Though most Christians know that the subject of the Gospel of John is life, few know how to take such a life. Yes, it is correct to say that believing in Christ is the way to take this life, but how can we live such a life out? Since my youth, when I received the Lord, I knew He was my life, yet I kept wondering how I could live by His life. How could it be practical to me in my daily living?
No doubt you too have this same question. You realize you have eternal life, the very life of God, yet your living is another story. How about your temper? your sulkiness? your gossiping? your loose life? your light, joking words? Are these the living of the divine life? According to the inner life, you are a certain person; but according to your living, you are another. These two stories are with you all day long. The ten minutes you spend in the Word every morning are wonderful, but what about the rest of the time? Part of the day you experience a bird’s life, soaring and free! But you have also the experience of a dog’s life, barking on the earth, even though your barking may be only in a whisper!
Why is it that we have a bird’s life yet have a dog’s living? Our living does not correspond with our life. I was saved over fifty years ago, when I was in my late teens. China at that time was a heathen country, full of the teachings of Confucius and the idols of Buddhism. Yet in that heathen country the Lord did grant His gracious visitation not only to me but also to many other seeking college students. I believe this visitation was the answer to the prayers of many saints in England who prayed for China after the Boxer rebellion in 1900, when many foreign missionaries were killed. The Lord came in around 1920 and saved many of us college students. We loved the Lord, and we loved the Bible. Yet we were desperately in need of help. The missionaries were able to help in the gospel, but they did not know how to live Christ. From searching the Word and seeking the Lord, we knew we needed a living to match the life within us. We collected many spiritual books, but even in them we could not find the way.
After a number of years we found out that in the Gospel of John there is first the believing in Jesus as the Son of God and then the loving of Him. In 1:12 there is the matter of believing. To believe is to receive the Son of God. In 21:15-17 the matter of loving is raised. “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” Peter was asked three times. To receive this life we must believe in the Son of God, but to live the life we have received we must love.
Neither believing nor loving, however, is the secret of living out the life we have received. The key is found in John 5, 6, and 7. The principle is that this life of someone has to be lived out by another. Only in these three chapters is it clear that the life is the Father’s, yet He does not live this life out. His desire is to have the Son live it out. The life is the Father’s, but the living is the Son’s. John 6:57 says, “As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me shall also live because of Me.” Then 5:26 says, “For even as the Father has life in Himself, so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself.” By considering these two verses together, you can see that the life was the Father’s, yet He wanted the Son to live it out. This life involves two persons; it is the life of the first, but it is lived by the second. The two have one life with one living. The matter of living does not pertain to the Father, but to the Son. Yet the life is not the Son’s, but the Father’s.
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