《Notes and Jottings》
TABLE OF CONTENTS
John's Gospel Lonsdale Square
Law and Christianity Ryde Meeting
Romans 7 Notes
As to Repentance
John 14: 19 etc. A Reading Meeting
Hebrews 5 Lonsdale Square
Hebrews 7 Lonsdale Square
The Camp and the Body of Christ Edinburgh
John 11: 28 Lonsdale Square
Salvation and Separation Ryde
Repentance and the Kingdom Ryde
Galatians 2: 14 Kennington
Titus 2: 11-15 Edinburgh
Obedience and Dependence Edinburgh
Galatians 2: 20 Edinburgh
Fragments
Colossians 1 Rochdale
1 Corinthians 1 Notting Hill
Notes on the Revelation
Deuteronomy 16 Lecture at Rochdale
Luke 12: 35-53 Lecture
Luke 12: 35-48 Lecture
Jottings
The Lord's Second Coming
Reading on the Fifth Book of Psalms Psalms 107-150
Reading on Philippians 3
Lecture on Colossians 1
Lecture on Hebrews 2
Lecture on Hebrews 8
Lecture on Hebrews 9: 19-28
Reading on the Christian Position
Reading on Ephesians 3
Reading on 1 Timothy 1 and 2
Reading on 2 Timothy 1 and 2
Reading on 2 Timothy 3
Readings on 1 Peter 1
Readings on 1 Peter 2
Readings on Numbers
Readings on Joshua 1
Readings on Joshua 2
Lecture on 1 John 5: 1-13
Fragments
Notes of a Reading at 3, Lonsdale Square
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Notes and Jottings
J. N. Darby.
In Luke 15 the elder son stood on the ground of righteousness, and never got into the house at all.
In human science I learn what names of things and definitions mean, and then go and learn the things themselves; but in divine things, you must learn the things to understand the words.
God graciously gave miracles to confirm faith, but when they believed only through miracles, it was all no good.
In John 8 the eldest had more reputation to save. The writing on the ground was in a certain sense a dignified contempt of their hypocrisy.
Chapters 1, 2 and 3 of John are a preface. Christ had not come forth into His public ministry until John was cast into prison. (See John 3: 24.)
Chapter 4 is worship in spirit and in truth.
Chapter 5 is the life-giving Son of God.
Chapter 6, Bread that came down from heaven.
Chapter 7, feast of tabernacles, and shewing to the world, closing the account of Christ personally.
Chapter 8, His words are rejected.
Chapter 9, His works are rejected.
Chapter 10, He will have His sheep in spite of everything.
Chapters 11 and 12, full testimony is given to Him by God when He is thus rejected.
Chapter 13 is He must depart out of this world unto the Father.
You get no forgiveness of sins in John's gospel, except administratively.
The work of Christ applies to my conscience, and His Person to my heart.
In John. the Lord does not say, "You are sinners," but "Ye shall die in your sins," treating them as reprobates.
John is almost entirely at Jerusalem, the other gospels chiefly in Galilee.
It was the people who came from Galilee, who did not know what the Jews were about, who asked, "Who goeth about to kill thee?"
2 Ques. What is the difference between hearing His voice and hearing His word?
In the former there is the additional attraction of His Person.
Metaphysics never can be right, because if they bring God in, it is religion; and if they leave Him out it is nothing but folly.
Ques. Do all Christians get all the rewards in the seven churches?
I suppose there will be a special sense of them given to those who have been faithful. All will sit upon His throne, though to me that is the lowest.
Reward is encouragement; if it is motive, it is wrong altogether. The crowns are all one to me, but different circumstances may bring out the characters; faithfulness to death has a crown of life, but all believers will get it.
In Isaiah 32: 15, "Wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest," means the total change of the whole thing. Verse 14 is judgment on Jerusalem.
"Again a new commandment I write unto you," i.e., this loving one another; it is no new thing, and yet it is, because you have it now as "true in him and in you."
Apollos would not go to Corinth, when they had slighted Paul.
Christ has become not the light of angels, but the light of men.
Eternal life is what Christ is, as the risen Second Man.
The great subject of John's communication is, eternal life downwards, not righteousness upwards.
People say they can pluck themselves out of Christ's hand; then I say, 'Very well, let them,' but they can never perish if they do.
Ryde Meeting
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Notes and Jottings
J. N. Darby.
It is no question at all now, whether a man can stand in the day of judgment by a certain course of living.
We live under the revelation that he cannot; Christianity begins with that revelation. We cannot stand before God; all the world has become guilty.
The law put man on probation, but when Christ came, the full evil of man's heart was brought out; he crucified the Lord of glory. And now we get the deeper apprehension that we are not only guilty but lost; lost as a present state.
Guilt refers to the day of judgment, but there is, too, the actual condition. I am not only exposed to judgment but I am lost also.
Then at the cross, when man's sinfulness was fully proved, the love of God was shewn out in the accomplishment of the work of his salvation.
The whole question of good and evil, perfect evil in man and perfect goodness in God, all was brought out.
The consequence was that man has gone into the glory of God. Jesus Christ sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. That is where Christianity begins; it is with the full testimony of evil in man, and then I have another Man, who perfectly glorified God, and who is now glorified by God.
The mystery of the cross is this, that in that place where sin came out absolutely in full light before God, there, too, was the place of perfect obedience and full love towards God.
But, this being accomplished, "if God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him," and the Son of man goes straight up into the glory of God.
There I get a new platform altogether, not with my responsibility in question, for on that ground I am lost as well as guilty; but there is a Man gone into the glory of God, so that I both know God in the perfectness of His love, and Man in the perfectness of God's righteousness. This is the starting point of Christianity; every thing is put on an entirely new basis.
Then at Pentecost the Holy Ghost came down, and His presence on earth is the consequence of Man in the glory of God. Every direct operation of God was by the Spirit; "By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens"; prophets spake by the Holy Ghost; demons were cast out by the Spirit of God; but all that is a very different thing from the Spirit's coming.
4 Christ made everything; but He did not come until the incarnation. He was there in one sense, but there was also a distinct personal coming.
So the Holy Ghost has now come, and He dwells in a believer, and becomes the power of Christianity and characterises the Christian himself.
We now stand between the Holy Ghost sent down and the full result in glory. "He that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit," i.e., He has wrought us for the glory, and has given us the earnest of it. That is where the Christian stands, and he is thereby associated with Christ in heavenly glory.
How can I know that I have the Holy Ghost? Do you fancy that God dwells in me, and I shall not find it out?
may not be able to explain it, but that is another thing. We cannot have it without knowing it. You must have a knowledge of Scripture to explain it, but there will be a consciousness of the fact in one's self, and there will be true liberty, too.
But then the life of Jesus is to be manifested in me, and there I get my proper responsibility as a Christian.
Since Christ appears in the presence of God for us, we are to appear in the presence of the world for Christ.
If He dwells in you, then let us see Him in you.
A few detached notes
Romans 7
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Notes and Jottings
J. N. Darby.
The moment the law said, "Thou shalt not lust," why you might as well tell me not to be a man. Even if my will is right - the case supposed here - yet I am in such a state that I cannot succeed in mastering the flesh.
Then he learns that it is not he that does it, but the sin that dwells in him, and next he learns that it is too strong for him, and he cries, "Who shall deliver me?"
This is what a man must be brought to. Then he gets "in Christ Jesus," and that is a new place; the slave is free.
If I have a rogue in my house, and I trust him, he pilfers me at pleasure; but if I distrust him and lock things up, it may be unpleasant, but still, I am safe.
One word about forgiveness. There is what I should call an administrative forgiveness, but this was not known until Christ's coming.
They did spell out of old about eternal judgment. But the Lord says, "That ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins," etc., and He shews His competency to do it by saying, "Arise and take up thy bed and walk, go thy way into thine house."
You get no spiritual knowledge of what sin is in the Old Testament. I do not speak of sins, but of sin.
The keys of the church were not given to Peter; that is all a blind delusion. People say the kingdom of heaven and the church are the same thing, but it is all wrong.
There is a building which Christ is carrying on now, and which grows to a holy temple.
When you speak of succession, I see there is one, but then it is, "I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock."
Remember nobody else is Simon Barjonas but Simon Barjonas.
Two or three in Christ's name is God's succession; and no other is; apostolic if you like to call it, but God owns it.
I shall not want a conscience in heaven; it is positive infinite enjoyment there.
Priesthood is that they may behave well.
Advocacy is when they have not behaved well.
Priesthood is for mercy and grace to help.
6 The Advocate is, if any man sin, we have one.
Advocacy is one fruit of propitiation. Priesthood keeps the heart in constant dependence. But in neither of these is there any question of imputation. You never find that we go to the priest; a Jew of old might. We go boldly to the throne of grace, because Christ is there in heaven for us; but that is not intercession. It is the priest now who is there, and the priest is connected with intercession, but intercession is not the exercise of priesthood, properly speaking.
Ques. When does the Lord act as advocate, is it when a saint sins?
It does not say, if any man repent, and confess; but, if any man sin, we have an advocate.
Ques. Then does nothing begin with us?
Nothing but sin that I know of.
And confession is the effect of advocacy; but, remember, imputation is not in question.
Ques. What do you mean by that?
I mean the charge of guilt upon a man's conscience. Hebrews gives you your standing before God, and there is no more conscience of sins. That is the scriptural doctrine; whereas, nowadays, nine-tenths of Christians could not tell you what that passage means.
We are not Jews under law, or there would be imputation. If Christ has not put away all our sins totally and for ever, and absolutely, it never can be done.
Ques. Does Hebrews contemplate failure?
Apostasy it does, not failure strictly.
Ques. What is the difference between infirmities and sins?
Christ can be touched with the feeling of my infirmities, but He never had any sins, or any sympathy with them. I can get help for my infirmities, and in a sense can glory in them, but I could not in my sins.
There are two kinds of temptations; one is from without, all the difficulties of Christian life; Christ went through them and He has gone through more than any of us; but the other kind of temptation is when a man is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Christ, of course, never had that.
You want the hatchet of Scripture for these latter; the word of God discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart, and so helps us in that way to go through the wilderness.
7 Ques. How far ought unconfessed sin to affect a man's conscience?
He never can get a good one until he has confessed all to God.
The existence of the flesh in me does not give me a bad conscience; but the moment I let it act, that does. If you mingle the question of imputation with the sins of a saint, then it is no longer to you simply a question of holiness, but of righteousness and justification, and therefore you never judge sin really and thoroughly until you have got the certainty that nothing is imputed to you. The sense of sins and imputation is all quite right until you are justified - the deeper you feel it the better.
But when I learn that Christ has borne all my sins in His own body on the tree, so that God must pass them over, and cannot impute them to me, for He sees the blood of Christ; then, if He were supposed to impute them to me, it would make Him disown that blood.
A person who raises the question of imputation does not know what it is to be justified.
Ques. What is the difference between non-imputation and forgiveness?
If nothing could be imputed to a sinner, then there is no need for forgiveness.
When guilty, you are justified; when you have offended, you are forgiven; and when you are defiled, you are washed. If I look at guilt, I want justification; at offence, forgiveness; at defilement, cleansing.
All is provided; God leaves no loophole for Satan.
There is no proper holy affection until a man is certain of his standing before God.
Ques. What is the difference between a bad conscience and "no more conscience of sins"?
I have no more conscience of sins in virtue of the blood of Christ, but then that gives me a conscience of sin in my failure of holiness. A person in a dirty condition generally would think little of another spot; but if he is spick and span clean, he would think a great deal of the first spot.
Ques. Is Numbers 19 connected with John's epistle?
In a particular case it may be, for there, taking death as the sign of sin, the man was defiled.
Ques. What of the third and seventh days?
8 The first effect is what I have just said, that after the sacrifice, or, rather, the bringing of the ashes, no question can be raised as to imputation, and when I get my soul fully right, then comes the sense of superiority of grace to sin, so that I get back into communion.
Only you must ever remember that ashes are not blood.
Ques. Is the third day resurrection?
I don't know.
Ques. Is it not rather abundant testimony?
Probably. He was not allowed to be sprinkled on the first day: there was no levity in dealing with sin. I think you lose the beauty of the truth, if you leave out the proper power of the seventh day.
Ques. What is the difference between imputation and substitution?
Substitution is that which takes away imputation.
Ques. In what way does confession come in with John 13?
John 13 produces uprightness of heart in the confession.
Ques. Is there any particular form for discipline to take?
No. All manner of forms, in your family circumstances, such as will meet the state of your heart. And it need not necessarily be for sins. It is God's wisdom to be able to unite what disciplines the new man with what also keeps the "old man" down.
Ques. What was Paul's thorn?
Something that kept the old man down.
At the same time, he was suffering for Christ, for if he had not gone and preached, he would not have had the trouble at all.
Ques. "Ye have not yet resisted unto blood "what is that?
You are not killed yet; you must not be frightened. And so he says, too, don't you faint because God loves you; neither despise His chastening, for you need the rebuke.
Ques. What of the "holiness" in verse 10?*
{*See note in New Translation inloco.}
It shews what it is; it is God's nature, and a separation from evil that He is working out in us. We want some things checking that He may give us more light. It was the same in Job, before dispensations began, to "hide pride from man."
As to Repentance
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Notes and Jottings
J. N. Darby.
This is a more important question.
In Luke 24: 47 you have that "repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." There can be no question about that, but what has enfeebled preaching among ourselves and others is, there has been such a sense that repentance is preliminary to faith.