If the blood of Christ has been put on me, the Holy Ghost must bear testimony to my cleanness before God. So in every true Christian God dwells, and He is a sanctuary to us, a dwelling place, where we can and do abide. The title is the blood of Christ. “I am glorified in them,” Christ said. By and by it will be perfectly, but now we are called to manifest it in our mortal bodies. The moment I have my place with God in virtue of Christ’s work, God can dwell in me. His dwelling down here is in virtue of that work. He never even dwelt with Abraham, though He said that He had brought Israel out of Egypt that He might dwell among them. Christ was alone when in this world. His work was not executed. God was down here as a Man. “Destroy this temple.” The temple at Jerusalem was empty, and “the fullness of the godhead bodily” dwelt in Christ. Now the Holy Ghost dwells in individuals, and collectively in them too. Your bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost, and “in whom ye are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” But how perfect, beloved friends, this shows redemption to be! Our place is to have the Holy Ghost thus, between the accomplishment of redemption and the glory. The sufferings are accomplished, but the glory is not come. The Holy Ghost is “the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession.” (Eph. 1:1414Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory. (Ephesians 1:14).) We are not waiting for grace. The work of grace has been accomplished, and the Holy Ghost is given to us meanwhile. God does not know such a thing as an unreconciled Christian. It is a great thing to take God at His word! We may be weak in the place, but the place is not uncertain. Our place in virtue of redemption is as simple as simple can be; it is Christ’s.
“Herein is love with us (see margin) made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world” (v. 17). When I reach the judgment seat I shall be like the Judge, so it can give me nothing but boldness. We have had in a previous verse (12), “His love is perfected in us,” and in this one it carries us on to a day of judgment. His love has been manifested in sinners, and is now enjoyed in a saint, and puts us before the judgment seat perfectly like the Judge. Are we to have boldness now? Yes, in this world. God has said it, and I am to believe it.
Then comes in all the diligence, and prayer, and reading of the Word. John always states our state, and then shows the fruit.
Beloved friends, do you really believe all this? Then I ask, how are your hearts in respect of it? How far have you confidence in God as that He dwells in you? How far as to the manifestation of this love do your hearts live in it? if you have such a guest dwelling in you, what attention do you pay Him? Are we living as if we believed that God dwelt in us? Here we are with a “treasure in earthen vessels,” and constantly made to find out our own nothingness. Still, while this is true, He has revealed Himself to us in perfect love, and given us to know that we may walk in the power of it through a world where the Lord Jesus walked perfectly. May the Lord give us to have our hearts emptied of everything not of Christ, that we may be free to, enjoy this perfect love!
All that would justly create fear is gone but to see it so we have to look at the day of judgment. It will not do to think of ourselves as sinners when we speak of judgment: the Cross does for sinners, but not the day of judgment. Often a soul looks at the judgment seat and finds himself not completely at peace: he does not know the righteousness of God. The moment I see my place in Christ, I say, “As he is, so are we;” there is no question of judgment for me. I cannot say, I am as Christ was, I can say “as He is.” I am not as He was in His humiliation, but I am as He is in the glory, though it may seem a paradox. Till He died on the Cross the work was not done, though He was going to do it. I am in Christ according to the efficacy of. what. He has done for me, and according to His place with the Father. Christ will come and receive me to Himself, that where He is there I may be. “It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory.” I am glorified before ever I get to Christ, just like Himself. He is not the firstfruits of the wicked; it is “they that are Christ’s at his coming.” He was raised because He was perfectly acceptable to the Father. “Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father.” What is the meaning of resurrection from among the dead? It is the firstfruits of it. “If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” The Spirit does not dwell in the wicked, and I am raised because the Holy Ghost dwells in me. I am raised in glory. We come up to give an account of ourselves, and are glorified beforehand. How can I talk of hope in the sense of uncertainty? There is nothing like it. I go right into glory. I am not only saved by what He has done, but I am blest with Him. He is the “firstborn among many brethren.”
If I look at my sins, they are all gone; if at my standing, it is in present grace; if forward to judgment, “As he is, so are we.” The Christian position is not fear.
“We love him, because he first loved us” (v 19). He does not say we ought to love, but we love it cannot be otherwise. The sense of its mother’s love is love in a child. When I am looking up to one who is above me, I have a sense of the love that one has for me, and that is love. You cannot have divine love revealed in your heart by the Holy Ghost without loving; of course we do not love enough, but still we do love Him. The sense that His love is infinitely beyond all our love is the proof that we do love.
“This commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also” (v. 21). This love is a necessary effect of the nature; but this is not all. It is not a mere fruit of nature; there is a relationship as well as nature, and God must have obedience as well as love. We see it exemplified in Christ when on earth. He says, “That the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do.” The law of liberty does not set aside the commandment. But who is my brother? It is a terrible idea that we cannot know the children of God. “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil.” How can we have that kind of love if we are not to know who is our brother? If I meet a person, and he is born of God, and I am born of God, we are brothers; nothing can be simpler. The Spirit is the Spirit of truth and the Spirit of holiness. So, supposing that a person comes with a great deal of truth, but without holiness, Ah! I say, that will not do, the Spirit of God is the Holy Spirit. Again, if he comes with great pretension to holiness, but without truth, I say that cannot be the Spirit of God, for the Spirit of God is the Spirit of truth. Satan may deceive us with regard to a person on one side, but he cannot on every side as God can.
A person may say, How do I know I love God? I love His children. We are wandering in a wilderness where there is no way (Psa. 107), but God makes a way for, us, and it is a great thing to want a way. When Adam was innocent he did not want a way. How can I find a way in a world that has departed from God altogether? When I have Christ, I find a way. I have the minutest directions as to how to order my way. I am taught how to do all, and I have God with me all through. A slave did not know overnight what his master would have him do in the morning; neither do we, except as to certain things. The whole principle of a saint is obedience. “By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments.” If I love you, it is because I love God, so I cannot go with you into disobedience.