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Scripture Reading: 1 John 2:13, 24-25; 3:15b; 4:4; 5:11-12, 20, 16; Rom. 8:2, 6, 10-11
We have still another mystery in this short book of 1 John. Previously, we have covered the mysteries of life, fellowship, abiding, the anointing, and the divine birth. By the divine birth a seed was implanted within us. This is the mystery we would like to consider now.
“His seed abides in him,” 1 John 3:9 tells us, meaning that whoever is begotten of God has the seed of God abiding in him. A seed of any kind is a seed of life.
In the parable of the sower in Matthew 13, the Lord Jesus likened Himself both to a sower and to the seed. When He was on this earth, He sowed Himself as the seed into the soil of humanity. Human beings to Him are the soil in which He as the seed of life grows. Yet as that seed grows, many negative things arise to frustrate its growth. From this portion of the Word we can see that the seed mentioned in 1 John must be the Lord Jesus Himself as the seed of life.
First Peter 1:23 says that we have been “regenerated not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, through the living and abiding word of God.” God’s word, then, is also a seed of life. Actually, to say this is the same as saying that the Lord Jesus is the seed of life, because He Himself is the Word of God. The living Word of God is the living person of the Son of God. The seed of life is the Word and the person.
The seed in 1 John, however, in a direct sense is simply the divine life with the divine nature. Our being is comprised of our life and nature. It is God’s life and nature that are imparted into us at the moment of regeneration.
We may pray a long, penitent prayer, thanking the Lord for dying on the cross and shedding His blood for our sins; taking Him as our Savior and confessing Him as the Son of God; and receiving Him as our Lord and our life. Long before we have finished praying, however, if we have truly prayed to Him from the depths of our being, we shall be regenerated. In a moment, the divine life and nature are imparted to us.
You may have no sensation that any such experience has happened to you. Do not depend on your feelings. Many things have happened to you, including your physical birth, of which you have had no sensation. You were born, but it did not depend on you. You have been born again, but that birth also is up to Him. Just as you had no say in whether you would be born in Massachusetts or in California, so in your second birth the decision is also out of your hands.
Man, as we have often pointed out, can be represented by three concentric circles. The outer ring corresponds to our physical body, the part of us that has substance and can be seen and touched. Besides this part, we have a soul, represented by the middle ring. This is the psychological part of us, enabling us to think, to love or hate, and to make decisions. The soul, then, consists of the mind, the emotion, and the will. The innermost ring, the deepest part of man, is the spirit. You may not be clear about the human spirit, but one part of it, the conscience, you are familiar with. The conscience is deeper than the mind, emotion, and will.
Such is the way man is made. Animals may have a part that corresponds to the soul, but they lack this inner part, man’s worshipping organ. There has never been a case in the whole of history where a donkey, or a monkey, or a goat built a little sanctuary and set up an image to worship! The record of mankind, in contrast, is replete with religions, idols, temples, and forms of worship. Cultured or barbarian, ancient or modern—all peoples have a desire to worship a higher Being. What accounts for this difference between man and the animals? What constrains man to worship? It is because man was made by God with a spirit.
What is the distinction between an unregenerated human being and a believer? Both have these three parts of body, soul, and spirit. The believer, however, has a divine seed in his spirit. The seed of God abides in him!
This seed of the divine life and nature needs to grow. As it grows, it develops and spreads from the spirit into the soul, especially into the mind, the leading part of the soul. If we allow this seed to grow without hindrance, it will spread even to our mortal body.
In Romans 8:2 we find the term Spirit of life. In verse 10 we are told, “If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness.” From this verse we can see that it is the spirit which is regenerated, not the body. Our spirit is life, but our body is still dead. How about our soul? Whether our mind is life or death depends upon where we set it. “The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace” (v. 6). The Spirit of life, then, comes into our spirit and enlivens it; the mind, in contrast, is only life when it is set on the spirit.
More is said about the body in verse 11: “If the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you.” The word dwells in this verse is stronger than the word abide; the meaning is “to make home.” To say that the Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead makes His home in you is to indicate that you are giving more ground to Him as the indwelling Spirit. The result will be that this Spirit will give life to your mortal body.
I trust that from these verses we can all see that at the time of our regeneration, only our spirit is begotten of God. This is why after regeneration we need to experience transformation in our soul and also await the transfiguration of our body. Through these three stages God’s life is thoroughly worked into us. We have already experienced regeneration. Now we are in the process of being transformed in our soul. Some day we shall reach the goal, when our body will be transfigured. Then every aspect of death will be swallowed up by life.
Our regenerated, reborn spirit does not sin. This is not true of our soul, however, nor of our flesh. These two we must renounce and all the time go along with the spirit. If we set our mind, even our whole being, on the spirit, then the Spirit will have free course to spread into our mind, making it also life. Then if we give this divine life still further opportunity, it will spread even into our mortal body.
This seed has been sown into our inner being. As it is given opportunity, it spreads further and further. Such is the mystery of the seed within our spirit. It is altogether at variance with religion, even Christianity. Religion attempts to regulate people and help them to improve. God’s way of life is not like this. His way is to sow His life and nature as a seed into the heart of our being. We can stop our striving and efforts to correct our shortcomings.
We can pray, “Lord, I am nothing and can do nothing. But I am open to You. Thank You that You are the seed within me, waiting for the chance to sprout and grow. I would not do anything except open to You and let You have free course to grow and spread in me.” If we do this, a tender sprout will come forth from the seed within us.
It is hard for us to limit ourselves to praying in this way. Our religious thought rises up to say, “What! I don’t need to do anything? Doesn’t the Bible tell us to love our wives and submit to our husbands? Shouldn’t I try to control my temper?”
Your efforts to control your temper will be in vain. If you lose your temper today, do not wonder what you will do tomorrow. Let tomorrow take care of itself. There is nothing for you to do. You are not qualified to do anything. It is not God’s intention for you to do something. It is your fallen nature that makes you think you can rescue yourself.
Praise the Lord for the wonderful seed that has been sown into you! Do not try to do anything. Suppose you plant a seed in the earth. Then every day you dig in the soil to check how the seed is doing. Will that seed grow? Is it not better to leave the seed in the soil and go to bed and sleep in faith that the seed will grow?
The enemy is subtle. Before you love the Lord, he makes you careless and indifferent about your conduct, all the while making you think that you are a well-mannered gentleman. Once you turn to the Lord, however, the enemy will come in to condemn, persuading you that you are the worst of the saints and that your behavior is far below the standard. This tactic of his causes you to resolve to improve, forgetting the spirit. Your salvation is not in your mind but in your spirit. All your efforts to make up your mind are his device to turn you from the spirit.
What is needed is to contact the Lord so that the seed may be watered. Spontaneously the seed will grow. This is salvation. Salvation is in this seed of life. It is not in our doing. It is not in our striving.
You will come to realize that this seed is nothing less than the person of the Triune God, the Triune God Himself. He is the One in you who is greater than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4). This greater One is living in you as the seed of life. Put your full trust in this One who is greater than Satan, greater than your self, and greater than your flesh.
This wonderful person is also the eternal life. He is the seed, the person, and the eternal life which was from the beginning (1:1-2). From the beginning there was life; that which was from the beginning is the Word of life.
In this Epistle the writer considers the believers in three categories (2:13-27): fathers, young men, and young children. The fathers are the older, experienced ones; the young men are the stronger ones; and the young children are the babes in Christ.
The fathers, John tells us, “know Him who is from the beginning” (v. 13). That is to say, the older ones should know life, since life is what has been from the beginning. After we have received life, many things rise up to distract us from that which was from the beginning. We know from our experience that time and again we have to be brought back to life, back to what was there in the beginning. If we are fathers, experienced ones in the church life, our concern will be about life. Other things we must drop. What counts is Christ as life. Nothing else is worth ministering but this life which was from the beginning.
The apostle John here is the mender. When he was called by the Lord, he was mending fishing nets (Matt. 4:21). His ministry was to mend. In his time Christianity had already been damaged. His way to mend the situation was life. Today we need fathers in the church to bring the distracted ones back to the beginning, to life.
Then to the little ones John says, “That which you have heard from the beginning, let it abide in you. If that which you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father” (1 John 2:24). To let what was from the beginning abide in them means that they were to let life abide in them. This would bring them into the experience that the fathers had had.
John is telling us that life must be our only concern. Christians are preoccupied with doctrinal teachings and practices, like the method of baptism, the wearing of head coverings, and the way meetings are conducted. If these things matter to us, we are still babyish or at least childish. Once we grow up, we shall care only for that which was from the beginning.
This life is a person. It is the Triune God as the seed sown into our being. As we care for that living seed, it will grow in us and spread life from our spirit into every other part of our inner being. As time goes on, others will be able to notice that a measure of life has been added to us. Through the years I have seen this growth in life of the young ones in the churches. How encouraging it is to see not the outward changes but the growth of life from within!
This life is first in the Holy Spirit, then in our human spirit, then in our mind, and then in our physical body. There is still something further to be said about this life: “If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he shall ask and he will give life to him, to those sinning not unto death” (5:16). If a brother has a problem with the Lord, we can pray for him. By praying, we can minister life to him. To impart life to others, however, requires that we have more life ourselves. When we are filled with the riches of life, we shall have an overflow of life for others. There is the need of imparting life to others as a supply to them. If we ourselves are short of life, there will be none to impart to others. The hungry have nothing to feed others; they themselves must first be fed. After we have been richly fed, there will be an overflow for others.
First John presents life to us as a seed in our spirit. This seed will spread into our soul and then into our body. We can have an abundance of life to minister to others. This is the proper church life. What others need is not instruction or correction or regulation but an abundance of the riches of this life imparted to them. In the church life we are enjoying the spreading of this life from our spirit to our soul and eventually to our mortal body. As it gains ground in us, we have the riches to impart to the needy ones.
