November 3

This, then, is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you: that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. - 1 John 1:5.

LET us, in considering this message as addressed to ourselves, make two inquiries. First, How was this message obtained? John says, “We have heard it, and declare it unto you.” Heard it from whom? Unquestionably from the Lord Jesus Christ, the faithful Witness, the great Teacher, sent from God. He delivered it to his disciples, and they delivered it to others. “No man,” says he, “hath seen God at any time: the only begotten Son, he hath declared him.” And in his intercessory prayer he says, “I have manifested thy name to the men whom thou gavest me out of the world.” He had savingly opened to their minds his character, relations, attributes, and designs, especially his purposes of mercy and grace, so that what they communicated was not invented, but reported.

They delivered that which they also received. Some part of this message he delivered personally, while with them; but it would appear that he delivered much more after his resurrection than before; for which purpose he was with them forty days, speaking of the things which pertained to the kingdom of God. Still more did he communicate spiritually after his ascension, according to his promise:-“I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. But when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth; for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak, and he will show you things to come.” Accordingly, we see what a difference there was afterwards in their views, and how their sentiments enlarged after the pouring down of the Holy Spirit. We may mark this with regard to one article.

Take the death of the Lord Jesus. When our Saviour “showed unto his disciples that he must go up to Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders, and chief-priests, and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day,” Peter took him aside, and said, “Be it far from thee; this shall not be unto thee,” which drew upon him the severe reproof of the Saviour,- “Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me; for thou savourest not the things which be of God, but those which be of men.” But now, after he had received the communication of the Holy Spirit, now that Jesus is glorified, how does he view his death? Oh, it is the precious “blood of Christ, by which,” says he, “we are redeemed.” “He bare our sins in his own body on the tree.” And again he says, “He once suffered for our sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.”

Secondly, What does the message express? “Who by searching can find out God? who can find out the Almighty to perfection?” Yet we are not called to worship an unknown God. He never “left himself without witness, in that he has been continually doing us good, in sending us rain from heaven and filling our hearts with food and gladness.” And all his works praise him, by wearing impressions of his perfections and subserving his designs. But what a difference between the discoveries of him in nature and grace! When a noted heathen philosopher was asked what God was, he required two days to give the answer, then four, doubling the time at every additional application to him, assigning as a reason, that the more he thought upon the question the less capable he was of replying to it.

But now take John, one of the two called “unlearned and ignorant men” by the Jewish rulers: what says he? “God is light.”