The Gospel of John

by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 4 - The Cross in Relation to God's Eternal Purpose

Reading: John 17-18; Acts 20:28; Heb. 12:23; Eph. 5:25-27; Matt. 24:22, 24,31; 1 Peter 1:1-2; Eph. 1:4,7.

We come back to John 17 and 18. In continuation of this meditation, not dealing with all the content of these chapters which is quite another step, but looking at the whole of this section in the light of the main object which has been brought into view, that is, God's eternal purpose and the instrument or vessel by which and in which that purpose shall be most fully realised: the church of the Firstborn. The purpose being, as we have seen, the expression of Himself in this universe, that we should be unto the praise of His glory.

So, in relation to that eternal purpose, we come to the Cross. We have seen throughout this Gospel a progressive development of the ways and means, the laws and principles which underlie the purpose of God, and now the Cross stands over all. It is as though there had been an indicating of the way, and all that is in the way, and a bringing into view in chapter 17 of the end of the way, with Christ in glory. And then the Holy Spirit says, "But the whole of this revealed way and purpose demands, and can only be entered into, known, and realised, by the Cross". So before there can be a beginning on our side, we have to face the inclusiveness of the Cross and see what the Cross means in relation to the eternal purpose.

Of course, the full meaning of the Cross could never be comprehended or set forth in a short time, but it may be helpful for us to look at this matter from two or three standpoints. In so doing we shall be led to see the relationship of the Cross to that purpose of God.

The Cross Viewed from Satan's Standpoint

1) His hatred revealed in crucifixion.

First of all we look at it from the standpoint of the crucifixion. The crucifixion properly has very limited connection with the Divine purpose. It is an aspect of things which comes from the outside, and yet it represents something of very real meaning. Crucifixion as such was not a part of God's thought, not a part of God's arrangement. The death of Christ is quite another thing, but crucifixion is not something which God had planned as a necessary part of the whole redemptive order. The crucifixion represented, in the first place, satan's hatred and malice.

We have to draw a line of distinction and discrimination between what we mean when we speak of the Cross, and when we speak of the crucifixion. When we speak of the Cross we really mean the comprehensive meaning of the death of Christ, but when we speak of the crucifixion we refer to just an aspect, a method; and that method and aspect represents this vehement hatred and malice of the devil. It was satan's way of degrading and humiliating the Son of God to the deepest depths. No form of death in the eyes of the world was more despicable and loathsome, horrible and humiliating than crucifixion. So by the crucifixion satan is revealed in the real spirit of hatred for, and malice against, God's Son. In a sense it is satan's answer to His claims. At the opening of His public life and ministry he took up the heavenly announcement: "This is My beloved Son...", and challenged that in the hour of weakness, in the hour of trial, under conditions of testing. He pressed home his challenge: "If Thou be the Son..."; and there at the outset he was defeated by the Son, and sonship triumphed over satan. It was the triumph of that sonship when satan, the personification of all that is evil, hellish, and diabolical, came against Him. In the power of sonship, under supreme testing, He triumphed over satan, and sonship was upheld and preserved intact. Unspoiled, unsoiled, sonship came through the ordeal.

From that time onward there is this constant battle on the matter of sonship. It is all raging round that point. You notice that the one thing that the Jews hurled against Him as the ground upon which He should be crucified, was, "He made Himself the Son of God". They could never get over that, showing how true it was what the Lord had said, "Ye are of your father the devil". The terrific expression of satan's hatred of that sonship, and what it meant, was because of what it was going to mean ultimately.

It is as well to recognise how sonship has been bitterly assailed in Him, and is always bitterly assailed in us. There are few things more bitterly assailed in this universe than the maturing of saints, the bringing of children of God through to sonship. We understand that in the light of the throne, which eventually sees the whole kingdom of satan cast out, and the manifestation of the sons with the Son.

However, here you have in the crucifixion the form taken by that hatred of satan for the Son, and for what sonship means in Him that was never of God; for crucifixion is that. It has always been recognised that crucifixion was the most ignominious or humiliating form of death that the world then knew. That is why the Jews would not do it. They refused to crucify Him. They brought Him to Pilate. They forced the issue with Pilate. Pilate said, "Take ye Him and crucify Him". No, they would not; only Gentile dogs could do a thing like that. Even low as they had fallen morally, they were not going to do this with their own hands. They would use that which they considered to be far below them in the standard of this world's moral estimates and values to crucify.

2) His hold on men revealed in crucifixion.

Then there is this extra factor: the crucifixion reveals what a hold satan had on men; in the first place, that he could make the Jews force that issue, and then make the Gentiles carry it out. What a grip satan had on men to use them for this thing, the direst humiliation of God's Son. It speaks volumes for the captivity of men to the devil, that men should be instrumental in satan's hands of doing that which in all history stands out as the worst thing that could be done to anybody. If He were only a man, to be crucified was the worst, most degrading thing that could be done to Him; but He was God's Son! Can you enter into the meaning of that?

Now, putting those two things together, and seeing crucifixion as an expression of satan's hatred and satan's grip on men to use them to fan that background hatred, then you have the setting for a wonderful manifestation of Divine sovereignty. The strongest, bitterest, and most terrible thing that satan could do, and that by the instrumentality of those who are gripped and held by him, became the very occasion for two things: one, the overthrow of satan, and two, the judgement of mankind. That is the crucifixion. The very crucifixion was turned to the overthrow of satan.

An extra element was in the crucifixion to make it that, of course, and that is what we mean by the Cross, the death of Christ; but through crucifixion satan was entirely overthrown. In the place, and at the time of his most bitter and terrible assault upon the Son of God he was met and destroyed, and men, his instrument, came under the very judgement which they were being used to express against the Son of God.

We must recognise that on that side of things the Cross of the Lord Jesus is the judgement of the world, and that is what He has just said, "Now is the judgement of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out" (John 12:31); and that in connection with the cross: "And I, if I be lifted up..." (John12:32). What was the connection? "It is not lawful for us to put any man to death" (John 18:31). They were not going to crucify Him. That is the connection for this comment of the apostle that the Word of Jesus might be fulfilled (John 18:32). If you look at the marginal reference it takes you back to chapter 12:32: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me." So that that lifting up, which the Jews would not do themselves, but used Gentiles to do, became, on the one hand, the judgement of the world, and on the other hand, the casting out of the prince of the world. It was the sovereignty of God right in the heart of satan's most bitter antagonism.

The Cross Viewed from the Divine Standpoint

Then we turn to view it from the Divine standpoint. These things are clearly traceable in this account. One is that the Cross of the Lord Jesus was Divinely ordained. That is perfectly patent. It did not originate with man or devil, it originated with God in the Divine economy. Not only was it Divinely ordained, but it was Divinely governed in all its details. That is seen very clearly in this record. It was carried through in perfect order, it was timed from above, and it was entirely under Divine control. Men did try to manipulate these proceedings. They said, "Not on the Passover". He took it out of their hands and saw to it that it was on the Passover, because it was so vitally related to the meaning of the Passover. As Paul says later, "Christ our Passover". So they would have arranged the time, but He took the matter of the time out of their hands. He controlled it so perfectly in its order, that bit by bit it fulfilled prophetic Scriptures. One feature of this record is the repetition of such words as, "That the Scripture might be fulfilled", just in perfect order. This matter is in the hands of God, after all, not in man's hands. There is another standpoint always.

God was doing the main thing here. What was He doing? After all, what satan and men did was subservient, was only relative. The main thing was what God was doing. In a word, God was dealing with all that broke in against the eternal purpose. God's purposes had been established from of old, they could not be frustrated. But inasmuch as a great deal had broken in against the realisation of those purposes, God will deal with all that which has broken in and get it out of the way, and go on towards the realisation of that purpose.

One of the inclusive factors in dealing with all that which had come in, and making a way, securing His end, was the recovering of a racial Man according to the Divine type. Read again Hebrews 1 and 2, and a quotation from Psalm 8: "What is man, that Thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that Thou makest mention of him?" The literal translation is: "...dost put him in charge... Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands". Then the Lord Jesus is brought into that very place. "We see not yet all things put in subjection under Him... but we see Jesus... crowned with glory and honour" (Heb. 2:8,9). He occupies the place which was intended to be occupied by the first Adam; transcending that place, of course, or, shall we say, of which the first Adam was a type, for that seems to be what the Scripture says, that he was a figure of Him that was to come. Here, through the Cross, that racial Man, first born, according to Divine type, was recovered, secured, and by the very cross which expressed the violent hatred of satan and satan's terrible work in man's heart, God was perfecting a Captain: "For it became Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings". Peter speaks of "the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow", bringing many sons to glory, the Captain of their salvation made perfect through suffering. In the very Cross, with its dark background of evil, its cosmic encompassment of violence, God was perfecting a file-leader of many sons to come to glory, made perfect through sufferings.

That does not mean that Christ was anything but perfect in His nature, but it was perfecting the perfect, it was developing perfection to its full dimensions, He was perfect in the beginning, as a child is perfect, but He was perfected as from the child to the man, and those perfections were brought to final development through suffering. There was patience in Him, but it was made perfect patience through suffering. All the graces and virtues were there without a tinge or taint of evil, but subjected to the fire they were developed, so that they became the full measure required by many sons. We have got a very great Christ in heaven. He has enough perfection for us all. He was made complete, mature through suffering.

That is the Divine standpoint of the Cross in relation all the time to the eternal purpose. Keep that in view, and make all your lines converge upon that. Was it satan's activity in crucifixion? Yes, but your arrow takes you to God's purpose, not defeated but realised. Was it Christ's sufferings and death? Yes, but from the Divine standpoint all ending in the realisation of the purpose.

The Cross Viewed from the Standpoint of the Church

What are the great words that stand over the church? They gather the church into themselves. They are two words which govern (shall we say) two dispensations: the word "elect" and the word "redemption". Those two words govern the church entirely in its history from eternity to eternity. Election takes us back to the before times eternal. The words Paul uses are: "...chose us in Him before the foundation of the world", and the word "chose" there is the same as "elected". We were elected in Him before the foundation of the world. "Elect", says Peter, speaking of the church, "according to the foreknowledge of God the Father". That is why we referred at the beginning to those passages in Matthew about the elect. Everything, you notice, is being governed in relation to the elect, "Except those days had been shortened there should no flesh be saved, but because of the elect those days will be shortened." We will come back to that in a moment. We just point out that the other word is "redemption", and it is peculiarly related to the elect.

Now we come back to "election". There is a great deal of confusion about election. There is no need to be. I think a great deal of the trouble in relation to election and what is called "the doctrine of election" has come about because people have assumed that the elect is the only party that will ever be saved, which is not true. We are not talking about times, about this dispensation; we are talking about all dispensations. You cannot read the book of the Revelation and conclude that the elect is the only company saved. Read the book of the Revelation again, with that thought in mind. There will be many more saved at some time (and we are not going to say when that may be) than the elect, but the elect will be saved in this dispensation. The elect in this dispensation represent that for God which shall be, must be, because He cannot be cheated of His full thought. There will be nations walking in the light of the City, which is the church, the elect. Because that has not been recognised, but it has been assumed that the elect represent the saved and all the rest are going to be lost, there has been such confusion in this matter. We are not going to the other extreme and talking universalism, but we are saying that, as far as we can see, what the Word of God shows is that there is a body within the great body, a company within the great company, and that inner company is the elect, and many more beyond may be saved. It is a wide sweep on the part of God to get a specific object.

Have you noticed this on the part of satan, that he will make a very wide sweep to secure a specific object? He will slay all the infant sons to get one Son. He is after that sonship. All the infants will be sacrificed to the sword in order to get one. All the babes of Israel will be sacrificed to the sword in order to get one in the devil's intent, and so with Herod to get one.

God makes a wide sweep too. He spreads the wide net of His heavenly government (for the kingdom of heaven is that), and into that net all sorts of things will be found, but He is after something particular in the midst of it. There is a treasure in the field; perhaps not the only bit of the world that the Lord is going to have, but something in it that He is after. Satan is after the elect, and God is after the elect.

This matter of election is set forth in type in the case of Israel. Israel was an elect nation, but no one reading the Scriptures will say that all the other nations were destined by God to be lost. There will be [those] gathered out of every nation, and even in Israel's days there was a testimony in the nations, and God would show mercy to the nations; but Israel occupied the place of the elect in the midst of the nations. There are many prophecies as to the nations, even Egypt. Israel as the elect was not the only nation or only company of people to know God and to be saved, but their election was unto a specific purpose, and this is the thing that governs the whole revelation or doctrine of election: it is the purpose. Israel was elected from the nations to manifest God in the midst of the nations, and that is the purpose of the church in election. It is this that the Lord Jesus touches upon. He touches upon it lightly. It has to wait yet for a time, for a fuller development, but He has touched upon it. "Thine they were, and Thou gavest them to Me." God has secured them before they came to Christ.

Our danger, and the danger of people always in connection with such a truth, is to begin to organise it, and act in a wrong way in relation to it. When they see people not responding to the gospel they conclude they are not the elect, and leave them alone for evermore. As soon as we begin to take up attitudes like that, we are going to frustrate the purposes of God, we are altogether out of the right realm. There is one thing that is made manifest, and that is that from our side we must never give up, never to accept for a moment the loss of any soul, never to abandon any soul as hopeless. We shall find ourselves full of contradictions immediately we begin to systematise a doctrine like this.

The point is that there is such a thing as an elect, and that elect is engulfed in the whole flood of sin, of that which has broken in against God's purpose. There has come a tidal wave over the whole creation of evil, and that tidal wave has engulfed the elect. It is in the nations, it is in the kingdom of satan, but it is there.

Now then, the other word that governs the elect because of that, is "redemption". It is the "redemption of the purchased possession"; it is "redeemed unto God". It is the highest expression of redemption.

I am afraid that aspect of things has been largely missed. We rejoice, and rightly so, in such words as, "redeemed from all iniquity"; "redeemed us with His own blood"; but that is not enough. It is "redeemed unto God". That is what Paul means when writing particularly and specifically in relation to the church.

That which is in Ephesians relates to the church. We are not saying that nothing else does, but it does there, and when Paul in Ephesians asks the Lord to give the church a "spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of their heart being enlightened"; it is that they might know "what are the riches... of His inheritance in the saints". God has an inheritance in the saints. God has an inheritance in the elect. The elect stands in relation to God's deepest and highest intention and purpose. It is the very centre and heart of the thought of God. God's full thought is bound up with the elect, a central Body in whom sonship is brought through to fulness; therefore the purchased possession is for God, "redeemed unto God".

We spoke of the Levites, and you will remember that the Lord said, "They shall be Mine"; "They shall be offered as a wave offering to the Lord"; "the church of the firstborn ones"; "Thine they were, and Thou gavest them to Me... all Mine are Thine." It is unto God all the time.

Why is it unto God in this specific and particular emphasis? Because God has the treasure of His own heart bound up with that Body, that elect, and so, because the elect is involved in the state of the whole race, the elect must be redeemed in this specific meaning of redemption. What is the meaning of redemption? The word is 'apolytrosis', to loosen out, with the extra thought of a price paid, loosed out. When you say, "He has redeemed us", you say, "He has loosed us out"; and when you say, "We are redeemed unto God", you say, "We are loosed out unto God". "Translated out of the power of darkness, unto the kingdom of the Son of His love", but that translation is a mighty loosing out. He loosed us in His blood. The Cross, then, was the mighty loosing out of the church. It was the redemption of the purchased possession.

Viewed from the standpoint of the church the Cross is this wonderful releasing from every kind of tyranny and bondage that had broken in to defeat the Divine purpose. Now you see Divine purpose realised through the Cross, so far as the church is concerned.

Let us summarise that. That word "elect", chosen, is a governing idea of God. It means, firstly, that not all will be saved in this age. It is not for us to say who will be, and who will not be saved, nor to accept, as we have said, the loss of anyone. But the fact remains that it is folly to think that everyone is going to be saved in this dispensation. That is one of the false doctrines, giving rise to a false enterprise. It is the basis of the post-millennial doctrine that all are going to be saved, the whole world is going to be saved. There is nothing in the Word of God to teach that, so far as this dispensation is concerned, but what God is doing is taking out from the nations a people for His Name.

Secondly, the full thought of God is bound up with the saved in this dispensation. We want to define that a little more. It is not enough from God's standpoint, from the standpoint of the eternal purpose, that men should just be brought out of darkness into light and left there, that there should be what is called the "evangelistic work" in the salvation of souls, and then for them to be left to get on with the saving of others. From the Divine standpoint the full thought of God is not just to be saved.

That explains, in the third place, why the believers were from the beginning gathered into assemblies, and why the assembly order was brought into being by the Holy Spirit. That is the explanation of the necessity for corporate principles being recognised among the Lord's people, because the full thought of God is in view with the saved. The assembly was for a building up, a maturing of believers, and an assembly order is a great factor in spiritual maturity: no independence, no freelance activity, no personal and individual domination and interest, but an order. If we upset the Divine order in the House of God, we immediately arrest the operation of the Holy Spirit towards sonship. If we violate corporate principles, we immediately put a limitation upon our own spiritual growth.

If you want any proof of that, look around you. We are not taking a censorious and criticising attitude. Do not misunderstand. It is a real grief and sorrow to recognise that there are scattered about the world what are called "Gospel Missions" and in those missions the gospel is continuously preached to the unsaved, although the majority of the people in them are saved, and there is a repudiating of anything more than what they call "the simple gospel for the sinner". There is nothing for building up allowed, and if it is brought in, there is a restiveness. So you find everywhere Gospel Missions like that, with companies of people, smaller or larger, which have been there for decades, and they are still spiritual infants and do not understand the language of men and women, only the language of childhood, and they cannot bear strong meat. There is no assembly order, no real corporate life, and so you get people growing old in years in Christ and never growing up from infancy, and it is a contradiction and a tragedy.

That was not what it was in the beginning; and again, let us note that ninety-nine per cent of the New Testament is for believers, showing how important God regards the maturing of saints, the bringing to full growth. Now He has loosed out the church by the Cross with the full thought in view, and it is not enough for us to stay by the elementary things of Calvary, but to recognise that Calvary embodies and involves all that purpose which was in the counsels of the Godhead before times eternal. The Cross is a tremendous thing, going right on to the end. When at length you get to the throne, which is the throne of universal dominion, authority, power and glory and you look at the throne finally established, you find in the midst of the throne a Lamb. The Cross leads to the throne; that is God's thought. The Cross points on to the government of this universe, the revelation of God universally.

The main point at issue is whether it is to the unsaved or whether it is to the saved in this dispensation, that God is working to one end, and that is the end which He determined should be in eternity past, the expressing of Himself through a vessel, and that vessel related to Him in terms of sonship. That is, mature spiritual life, with all that that means.

So sonship is the governing word; and if you want the other word for elect, it is "son" in the thought of God; and if you want the full meaning of redemption, it is sonship in the thought of God.