our Christian message, do we not?
These are not mere academic idle speculations. You could conclude a similar thing from the way the scripture talks here and there, almost incidentally. I have, you have many instructors in Christ, says Paul, talking to the Corinthians. You've only one spiritual father, for I have begotten you. Here is regeneration, isn't it? Explicitly so. I have begotten you. How? Through the gospel, that's how. The preaching of the gospel, the preaching of the word is the thing that God uses to produce new life, and thus is a man Regenerate.
Peter's talking to his fellow believers, says that God has begotten us. And once more, it's a question of regeneration, isn't it? Let me explain by what I mean. Sometimes the people of the opposite theory will make this distinction that begetting is a different thing from birth. In the physical realm, it is the father who begets a child, and thus the child is conceived, and the fetus lives, of course, has life. Months later, the mother gives birth, and the child is born. So we don't confuse generation with birth, do we?
At the human level, at least when we're speaking strictly. And some have said that we should follow that analogy in the spiritual world. God first regenerates a person, he, he generates them, if you like, he, he begets them, putting life into them, and they don't even know it's happened. But subsequently, the life is brought to birth, so to speak, when they openly repent and believe. But then, whether that analogy be helpful or not, I am appealing now to scriptures that talk of people being generated, regenerated.
Did you notice that? He has begotten us again. That's regenera- that's the regeneration bit, isn't it? He has begotten us again unto a new and living hope. How? By the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. That's how. And how did they come to know about the resurrection of Christ from the dead? Well, Port Peter explains at the end of his first chapter of his first epistle. Love one another with a pure heart fervently, having been begotten again, born again, by the word of God that liveth and abideth forever.
For all flesh is as grass, and the flower thereof as, uh, the grass of the field, but the word of the Lord endureth forever. And this is the word of the gospel, of course, by which God has regenerated us. Thus, as far as I can perceive, is the normal order of events when it comes to the salvation of a life. But now let us take the matter somewhat further. The, the chapters seven, eight, nine, and ten of the Gospel of John form a cluster of chapters that hang together with all the cohesion and more than the seven sisters of the Pleiades in the stars, yes.
They are related, and I wish I had the time this afternoon to point out to you their literary features that mark them out as a literary cluster. These chapters comprise the third of our Lord's journeys to Jerusalem and away again, the third of the four that are recorded in John's gospel. Let me, however, content myself with pointing out the circumstance, uh, the situation that confronts us at the beginning of these four chapters. John tells us in chapter seven that the feast of the Jews, the feast of the tabernacles was at hand, and his brothers, Christ's brothers, said to him, depart hence and go into Judea, that thy disciples also may behold thy works which thou doest.
For no man doeth anything in secret and himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou doest these things, manifest thyself to the world. For even his brethren did not believe on him. Though I suspect you must agree that there was a certain amount of worldly sense in the advice that our Lord's brothers gave to him on that occasion. They weren't believers, God have mercy on them, as he did later, some of them. They weren't believers, but uh, uh, even unbelievers can be good publicity agents, can't they? Also, not really for the gospel, but some follow their advice. It was a...
And these brothers had uh, some advice to give to to the Lord. They said, you say, if you must start a new religion, dear brother. They didn't altogether approve. But they thought he had some abilities anyway. He could really draw the congregations, couldn't he? Particularly when he did a few miracles, do you see? Um, like feeding the five thousand. And they saw how in his way successful he was up in remote Galilee, but they got impatient with him. They said, now look here, my, our dear brother, if you really want to start a new religion, it's no good staying around in this one-eyed place called Nazareth, you'll see.
One horse show it was. Eh. You want to get down to where all the publicity is. Now look, they said there's a marvelous opportunity for you coming up now, the Feast of the Tabernacles at hand at Jerusalem, and thousands of people from Judea and Galilee and Samaria will be going down, and thousands of pilgrims from the uttermost part of the world will be coming. Just the right stage for you. Marvelous opportunity. Now look, listen to us. You go down to Jerusalem and stage some of your miraculous spectaculars, you know, down there, and uh, show your disciples what you can do. You'll have the meeting out of your hand.
That's what you want to do. Publicity, they said, is the name of the game, do they? It's no good you're staying up here. And you can see from their point of view, uh, they, they felt they were right. They had not reckoned with the problem that faced our Lord Jesus, and he said, for the time being, gentlemen, I do not go up to Jerusalem, for my time is not yet come. Your time is always ready. But you see then, the world doesn't hate you, but me it hates, because I testify of it that its works are evil.
Major problem. Number one. The world hated him. He had but to speak. And people sensed they were sinners. And they resented him. And all their psychological barriers went up against him. How would he approach them? Well, there are, as I say, four chapters. And they tell us four different sides of his approach to men and women.
They were sinners and hated him because of what he said. Halfway through the feast, he went up into the temple and taught. He went up secretly, so to speak. You say, why secretly? Why didn't he go for the publicity? Why secretly? Well, for this very reason, that if he had gone down with all the pilgrims from Nazareth, you'll see, that had seen his miracles that he had done in Tiberias and Cana of Galilee and what have you. Of course, as soon as he got to Jerusalem, the Jerusalemites would have known and recognized, oh, this is that Jesus. He didn't want that publicity. He went up secretly, in private, so that slipping into the city, no one would recognize him.
Thousands of people there wouldn't have known him from the proverbial Adam. Wouldn't know who he was. There would have been many rabbis holding forth here and there in the temple and leading bar mitzvahs and things like that. So he went up into the temple halfway through and began to teach, and the people, not realizing who he was, marveled at his teaching. They said, how does this fellow, no let- no, no letters, never having been to the rabbinical schools, astonished at his teaching. They didn't yet know who he was, many of them. And that was deliberate on the part of our Lord. They would find it difficult to accept that he was Messiah, even more difficult to accept he was Son of God.
So what does Christ do? He veils his identity. Withholds for the moment his claim to be Messiah and starts to teach. What he taught, we are not told. He could well have taught the kind of sermon that we now have in the Sermon on the Mount. But whatever he taught, he was appealing, now please notice it, to their moral conscience. If anyone is willing to do God's will when he knows it, said he, he shall know of my teaching, whether it be of God or not. That is what you have to decide first, gentlemen, said he.
Is my teaching of God? I'll give you reasons for thinking that my teaching is of God, for I'm not seeking to, uh, uh, make myself prominent and parade my own glory. I seek but the glory of him that sent me. In that I have no ulterior motive. And he who works solely for the glory of one that sent him, that man is a true man. Then our Lord began to exercise their moral conscience a bit further. He said, you know, the last time I was in Jerusalem, I did one work, and you all marvel, and they sought to kill me for it.
And the crowd were astonished. Kill you? What do you mean, kill you? No one round here going to kill you? You're, you're not going a little bit, uh, astray in the head with a persecution complex. No one round here going to kill you? What are you talking about? Well, that was the last time, said our Lord. For I made a man whole on the s- Oh. Oh. Oh, you're that Jesus, are you? We heard that the last time you were here. You, you cured a man on the Sabbath day, didn't you? And the authorities didn't like you. Here I say, do the authorities know that you're about? Because they are seeking you to kill you. Yes, that's what I'm saying, said Christ. But I appeal to you.
You bring your moral judgment to bear upon my teaching and upon my works. Please do it. You know, us Jews, we circumcise a boy when he's days year- eight days old. Now, if the eighth day of his life falls on a Sabbath day, the Sabbath day says you mustn't do any work, and circumcision is counted by the rabbis to be work. So what is to be done? One command says no work on the Sabbath. The other command says, but you must circumcise the boy on the eighth day. If the eighth day is a Sabbath, what do you do?
Well, everybody knew what they did. The law of circumcision took precedence over the law of the Sabbath. And in order that Moses' law of circumcision should not be broken, you circumcise a man on the eighth day, don't you? Even if that eighth day is a Sabbath. Oh, well, everybody, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what? Well, he said, if a man on the Sabbath day is circumcised, so that the law be not broken, will you say that I, who made not just a little bit of one man, but a complete man, completely whole on the Sabbath day, that I have broken God's law.
Judge righteous judgment. Should I not have a word in the ear of the Lord Jesus? Well, I'm not there, but suppose I had been and say, Lord, oh, come, come, come, come, come. These are unregenerate people you're talking to, the Lord. How can they possibly judge righteous judgment? They did in trespasses and sins, of course. You might as well ask the corpses in the cemetery to judge your teaching. How could they do it? Then the Lord does it, doesn't he? To unregenerate men and women.
He speaks and calls upon unregenerate men and women to use their moral judgment on his teaching and on the moral quality of his miracles. That's where he began. Incidentally, we often do well to begin that way as well. That's why some of us have recently thought in this past three years to write forty two articles for the teacher's magazine of the, uh, of the school teachers in Russia on the Bible and ethical education for schools. Ethics isn't salvation, but it's a good place to start.
To get unregenerate people thinking about the ethical demands and teachings, both of Old Testament and New. It will raise the question in the end, of course, inevitably, not only what you think of the teachings of Christ, but who is he who teaches it? For if the ethics to proclaim him to be head and shoulders above all the teachers of ethics that ever were, it is that same Jesus that then claims to be the Messiah. It would seem to be false, that other theory, that unregenerate people, because they're dead in trespasses and sins, cannot use their moral judgment.
Our Lord asks them to. Then how would they prove that he was true? In the same chapter seven, he says, if any man thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Will anybody say that the unregenerate never thirst? Ah, what about that woman recorded in chapter four of this so same gospel? How parched her soul, how shriveled her emotions, how disappointed and jaded her palate.
Poor, thirsty woman, who long before she understood what the water of life was, said, oh sir, if you've got a water that lasts, give me that water so I don't have to come here and draw. And he who read the human heart, being its maker, knew that unregenerate men and women have a thirst in them, and gave his lovely invitation, if any man thirsts, let him come to me and drink. First step, if I might abbreviate it, therefore, in our Lord's evangelism of men was to get them to use their moral judgment on his teaching.
And then in chapter eight, once more he asks men to use their moral judgment on themselves. It is in this chapter eight of this gospel that our Lord proclaims himself to be the light of the world. Now watch the light at work, if you will, shining on unregenerate men. There never were any more unregenerate men than those horrible types who dragged that unfortunate woman, the adulteress, before Christ in order to tempt Christ, thinking that they would, uh, get him in a dilemma, whichever thing he chose, and thus have grounds to accuse him before the people, or what was worse, before the government.
Hard, cruel men bent on destroying the Savior and using this poor woman as the trap that they had so cleverly baited. Moses in the law commanded that such should be stoned. They said, what do you say? And he stooped down and wrote on the ground. When he rose up, he said, he that is without sin among you, cast the first stone. They paused, hesitated, turned round and slunk out from the eldest to the youngest.
And as I see them slinking out, I want to shout in their ears, come back, you fools! Going away like that, you're admitting you're sinners. Come back. Face him out. They knew better than to stay put and to cast a stone. They knew in their hearts that had they dared do any such thing, he would have exposed them. Yes, that's impossible. That is impossible. They were unregenerate men. They were dead in trespasses and in sins. They couldn't see the light. They saw enough of the light to run off, didn't they?
Herein is that scripture true, that light came into the world, and men saw it. And they preferred darkness rather than light. And eventually they took up stones, did the local Jews, to stone him and put the light out. Unregenerate men are dead in trespasses and sins in the sense that l- that scripture describes it. It does not mean that they are morally dead. If you think an unregenerate man is morally dead, wait till you see a very wealthy American in the very last word of a Cadillac or whatever it nowadays is, uh, here in your wonderful country.
And just as he's got out of it and, and left the door open and gone into the shop, you get into it. Start driving away and see whether this unregenerate owner has any moral sense in his head and whether he can see a s- uh uh an offense and a sin when one is done underneath his nose. Of course he can. What is more, when the light of the world comes and shines on men, they see themselves as they've never seen themselves before. Can see all right.
And that's why they run away. Because seeing the light hurts, doesn't it? I remember how painful it used to be when, as an infant, when I was doing no harm to the world at all, in fact, dead asleep in bed, that somewhere about ten o'clock at night, parents would come and pick me up. Well, perhaps they were wisest, uh, do see, to attend to me, as they say, and they would switch the light on. Ooh, how it hurt my infant eyes, and had I known any bad words, I would have said them. You'll say. Seeing the light hurts, doesn't it, when you've been used to the dark?
When men saw the light, and it exposed them, and they ran off, or they took up stones to stone him that they might put the light out, what then did our Lord do? Well, in his mercy, he withdrew. And why withdraw? Lest at that stage he would flood them with the full glow of the light of deity, and seeing it, and unready as yet for it, they might reject it and perish forever. So he withdrew with this remark upon his lips.
But when you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you shall know that the Father is in me, and I do none of these things of myself. Oh, what great mercy. For the God who knew that the light hurts the eyes of us who are sinful, arranged for us that we might see God in the dark, where it would not hurt our eyes. Oh, blessed Calvary. And the darkening of the sun. That in the all too familiar world of this world's beastly sin and cruelty, they might look upon Jesus of Jesus Christ crucified, bearing the sin of the world, looking as they looked on him, looking at God, looking at at God in the dark, so to speak, that there they might see into the deepest depths of his heart that otherwise would have been, uh, hidden from them by the excess of the light of
his glory. Oh, what a magnificent God this is. He will have all men to be saved, if they will be saved. And if making known God involves our blessed Lord in going to Calvary, that men might see, unregenerate fallen men might see God as God's heart really is, then to Calvary will Christ go. So men can see morally, even though they are unregenerate. And as we reminded ourselves in our first session, our Lord's fi- final comment was to be this: They have seen both me and my father.
Oh yes, unregenerate men can see. If then they reject what they see, their hatred is beyond excuse. There are certain things, of course, that the natural man cannot possibly see. And therefore, the eighth— uh, ninth chapter of John's Gospel starts with a very interesting physical miracle that God, uh, Christ did in giving a man physical sight, a man who had been blind from birth, who had never enjoyed the faculty of sight.
Couldn't do anything about it. Couldn't see, never did see, hadn't the faculty of sight. Our Lord did a miracle and gave him physical sight. But like all the miracles in the Gospel of John, this miracle of physical sight was a sign of something bigger. The gift of spiritual sight. And before the story is over, you see in the narrative how that the gift of the faculty of physical sight led on until the man received the gift of spiritual sight.
For when he, uh, uh, went to the pool of Siloam, bathed and came seeing, the neighbors first and then the Pharisees began to ask him, how did this happen? And he said, a man named Jesus made clay and put it on my eyes and went through the story. They argued with him and said, this Jesus is not of God. He said, don't be so silly. And he wasn't always, uh, uh, completely polite in the terms he used, you'll see, uh, as he rebuked their absurdities. And as they argued and he replied, you see in the very narrative how his understanding was growing and growing and growing.
This Jesus, well, he's not merely a miracle worker, but he must be a prophet. He's absolutely unique. None has ever been heard of before since the creation that gave sight to a man who was born. He must be of God. If he were of God, he couldn't do anything. You notice how he is growing, till at last he is excommunicated from the synagogue, and the Lord Jesus comes and finds him and says to him, do you believe in the Son of God? He said, who is he, Lord? That I might believe. And our Lord, with great tact, tact replied, Thou hast both seen him, and he it is that speaketh with thee.
And he said, Lord, I believe, and gave that tribute that is due to deity and worshiped at the feet of the Son of God. So does the the miracle become a parable? If we are to see that Jesus is the Son of God, it will take more than human wisdom, won't it? It will take more than our faculty of moral judgment. It will take nothing short of revelation from the Father. You will remember that, uh, when our Lord Jesus asked his disciples, whom say men that I am? And Peter replied, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Our Lord Jesus replied, blessed art thou, Simon Barjonas, for flesh and blood has not revealed it to thee, but my Father, which is in heaven. There is therefore a faculty of spiritual sight that certainly Christ has to give us, or if you like, the Father gives us. But now we have to ask a deep question or two. You say, aha, now you have proved our point at last, uh, Mr. Lecturer. You have cut the ground from beneath your feet.
You have just admitted, do you see, there's nothing we can do, nothing the unregenerate man can do until God gives him the gift of spiritual sight. No, I didn't say that at all. I'm going to say there's a lot you can do. There's a tremendous lot that people can do in order for God to give them the gift of spiritual sight. And I base my claim upon the story of this miracle. First at the level of the physical miracle. There was a man born blind. And as our Lord came by, he decided to heal him.
It was in the plan of God that he should do so, to glorify God. Whose fault is it that he's born blind, said the learned apostles? His fault or his parents' fault? Neither, said our Lord. Mark that, you theologians. That was not his fault nor his parents' fault. That was not his fault because he sinned in Adam, was it? Because the Lord said it wasn't his fault. Good. Anyway, that's beside the point. Our Lord then went through an extraordinarily detailed series of operations. Spat on the ground, made clay of the spittle, put the clay on the man's eyes, which made him worse than he was before, s- s- then sent him to the pool of Siloam and said, go wash.
What a funny thing to tell a blind man to do. And what was the need for it anyway, for in chapter five, when our Lord found a man paralyzed sitting beside a pool, and the man thought the Lord had come to help him to get into the pool, the Lord refused to use the pool. Why on this time did he make the man go to a pool? Why, for this among other reasons, that when the Lord said, now I can heal you, my man, I can give you sight, let me put this mud on your eyes, and you're to go and wash, the man had to decide, didn't he? Was he going to obey Christ or not obey him?
On the face of it, it might seem an absurd thing to do, to go and wash in the Pool of Siloam. You just imagine the man feeling his way down the streets of Jerusalem and bumping into every donkey that happened to be there, and getting into the pool, you see. He had to decide, and decide ultimately about this Jesus Christ. Was he a lunatic or something? Or was he reliable enough so that it was, uh, sensible to trust him and see whether it came to anything? He might have said, what is this sight that they gabble on about? They say that they've got sight, and then when they try to tell me what sight is, they can't.
They say sight is, uh, sight is, uh, well, sight is, uh, uh, things that help you to see the red flowers. What use is that to me, says the man. I can't see any red flowers. I think it's all imagination. And if I go to the pool and wash, I shall imagine I've got sight when I haven't. It's all psychological self-deception, this stuff. To make up his mind, didn't he? And make up his mind about the person of Christ. And was Christ sensible enough? Serious enough? To make it a sensible thing to do, to trust him and go to the pool and see what happened. God hasn't had his word written for nothing.
If you want spiritual sight, soak yourself in his word. These things are written that you might come to believe. When you've made up your mind morally about who Jesus Christ is, you may then be ready to decide, well, he says this, and if I do this and this, I shall get my sight. And you may well be disposed to try it. As it was at the spiritual level. As the man worked through the evidence and argued with the Pharisees, and you watch him step by step by step coming to see who Jesus is, until eventually God is able to reveal to him that Jesus is the Son of God.
Why, it's true, isn't it, that God had to reveal to Peter that, uh, Jesus was the Son of God. Pray consider how it happened. I say it reverently. It wasn't so that one day Peter was lying in bed, and when he woke up in the morning, God said to him, Peter? And he said, yes, Lord. Jesus is my son. And Peter said, yes, Lord, if you say so, I believe it. But tell me, who is this Jesus you're talking about? I never met him yet. Of course not. First, Peter was introduced to the Savior and listened to him and traveled with him and heard him preach. And when the evidence has collected and impressed itself on Peter's mind, then God could intervene and open the man's eyes to see the full significance of the evidence to which he had been subjected.
Thus is it still. Finally, there is the story in cha- the- in chapter ten. It's the parables our Lord spoke about sheep and the shepherd. Now, sheep have a faculty of getting to know shepherds. They all have. They are very wary of using it, I must say. You will say if you go down a country lie- lane and see a crowd of sheep and you start calling them, they may run away from you rather than running to you. If the shepherd comes, they run to him. Why? Because they know the shepherd. They could get to know you, but it would take them some time.
Now, some of the Jews came along and they said to our Lord Jesus, tell us now plainly, are you the Messiah or aren't you? Tell us plainly. And our Lord said, I have told you, and you believe not. And for this reason you don't believe, because you are not of my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me, and I know them, and they know me, and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. But you don't believe because you are not of my sheep. And here we tread the theological boards of the doctrine of election, don't we? Say some people, but there you see that is the fact.
They were not elect, these. From all eternity past, God had decided to pass them by. He had not elected them. He decided to pass them by. Therefore, they were dead in their trespasses and in sins, and they couldn't possibly believe in the Lord Jesus. Unless God gave them the faith to believe with, and he wasn't intending to give them the faith to believe with. Why not? Because they were not his elect. They were not of Christ's sheep. And at that point, some closed the argument. Those who are not Christ's sheep cannot believe and will never believe.
You have to be elect as one of Christ's sheep before you can even believe. I humbly suggest that if we cut the argument short there, we shall be failing to see the climax to which that particular argument comes. For when our Lord said, I and my Father are one, the Jews took up stones to stone him for blasphemy. Our Lord said, for which of my many good works do you stone me? They said, no, we're not stoning you for your good works, but for blasphemy, because you being a ma- a man make yourself equal with God. Oh, said our Lord, you have a difficulty, do you, with that? Well, let me tell you, I see you have a theological difficulty.
Let me tell you that your theological difficulty isn't quite so big as you think it is. Because there is a psalm where God says to certain people who had received the word of God, I said, you are gods. And if God can address human beings who have listened to God's words and can say, in some sense, you are gods, it cannot be an absolute difficulty, can it, if the one whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world says, I am the Son of God. Gentlemen, your theological difficulty is not the difficulty you think it is.
So what then? Now here comes the past master at his work. For which of my good works do you stone me? He said. Oh, they said, not for any good work. Ah. At last he'd got through to them, had he? At his works were good works. You're not of my sheep, said he, gentlemen. Would you like to become my sheep? I'll tell you how to go about it, said he. If you can't believe me to start with, then you can start somewhere. Believe my works.
You just said they're good works. Believe my works, then that will be a beginning, won't it? And believing my works, you will come to know and understand that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me. It is not true to say, because they were not of his sheep, they could never become his sheep. They could become his sheep. They weren't at the moment, and therefore they didn't believe. But if they followed his directions and started considering his works and came to believe they were good works and followed that line of direction, according to our Lord's own words, they would eventually come to know and understand and believe and become one of Christ's sheep.
In saying that, I'm saying something that some of you may regard as highly controversial. But then we do have our question time, don't we? And there too you'll be able to come back at me. What if you, and what if you feel are somewhat erroneous views. And may God bless our study of his word here this afternoon.
