Grace AND Truth

Quiet Talks on John's Gospel by Samuel Dickey Gordon written over a hundred years ago in 1915, still rings true today.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:14

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The current thing today is grace without truth, or what is supposed to be grace. It is a sort of man-made substitute. It's something like this. 

Here's a man in the gutter, the moral gutter. It may be the actual gutter. Or, there may be the outer trappings of refinement that easy wealth provides; or, the real refinement that culture and inheritance bring. But morally and in spirit, it's a gutter. The slime of sin and low passion, of selfishness and indulgence and self-ambition, oozes over everything in full sight. The man's in the gutter.

And along comes the modern philosopher of grace, so-called. He looks down compassionately, and says, "Poor fellow, I'm so sorry for you. Too bad you should have gotten down there. Let me help you a bit, my brother. " So he puts some flowering plants down in the slime of the gutter, and he brushes the man's clothes a bit, and his hair, and sprinkles the latest-labelled cologne-water over him, and pats him on the shoulder, and says, "Now, you feel better, my man, don't you ?" And the man sniffs the perfume, and is quite sure he does. But he is still in the gutter.

There's an intense stress on the outside of things. Better sanitation, improved housing, purer milk supply, and segregation of vice which seems to mean putting some of the viler smelling slime of the gutter, the slimer slime, all over in one guttered section by itself. But there can be no health there. It's a change of location that is needed! 

The wondrous Jesus-plan is different. It holds things in poise. Grace and truth. Truth is Jesus stretching His hand up high, up to the limit of arm's length, and saying, "Here is the standard, purity, righteousness, utter honesty of heart and rigid purity of motive and life. You must reach this standard. It can't be lowered by the half thickness of a paper-thin shaving. You must come to this standard. The standard never comes down to you."

And the man in the gutter says, '' I'll never reach it." And he is right. He never will—of himself, alone. Yet that's truth, true truth. "A hopeless case" you say. Just wait, that's only half the case, and not the warm half either.

Grace is Jesus going down into the gutter, the gutterest gutter, and taking the man by his out-stretching hand, and lifting him clean up out of the gutter, up, and up, till the man reaches the standard, and is never content till he does. That was a tremendous going down, and a yet more tremendous lifting up. Jesus broke His heart and lost His life in the going down. But out from the broken heart came running the blood that proved both cleansing and a salve. And out of the grave of that lost life came a new life that proved an incentive, and a tremendous dynamic. 

The blood cleanseth the inside of the man in the gutter, and heals his sores, restores his sight and hearing and sensitiveness of touch. The new life put inside the man makes him rise up and walk determinedly out of the gutter to a new location. He is a new man, with a new inside, in a new location. 

Settlement houses, better environment, improved outer conditions of every sort, are blessed, and only blessed, after the inside is fixed or in helping to get it fixed. If that isn't done, they are simply as a lovely bit of pink-coloured court-plaster skilfully adjusted over an ugly incurable ulcer. The man is befooled while the ulcer eats into his vitals. 

It's only the blood-power of Jesus that can fix the inside. He cuts out the ulcer and puts in a new strain of blood. Then the inner includes the outer. And the most grateful of all is the man. This is the Jesus-plan, John says, "full of grace and truth." 

Only Begotten Son

Quiet Talks on John's Gospel by Samuel Dickey Gordon written over a hundred years ago in 1915, and still rings true today.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:14

~~~

Then John goes on quietly to explain about that glory, how it came. He says it was "glory

as of an only begotten of a father." The common versions with which we are familiar, the old King

fames, the English and American revisions, all say the, ''the only begotten of the Father." I suppose the translators wanted to make it quite clear that Jesus was in an exceptional way the very Son of God. 

And so they don't translate quite as John put it. They try to help him out a little in making his meaning clear. But you will notice that this old Book of God never needs any helping out in making the truth

quite clear. When you can sift through versions and languages down to what is really being said, you find it said in the simplest strongest way possible. 

Here John is saying, ''glory as of an only begotten from a father." It is a family picture, so common in the East. Here in the West, the unit of society is the individual. The farther west you come the more pronounced this becomes, until here in our own laud individualism seems at times to run to extremes. Custom in the East is the very reverse of this. There the unit of action is not the individual, but the family. The family controls the individual in everything. 

All that belongs to the family, of wealth, fame, inheritance, distinction, vests distinctly in the head of the family, the father. He stands for the whole family. And so, too, all of this descends directly from the father at his death to his eldest son. In some parts the father retires at a certain age, either really or nominally,

and all becomes vested technically in his eldest son. And if the son be an only begotten son, then literally all that is in the father comes into the son. All the fame, the inheritance, the traditions, the obligations, the wealth, in short all the glory of the father comes of itself, by commonaction of events, to the son. 

Now this is what John is thinking of as he writes, "we beheld His glory, glory as of an only begotten of a father. " That is to say, all there is in the Father is in Jesus. When you see Jesus, you are seeing the Father. The whole of God is in this Jesus. This is what John is saying here.

He Comes To His Own

Quiet Talks on John's Gospel by Samuel Dickey Gordon written over a hundred years ago in 1915, yet still ringing true today.

He came to that which was his own, but His own did not receive Him.

John 1:11

~~~

He comes to His own. That's you and myself. We belong to Him. He gave His breath to us in Eden. He gave His breath to you and me at our birth. He gave His blood for us on Calvary. We belong to Him. The image of His kinship is stamped upon us. We may not acknowledge it, but that can't change the fact. 

He came to His own front door, and they whose very image revealed their close kinship to Him, received Him not into the home, but kept the door fast in His face.

Or; He comes to His own, and His own—puts a chair outside the door on the top-step. It's a large armchair with a cushion in, perhaps. And then His own talks about Him through the crack of the door, or likelier, the window. It's reckoned safer to keep the door fast. Listen to what he says:

"He's a wonderful man this Jesus; great teacher, the greatest; the greatest man of the race; His philosophy, His moral standards are the ideals; wonderful life; great example." 

They fairly exhaust the language in talking about this Man. But notice. It seems a bit queer. The Man they're talking about is outside the door. His own claim is left severely outside. 

Some make it read like this: He comes to His own, and they who are His own open the door a crack; maybe a fairly respectably wide crack. We all like the word Saviour. Yes, we cling tenaciously to that. Selfishly, would you say? We want to be saved from a certain place we think of as down, that we've been taught about, and don't want to go to—if it's there; the way men talk about it today.

And we want to be saved into another certain place we think of as up, and where we surely want to go after we get through down on the earth, and must go away somewhere else; with that ''after" and "must" carefully underscored. And we want to be saved from all the inconveniences possible along the way, and to secure all the advantages and help available: yes, yes, open the door a crack.

But be careful about the width of the opened crack. Let it be just the proper conventionalized width. Let there be no extremeism about the wideness of that opening. Things must be proper. For what would the other crack-open-door-owners think? 

And then, too, yet more serious, this Jesus has a way, a most inconsiderate way of coming in as far as you let Him, and of taking things into His own hands. Certain people use that word "inconsiderate" to themselves, in secret. Jesus changes some things when He is allowed all the way in. He might change your personal habits, your home arrangements, some of your social customs and your business plans.

Of course He changes only what needs changing, as He sees it. But then you well, some

things can be carried too far to suit you. 

This Jesus has the all habit. He gave all. And He has a way of coming in all the way, and of reaching in His pierced hand and taking all. He might even put His hand in on that most sacred thing, that holiest of all, that you guard most jealously—that box. It has heavy hinges, and double padlocks, and the keys are held hard under the thumb of your will. Of course there may really not be much in it; and again there may be very much. But much or little, it is securely kept uuder that thick broad thumb of yours. 

Oh! you give; of course; yes, yes, we're all good proper Christian folk here. We give a tenth, aud even much more. We support an aggressive missionary propaganda. That's the thing, you know, in our day, for good church people. We give to all the good things. Yes, no doubt. Aud we are very careful, too, that

that inconsiderate Hand shall not disturb the greater bulk that remains between hinge and lock. That's yours. 

Of course you are His, redeemed, saved by His blood. But through it all we hold hard to that key, we don't let go even to Him, though it is He who entrusts all to our temporary keeping. We do guard the

width of that opening crack, do we not ? 

One day I looked through that crack and caught a glimpse of His face looking through full in my own, with those eyes of His. And I wanted to take the door clear off of its hinges and stand it outside against the bricks, and leave the whole door-space wide for Him.

He comes to His own, and His own opens the door wide, and holds it wide open, that He may come in all the way, and cleanse, and change, readjust, and then shape over on the shape of His own presence.

The Red Tinged Light

Quiet Talks on John's Gospel by Samuel Dickey Gordon written over a hundred years ago in 1915, yet still ringing true today.

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.

John 1:9

~~~

Every man in the world is lighted by this Light. Through nature, the nightly twinklers in the wondrous blue overhead, the unfailing freshness of the green out of the brown under foot; through the never-ceasing wonders of these bodies of ours, so awesomely and skilfully made, and kept going; through that clear quiet inner voice that does speak in every human heart amidst all the noises of earth and of passion;  through these the Light is shining, noiselessly, softly, endlessly, by day and night.

It is the same identical Light that John is tell- ing us of here that so shines in upon every man, and always has. There is no light but His. His name is Jesus. From the first, and everywhere still, it is the Light that shines from Him that lights men. He was with the Father in the beginning. He acted for the Father in that creation week. He gave and sustained all life of every sort everywhere, and does, though only a third of us know His Name—Jesus. 

But the light was obscured, terribly beclouded and bedimmed, hindered by earth-fogs, and swampy clouds rising up, until we are apt to think there was no light, and is none; only darkness. Then He came closer, and yet closer. He came in nearer form so as to get the Light closer, and let it shine through fog and cloud, for the sake of the befogged, beswamped crowd.

And then—ah! hold your heart still—then He let the Light-holder, the great human Lantern, be broken, utterly broken, that so the Light might flash out through broken lantern in its sweet soft wondrous clearness into our blinded blinking eyes, and show us the real way back home. 

It was in that breaking that it got that wondrous exquisite red tingeing that becomes the unfailing

hall-mark, the unmistakable evidence of the real thing of light. And it's only as men know of this latest coming of the Light, this tremendous tragic Jesus-coming of the Light, that they can come into the
full light. That's the reason He came in the way He did. That's the reason when He gets possession of us there's the passion to take the full Jesus-Light out to every one. 

And this passion burns in us and through us, and ours, and sweeps all in the sweep of its tender holy

flame. In this way every man may be fully lit, and so in following the Jesus-Light he shall not walk in the darkness where he has been, but in the sweet clear light of life.

A Candlestick

Part 3 of excerpts from Quiet Talks on John's Gospel by Samuel Dickey Gordon written over a hundred years ago in 1915, yet still ringing true today. 

6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

John 1:6-8

~~~

And John keeps driving in on the point in his mind : ''that all might believe through Him"; that they might listen, stop to think, agree as to the thing being believable, then trust it ; then trust Him, the Light, risk something, risk themselves to Sim, then love, love with a passionate devotion. This was John's objective. It was the bull's-eye of his target never out of his keen Spirit-opened eye. Nothing else figured in. This is the thing in all our living and serving and doing and giving, that men may know Jesus to the trusting, risking, loving point, the glad point.

Everything that we can bring of gold and learning and labour and skill is precious, it is as purest gold, if it lead men into heart-touch with Jesus. And it clean misses the mark if it does less.

Who would be content to give a Belgian or Polish starveling a bare bit of bread, and a lonely stick of wood, and a rag of cloth. Things are good, provided by money and skill and research and painstaking efforts. They do good. 

But it's Jesus men need. It's the warm touch that lets Him fully in with all of His human sympathy and
all of His God-power, that's what they need. Given the sun and quickly come warmth and food and shelter, health and vigour and increase of life. Given Jesus, and the warm touch with Him, in His simple fullness, just as He is, and surely and not slowly, there come flooding in all the rest of an abundant life, physical and mental and of the spirit.

John "was not the light." He was only the candlestick. And he was content to be that. He was a good candlestick. The light was held up. It could shine out. How grateful the crowd was. The road had been so dark. 

It is a bad thing when light and candlestick change places. The crowd seems to get the two confused sometimes. We get to thinking that the candlestick is the light, and the light is lost sight of. We
gather about the candlestick. It'll surely lead the way out through the dark night into day. It's such a good candlestick, so highly polished.

And sometimes the human candlestick itself gets things a bit mixed. It thinks, then it feels, then it knows, with a peculiar quality of self-assertive certainty, that after all it is the light that lighteth every one that is so blessed as to come within the radius of its shining. And brass does take a high polish, and makes an attractive appearance. 

It does send out a sparkle and radiance if only it is somewhere within range of some real light, patient enough to keep on shining in the dark, regardless of non-appreciation or misrepresentation or misunderstanding.

Is it any wonder the road is so full of people wandering in the night gathered about candlesticks? Is it surprising that the ditches are so full of menand candlesticks mixed up and mired up together? Yet it is always heart-breaking. There may be talent and training of the highest and best, and scholarship and culture, eloquence and skill, institutions and philanthropies. And there is so much of these. And these are good in themselves, and of priceless practical worth whenseen and held in their right relation to the thing.

But it needs to be said often and earnestly: these are not the light. They are given to point men better to the Light. They're road-signs, index-fingers. And they are seen at their best when they point to the Light so clearly that the crowd quite forgets them in hastening to the Light they point out. They serve their true purpose in being so forgotten. They are still serving and serving best even while forgotten.

Tarshish or Nineveh?

This is another excerpt from Quiet Talks on John's Gospel by Samuel Dickey Gordon written over a hundred years ago in 1915, yet still ringing true today. This portion reflects on John 1:6 about John the Baptist, tying it in to the story of Jonah.

~~~

And so ends John's first great paragraph. Away back in the beginning God revealed Himself in making a home for man, and in bringing the man, made in His own image, to his home. And then when the damp unwholesome darkness came stealing in swamping the home and man He came Himself, flooding in the soft clear pure light of His presence, to free man from the darkness and woo him out into the light.

Then John goes on into his second paragraph. "There came a man, sent from God, whose name was John." Why? Because man was in the dark. He sent a man to help a man. He used a man to reach a man. He always does. 

Even when He would redeem a world He came as a Man, one of ourselves. He touches men through men. The pathway of His helping feet is always a common human pathway. And, will you mark keenly that the highest level any life ever reaches, or can reach, is this: to be a pathway for the feet of a wooing, winning God. 

And this is still true. It is meant to be true today that there came a man, sent from God, whose name is—[your name]. You put in your own name in that sentence, then you get God's plan for you. For as surely as this particular John of the desert and of the plain living, and the burning speech, was sent by God, so surely is every man of us a man sent by God on some particular errand. And the greatest achievement of life is to find and fit into the plan of God for one's life. This is the only great thing one can do. Anything else is merely labelled "great." And that label washes off. This is the one thing worth while. 

The bother is we don't always get the verbs, the action words, of that sentence straight. John was a man sent from God. And he came. All men are sent. But they don't all come, some go; go their own way. 

There was a man sent from God whose name was Jonah. But he didn't come. He went. He was sent to Ninevah on the extreme east. He went towards Tarshish on the extreme west; just the opposite direction. Every man is headed either for Ninevah or Tarshish, God's way or his own. Which way are you headed? 

John was sent and he came. You and I are sent. Are we coming or going? Coming God's way? Or going our own? 

Let The Light Shine

This is an excerpt from Quiet Talks on John's Gospel by Samuel Dickey Gordon. It was written over a hundred years ago in 1915, but the truth still rings true, and this portion reflecting on John 1:4-5 is an encouragement to me. 

~~~

The great simple plan of God is this: let the light shine. The darkness flees like a whipped cur, tail tightly curled down and in, before the real thing of light. 

Let me ask you a question. Is it a bit dark down where you live? Morally dark? Spiritually? If it be a bit dark does it not suggest that the light has not been shining as it was meant to? For where the light shines the darkness goes. 

For, you see, this is still God's plan for treating darkness. It is meant to be true to-day of each of us,—"the light shineth in the darkness." Of course, we are not the light. He is the Light. But we are the light-holders. I carry the Light of the world around inside of me. And so do you, if you do. It is not because of "me", of course, but because of the great patience and faithfulness of Him who is the Light. A very rickety cheap lantern may carry a clear light, and the man in the ditch find good footing in the road again. 

You and I are meant to be the human lanterns carrying the Light, and letting it shine cleary fully out. And you know when some one else is providing the light the chief thing about the lantern is that the glass of the lantern be kept clean and clear so the light within can get freely out. The great thing is that we shall live clean transparent lives so the Light within may shine clearly out. We may live unselfish clean Christly lives, by His great grace. And through that kind of lives, the Light itself shines out, and shines out most, and most clearly.

Sometimes the glass of this human lantern gets smoky, badly smoked. And sometimes it even gets cobwebby, rather thickly covered up. But look! There's the crowd in the road in the dark, struggling, jostling, stumbling, and falling into the ditch at the side of the road, ditched and badly mired, because the light hasn't gotten to them. The Light's there. It's burning itself out in passionate eagerness to help. But the human lanterns are in bad shape. 

Our Lord's great plan, bearing the stamp of its divinity in its sheer human simplicity, is this: we who know Jesus are to live Him. We're to let the whole of a Jesus, crucified, risen, living, shine out of the whole of our lives. 

Is it a bit dark down where you are? Let the Light shine. Let the clear sweet steady Jesus-light shine out through your true clean quiet Jesus-swayed and Jesus-controlled life. Then the darkness must go. It can't stand the Light. It can't withstand the purity and insistence of its clear steady shining. 

And the darkness will go: slowly, reluctantly, angrily, doggedly, making hideous growling noises sometimes, raising the dust sometimes, but it will go. It must go before the Light. The Light's resistless. This is our Lord's wondrous plan through His own, and His irresistible plan for the crowd, and His plan against the prince of darkness. 

As For You

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to Me? Tell the sons of Israel to go forward. 

As for you, lift up your staff and reach out with your hand over the sea and divide it, and the sons of Israel shall go through the midst of the sea on dry land. 

And as for Me, behold, I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them; and I will be honored through Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen. 

Then the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord, when I am honored through Pharaoh, through his chariots, and through his horsemen.”

Exodus 14:15-18

It always amazes me that God chooses to partner with us, and involve us in what He is doing on this earth. He didn't need Moses' staff and reached out hand to be able to divide the sea -- He was more than capable of carrying out this incredible salvation by Himself. Yet He brought Moses into the story, called him to step out in faith and obedience and be a part of the rescue story. 

He has a role for each of us to play. Fear not, God will do all the heavy lifting of parting the seas. But He has an ask of you: for you, an image bearer of His, to be His physical hands and feet in the world as He carries out His perfect plan. 

Without a doubt (and regardless of your obedience) God will very capably carry out His 'as for Me' portion of the plan, and the honour and glory will be His. The question today is: What will you do with the 'as for you' that God has assigned you? 

Lunar Eclipse

Tonight as I sat watching the lunar eclipse, I was struck once again with the very simple picture of what happens when we allow the world to come between us and our source of Light. We become a dull red version of ourselves, offering no light to the places and situations around us. We lose our reflection of who He is, now just a dark object floating through life. 

Clear the way for the Lord to shine through in your life. Move the things that need to be moved -- the things that are blocking and throwing shadows over your witness. Position yourself in the best possible place to reflect the glory of Christ to the world around you. 

A voice of one calling:

“In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord;

make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low;

the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.

And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together.

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

Isaiah 40:3-8

By Faith Moses

Hebrews 11:24-28

v24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.

Moses didn't allow the allure of fame and fortune to cause him to sell his soul. He laid down his pride and the potential arrogance of being a part of the most powerful house in Egpyt. He didn't cling to the status he could have had or the position and favour that nepotism could have bought him. His identity was elsewhere. He was a man of Yahweh, he refused to be anything else. 

v25 He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.

Fleeting. Momentary. Vanishing quickly. Short term gain, long term pain. That's all that the pleasure of sin is. Moses got this. He knew that true freedom was found in obedience to God, not in the supposed 'freedom' of doing what he wanted. Sin or obedience is an active choice that we have to make every day. Choose life. 

v26 He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.

Treasures in heaven -- we know this. We should be storing up our reward where moth nor decay can destory and no thief can steal. But so often the treasures of this world feel a lot more real and tangible than the reward we have to look forward to. My prayer is that, like Moses, we would know the true value of Christ, that we would be absolutely convinced of the truth that the whole book of Hebrews loudly and reptitvely proclaims: "Jesus is better."

v27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw Him who is invisible.

How do we persevere? We consider Him who endured the cross. When we see what Jesus did for us, how can it not bolster us and put courage in our bones? How can we remain fearing man when we know that the God Almighty of heaven and earth made us, loves us, called us and is for us? But we do have to work through the haze and noise of the world around us to be able to see Him who is invisible.

v28 By faith he kept the Passover and the application of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel.

By faith Moses obeyed, even when it was possibly a bit of an odd request. Even in the obscure, Moses applied his trust in God into action that stepped out in faith to do the thing God asked of him. By faith let us do all that God has called us to do. 

Armour [Gospel]

Ephesians 6:12-15

"Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then... with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace."

Paul is thinking here of the typical sandals Roman soldiers wore which allowed them to move quickly during battle, gave them traction to stand their ground in the battle and provided protection to their feet. The shoes allowed them to move freely over any terrain, not concerned about standing on thorns or shards or rough rocks. Having the certainty that the shoes would hold them allowed to them focus on the fight at hand. 

Imagine going into the treacherous terrain of battle barefoot or wearing fluffy slippers. It just doesn't seem like it would be setting yourself up for success, right? 

The soldiers' shoes affected their balance, grip, power, and movement. In the same way, the foundation of our day-to-day Christianity is the gospel. The gospel anchors our faith in the Truth of who God is, what He's done and the impact on our lives, purpose and actions. Without that, we'd slip all over the place. 

We don't go barefoot, because we can't go in our own strength. We need to covered and anchored by the gospel, by the fact that we have been redeemed and restored by the blood of Jesus. 

We don't go in slippers because we can't afford to be lazy and laid back. The devil prowls like a lion to take any ground we are complacent to give. 

The shoes of the gospel are not about our comfort, but they certainly bring peace. If we can grasp the fullness of what the gospel means for us, anxiety cannot stand. 

While carrying this gospel of peace, we also can't be flat footed and apathetic. The picture of putting on the gospel every day reminds us of the need to be front footed and active in living out and taking the gospel in and to the world around us.