As regards Peter and Paul, we have scriptural authority for regarding them
as the apostles respectively of the circumcision and of the uncircumcision.
Peter and the twelve remained at Jerusalem when the disciples were
scattered, and, continuing (though God was careful to maintain unity) the
work of Christ in the remnant of Israel, gathered into an assembly on earth
the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Paul, having received the ministry
of the assembly, as of the gospel to every creature under heaven (Col. 1),
as a wise master-builder, lays the foundation. Peter sets us off as
pilgrims on our journey to follow Christ risen towards the inheritance
above. Paul, in the full development of his doctrine (though owning this,
as in Philippians 3), shews us the saints sitting in heavenly places in
Christ, heirs of all which He is heir of. All this was dispensational, and
it is full of instruction. But John holds a different place. He does not
enter on dispensation; nor, though once or twice stating the fact (as 13:1;
14:1; 17:24;20:17), does He take the saint, nor even the Lord Himself, up
to heaven. Jesus, for him, is a divine Person, the Word made flesh
manifesting God and His Father, eternal life come down to earth. The
Epistle of John treats the question of our partaking of this life, and its
characters.
But at the close of the Gospel, after stating the sending of the Comforter
on His going away, Christ opens to the disciples (though in a mysterious
way) the continuation of God's dealings with the earth, of which John
ministerially is the representative, linking the manifestation of Christ on
earth at His first coming with His manifestation at His second; Christ's
Person, and eternal life in Him, being the abiding security and living seed
of God, when dispensationally all was corrupted, and in confusion and
decay. If all were in disorder outwardly, eternal life was the same.
The destruction of Jerusalem formed a momentous epoch as to these things,
because the Jewish assembly, formed as such at Pentecost, had ceased (nay,
it had even before); only the judicial act was then accomplished.
Christians had been warned to leave the camp. The breach of Christianity
with Judaism was consummated. Christ could no longer take up the assembly,
established in the remnant of the Jews, as His own seat of earthly
authority. [see note #1]
But alas! the assembly, as Paul had established it too, had already fallen
from its first estate-could in no sense take up the fallen inheritance of
Israel. All seek their own, says Paul, not the things of Jesus Christ. All
they of Asia-Ephesus, the beloved scene where all Asia had heard the word
of God-had forsaken him. They who had been specially brought with full
intelligence into the assembly's place could not hold it in the power of
faith. Indeed, the mystery of iniquity was at work before this, and was to
go on and grow until the hindrance to the final apostacy were removed.
Here, in this state of universal declension and ruin John's ministry comes
in. Stability was in the Person of Christ, for eternal life first, but for
the ways of God upon earth too. If the assembly was spued out of His mouth,
He was the faithful witness, the beginning of the creation of God. Let us
trace the lines of this in his gospel. In John 20, as else where noticed in
detail, we have a picture of God's ways from the resurrection of Christ
till we come to the remnant of Israel in the latter days, represented by
Thomas's look on the pierced One and believing by seeing. In chapter 21 we
have, besides the remnant, the full millennial gathering. Then at the close
of the chapter, the special ministry of Peter and John is pointed out,
though mysteriously. The sheep of Jesus of the circumcision are confided to
Peter; but this ministry was to close like Christ's. The assembly would not
be established on this ground, any more than Israel. There was no tarrying
here till Christ came, [see note #2]
Peter's ministry in fact was closed, and the circumcision assembly left
shepherdless, before the destruction of Jerusalem put an end to all such
connection for ever. Peter then asks as to John. The Lord answers,
confessedly mysteriously, but putting off, as that which did not concern
Peter who was to follow Him, the closing of John's ministry, prolonging it
in possibility till Christ came. Now, in fact, the Bridegroom tarried; but
the service and ministry of John by the word (which was all that was to
remain, and no apostle in personal care) did go on to the return of Christ.
John was no master-builder like Paul-had no dispensation committed to him.
He was connected with the assembly in its earthly structure like Peter, not
in the Ephesus or heavenly one; He was not the minister of the
circumcision, but carried on the earthly system among the Gentiles, only
holding fast the Person of Christ. His special place was testimony to the
Person of Christ come to earth with divine title over it-power over all
flesh. This did not break the links with Israel, as Paul's ministry did,
but raised the power which held all together in the Person of Christ to a
height which carried it through any hidden time, or hidden power, on to its
establishment over the world at the end; it did not exclude Israel as such,
but enlarged the scene of the exercise of Christ's power so as to set it
over the world, and did not establish it in Israel as its source, though it
might establish Israel itself in its own place from a heavenly source of
power.
What place does the assembly then hold in this ministry of John, found as
it is in the Book of Revelation? None in its Pauline character, save in one
phrase, coming in after the Revelation is closed where its true place in
Christ's absence is indicated. (Chap 22:17) We have the saints at the time,
in their own conscious relationship to Christ, in reference, too, to the
royal and priestly place to His God and Father, in which they are
associated with Himself. But John's ministerial testimony, as to the
assembly, views it as the outward assembly on earth
[see note #3]
in its state of decay-Christ judging this-and the true assembly, the
capital city and seat of God's government over the world, at the end, but
in glory and grace. It is an abode, and where God dwells and the Lamb. All
this facilitates our intelligence of the objects and bearing of the book.
The assembly has failed; the Gentiles, grafted in by faith, have not
continued in God's goodness. The Ephesian assembly, the intelligent vessel,
and expression of what the assembly of God was, had left its first estate,
and unless it repented, the candlestick was to be removed. The Ephesus of
Paul becomes the witness on earth of decay and of removal out of God's
sight, even as Israel had been removed. God's patience would be shewn
towards the assembly as it had been towards Israel; but the assembly would
not maintain God's testimony in the world any more than Israel had. John
does maintain this testimony, ministerially judging the assemblies by
Christ's word, [see note #4]
and then the world from the throne, till Christ comes and takes to Himself
His great power and reigns. During this transition-dealing of the throne
the heavenly saints are seen on high. When Christ comes, they come with
Him.
The first part, then, of the Epistles of John is the continuation, so to
speak, of the Gospel before the last two dispensational chapters; the
Revelation, that of these last two chapters (20, 21), where, Christ being
risen and no ascension given, the dispensational dealings of God are
largely intimated in the circumstances which occur; while it is shewn at
the same time that He could not personally set up the kingdom then. He must
ascend first. The two short epistles shew us that truth (truth as to His
Person) was the test of true love, and to be held fast when what was
anti-christian came in; and the free liberty of the ministration of the
truth to be held fast against assumed ecclesiastical or clerical authority,
as contrasted with the assembly. The apostle had written to the assembly.
Diotrephes rejected free ministry.
