Josh King

The Greatest Evil Is Found In the Presence of the Greatest Light (John 15:18–16:4)

“But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father.”
—John 15:21–24

Because of Jesus, the Jews are guilty of sin. It is not that they were sinless and guiltless before Christ came, but that now because He has come, they are guilty of great sin. They’ve sinned against the remedy for sin. John 3:19–20 tells us “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.” As the light draws near, their darkness is illuminated, exacerbated, and intensified. The principle of judgment at work here is the same one seen in Luke 11:31–32.

“The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.”

The Jews are not in the dark for lack of light. The abundance of light intensifies their guilt. The magnitude of their guilt can be seen in that by hating Jesus, they hate the Father (15:23). This is because Jesus doesn’t simply come as light exposing their darkness, but as light revealing the Father. “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” (John 1:18). Jesus has just told the disciples that in seeing Him, they have seen the Father (John 14:9). Inversely, in hating Jesus, the Jews have hated the Father. Jesus’ works bear witness that He is in the Father and that the Father is in Him (John 14:10–11). The works Jesus does are the very works the Father does (John 5:19). These works are given to Him by the Father as a testimony to the Son (John 5:36–37). By these works the Son reveals the Father.

Here then is the greatness of their guilt: They have sinned against the Father’s revelation of the Son. They have sinned against the Son’s revelation of the Father. They have sinned against the Spirit’s witness to the Son as a witness to the Father. And they have sinned against them in the revelation of their grace. This is a sin against the Father who gave His only begotten Son. This is a sin against the Son who loved and obeyed His Father unto death. This is a sin against the Spirit who was sent by the Father and who anointed the Son. All in grace to sinners. Oh how great is this sin. Sin in the dark is evil, but sin in the light is greater evil, and sin in the greatest of light is the greatest of evil.

Dear soul, are guilty of such sin? If so, you have not sinned in the dark. You have sinned in the light. You have sinned against the Light. J.C. Ryle warns,

“Let us settle it down as a first principle in our religion, that religious privileges are in a certain sense very dangerous things. If they do not help us toward heaven, they will only sink us deeper into hell. They add to our responsibility. ‘To whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required’ (Luke 12:48). He that dwells in a land of open Bibles and preached gospel, and yet dreams that he will stand in the judgment day on the same level with an untaught Chinese, is fearfully deceived. He will find to his own cost, except he repents, that his judgment will be according to his light.”

Dear soul, know this, the Father counts indifference to the Son as hatred. Don’t attempt to give soft names to your hatred. If you do not trust and love the Son, it is not well with your soul. You have no excuse. If you will not receive this great grace, you will bear great guilt. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ who bore judgment for sinners, receive His grace, and you need bear such guilt no longer.

The Love We Are Called to Abide in (John 15:9–17)

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.”
—John 15:9

Here is the door by which we come into what is known as the “Upper Room Discourse:”

“Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (John 13:1).

Having entered that door, we hear Jesus calling us to abide in His love. Here is part of the gospel bliss of this command: the love we are called to abide in, already is.

Jesus loved His own and He loved them to the end. He has washed them, physically, as a testimony of His washing them spiritually. Jesus will stoop lower yet to serve them in love. Saints, we do not need to create the love of Christ for us to then abide in it. The love we are called to abide in is not a bathtub that we fill; it is an infinite and eternal ocean that already is.

This is amplified when Jesus goes on to tell them, “You did not choose me, but I chose you.” The love in which we are called to abide, is rooted not in our choice, but His. Be gone any idea that you spark this love. This love has ever burned. This love is. It was before you were and it will be for all eternity. You did not create this love. This love was before you were created.

Jesus is not saying that our choice is nonexistent. He is saying His choice is paramount and supreme. What Jesus says here is harmonious with what John writes when he says, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 5:19). His love is the cause of ours. His choice is the cause of ours. Richard Sibbes writes,

“If we choose him, we may conclude he hath chosen us first: ‘if we love him, we may know that he hath loved us first,’ (1 John 5:19). If we apprehend him, it is because he hath apprehended us first. Whatsoever affection we shew to God, it is a reflection of his first to us. If cold and dark bodies have light and heat in them, it is because the sun hath shined upon them first.”

Some object to this saying that this speaks of the apostles being chosen to their office, not chosen for salvation. Let’s see if that stands. This language of “choosing” goes back earlier in the upper room to 13:18. “I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen.” Eleven were chosen. Judas was not. Judas was chosen to the office of apostle. He was not chosen as one of Christ’s friends (vv. 13–15). He was not clean (John 13:11). He didn’t enjoy the promises of the upper room. He had no part in Christ. Soon, Jesus will tell the disciples, “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:19). The disciples were not simply chosen from among the saints for an office. They were chosen out from the world for salvation.

The love of Christ doesn’t fall like a limp wrist on this world, loving all but loving ineffectually. Jesus loves with a mighty right hand of redemption. It is a strong love we are called to abide in. A love that we do not spark, but rather, a love that has always burned.

Trading the Assembly Line Back for the Vine (John 15:1–11)

I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
—John 15:5

We have traded the vine for the assembly line, the natural for the manufactured, the living for the artificial. This is true of the saints both corporately and individually.

The church in America largely doesn’t abide in the vine; she maintains the assembly line. Pragmatism drives the line. Statistics and numbers are the measurement of success. How many people? How many baptisms? How much money? How many churches planted? How many missionaries sent out? Programs, Advertising, events, the liturgy, style, methodology, and even the teaching are all shaped and developed, not strictly in accord with the Scriptures, but in service to this business-model goal of success.

I’m afraid that a whole lot of the activity of the American church is an attempt to get fruit without abiding in the vine. We can do it more efficiently with the assembly line. The word doesn’t abide in us; His commands are not obeyed. We irrigate with spontaneous baptisms, we cultivate with worldly methodologies, we fertilize by appealing to the flesh, and we grow using artificial lights. But for all this efficiency, I’m afraid it will be shown that we have far more tares than wheat.

Individually we don’t fare any better. We’ve tried to baptize the world’s ideas of success. Jesus comes like a supplement to our diet plan. When it comes to our work, our marriages, our homes, our children, our aspirations and goals—it’s not necessarily that we’re running after inherently evil things, but we’re running after good things as though they were god, all while asking God’s blessing on our idolatry. Rather than tapping our life into the vine, we’re trying to tap the vine into our life. We want to be successful and efficient and productive at a number of things, and we try to graft the vine into them to give them life. Rather than Jesus making us fruitful for the kingdom, we want Jesus to make our kingdoms fruitful.

Ask yourself, which of these triads characterize the life of the church in general in these days and which of these characterize your life: busyness, efficiency, and success or industry (as in good hard work), faithfulness, and fruitfulness? There is nothing intrinsically evil about being busy, being efficient, or being successful, but when these categories dominate our thoughts and drive our behavior, then I believe something is seriously wrong. Kevin DeYoung explains,

“Busyness does not mean you are a faithful or fruitful Christian. It only means you are busy, just like everyone else. And like everyone else, your joy, your heart, and your soul are in danger. We need the Word of God to set us free. We need biblical wisdom to set us straight. What we need is the Great Physician to heal our overscheduled souls. If only we could make time for an appointment.”

Saints, perhaps this is that much needed appointment for you. Perhaps you need to repent right now of chasing after a worldly idea of success and by faith abide in the vine right now that you may be truly fruitful. If thoughts of busyness, efficiency, and success dominate your life such that they rob you of life, you are doing it wrong. Set your hearts instead on industry (working heartily unto the Lord), faithfulness, fruitfulness. And set your hearts on them in this way: remember that faithfulness is your lot and fruitfulness is God’s. The admonition of this passage is not “be fruitful,” but “abide.” And the result of such abiding, is joy.

The Bishop: Useful Forms and Deadly Formality

“Yet all this time there is no heart in their religion. Anyone who knows them intimately can see with half an eye that their affections are set on things below, and not on things above: and that they are trying to make up for the want of inward Christianity by an excessive quantity of outward form. And this formal religion does them no real good. They are not satisfied. Beginning at the wrong end, by making the outward things first, they know nothing of inward joy and peace, and pass their lives in a constant struggle, secretly conscious that there is something wrong, and yet not knowing why. Well, after all, if they do not go on from one stage of formality to another, until in despair they take a fatal plunge, and fall into Popery! When professing Christians of this kind are so painfully numerous, no one need wonder if I press upon him the paramount importance of close self-examination. If you love life, do not be content with the husk, and shell, and scaffolding of religion. Remember our Saviour’s words about the Jewish formalists of his day: ‘This people draweth nigh with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship’ (Matt. 15:9). It needs something more than going diligently to church, and receiving the Lord’s supper to take our souls to heaven. Means of grace and forms of religion are useful in their way, and God seldom does anything for his church without them. But let us beware of making shipwreck on the very lighthouse which helps to show the channel into the harbour. Once more I ask, ‘How do we do about our souls?’” —J.C. Ryle, Practical Religion

Love and Law (John 14:15–24)

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
—John 14:15

This is a radical statement for at least two reasons: for what it says about love and for what it says about Jesus. First, this is counter to the world’s concept of love. John Piper writes,

“Jesus shatters many common notions. For example, one notion is that commandments and love don’t mix. You don’t command someone you love. And you don’t tend to love one who commands. Commanding connotes military hierarchy, not relationships of love. We tend to think that commanding restricts winsomeness and willingness both ways. And this is often true.

Paul wrote to his friend Philemon and said, ‘Though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, yet for love’s sake I prefer to appeal to you’ (Philemon 8-9; see also 2 Corinthians 8:8). Paul probably meant his love and Philemon’s love. So it’s true that, for love’s sake, a person in authority may choose not to command.

But Jesus shatters any absolute dissociation of commandments and love. He says, ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments…. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father’ (John 14:15, 21). ‘If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love’ (John 15:10). Thinking in terms of commandments and obedience did not stop Jesus from enjoying the love of his Father. And he expects that our thinking of him as one who commands will not jeopardize our love relationship with him either.”

There are many earthly relationships where love, for one with authority, is demonstrated by obedience. Perilously, ours is an age that denies this. Parents fail to see that love commands. Children fail to see that love obeys. Such an idea of love is shocking enough for modern ears, but it is the absoluteness of it here that is most radical. There are no exceptions. If you love, you will keep. With earthly authorities, sometimes love may disobey. But here, there is an understood absoluteness to this rule. There are no exceptions. This brings us to the second reason Jesus’ statement is radical.

Look at what the absoluteness of this statement says about Jesus. You can sense it in the words, “my commandments.” Moses gave commands, but he didn’t speak of “my commandments.” They were the Lord’s. The incarnate Son obeyed His Father’s commands as a man. He gives commands to men as God. There are then no exceptions to this rule. If you love Jesus, you don’t improvise. You don’t demonstrate it by originality. You don’t get creative. You obey.

Or you may see it this way: Jesus said elsewhere that all the law is summed up with two commandments: Love God with all and love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37–40). Jesus, earlier in the Upper Room, told the disciples, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (13:34). And now He is telling them to love Him by obeying His commandments. He is telling them to love Him by loving others. He is telling them to love God (Himself) by loving one another.

Commandments then, are not contrary to love; they are essential to all love, even when you want to love another who is not an authority over you or under you. When you want to love others, Jesus defines what love to others looks like. Sinclair Ferguson is spot on when he writes, “love is what the law commands, and the commands are what love fulfills.” You cannot truly love, either man or God, unless you keep the commands of God.

But not only are commandments essential to truly love, love is essential to true obedience to the commandments. Love lies underneath true obedience. Sheer outward obedience is not obedience, no matter how great the outward action is. “If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:3). Jesus commands the heart as well as the hands. Hands without heart are still disobedient hands. Here’s the kind of obedience Jesus is speaking of, “I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart” (Psalm 40:8). Keeping commandments doesn’t mean you love. Love does mean you keep the commandments.

The Bishop: The Doctrine of Perseverance

“When I speak of the doctrine of perseverance, I mean this. I say that the Bible teaches that true believers, real genuine Christians, shall persevere in their religion to the end of their lives. They shall never perish. They shall never be lost. They shall never be cast away. Once in Christ, they shall always be in Christ. Once made children of God by adoption and grace, they shall never cease to be His children, and become children of the devil. Once endued with the grace of the Spirit, that grace shall never be taken from them. Once pardoned and forgiven, they shall never be deprived of their pardon. Once joined to Christ by living faith, their union shall never be broken off. Once called by God into the narrow way that leads to life, they shall never be allowed to fall into hell. In a word, every man, woman, and child on earth who receives saving grace, shall sooner or later receive eternal glory. Every soul who is once justified and washed in Christ’s blood, shall at length be found safe at Christ’s right hand in the day of judgment.” —J.C. Ryle, The Upper Room

A Troubled Christ Gives Comfort (John 14:1–14)

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.”
—John 14:1

The disciples’ hearts were troubled. When Jesus purposed to return to Judea, Thomas said, “Let us also go, that we may die with him” (John 11:16). Now, at this Supper, Jesus has just told them that one of them will betray Him. At this they look at one another, uncertain of whom He spoke. Matthew tell us that “they were very sorrowful and began to say to him one after another, ‘Is it I, Lord?’” (Matthew 26:22). To cap it off, Jesus goes on to tell them that He will be with them only a little while longer and that where he is going, they cannot come (v. 33).

Peter protests, “Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you. Jesus rebukes Him. Peter will not lay down His life. He will deny Jesus. Three times. Their hearts are troubled. Jesus had called these men to Himself saying “Follow me.” He now tells them they cannot follow Him. Jesus tells them that the feet He has just washed not only will not follow, they will flee (cf. John 16:32; Matthew 26:31).

If you’re paying attention to John’s gospel, then this command should cause a reverent “hmmm?” Or, if you are not in a more reverent and righteous mood, you might even object, “Wait a minute?” As we approach the cross, we have just been told three times that Jesus was troubled. In returning to Judea, they come first to the village of Bethany and to the grave of His beloved friend Lazarus. After encountering Lazarus’ sister Mary, we are read, “When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled” (John 11:33). Then in John 12:27 we hear our Lord cry out, “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour.” Finally, Jesus’ statement that one of the disciples would betray Him, was preceded by this narration in John 13:21, “After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit, and testified, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.’”

Jesus is troubled and He tells His disciples not to be. Why is this not hypocrisy? You know it is not, but why is it not. There are two reasons I can see. First, they are troubled ignorantly; Jesus is troubled knowledgeably. Second, they are troubled for unbelief; Jesus is troubled for belief.

But even so, Jesus here is not admonishing them to be troubled rightly. He is admonishing them not to be troubled at all. How is it that a troubled Jesus can tell them not to be troubled? Here is the glorious gospel answer: It is a troubled Christ who can give comfort. It is because Jesus is troubled that they are not to be troubled. It is because He goes to the cross that they need not face the wrath of God. His trouble is our comfort. His cross is our salvation. We don’t look to the cross as a tragedy. It was conquest. Jesus is holding out to them the comfort of the gospel, for the terror of the cross. It is a troubled Christ who gives comfort. Only a Christ troubled in our place can extend comfort to us.

The Bishop: The Jachin and Boaz of the Temple of Our Soul

“May this be our divinity, your divinity, my divinity; your theo-logy, my theology! May repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ be Jachin and Boaz, the two great pillars before the temple of our religion, the corner stones in our system of Christianity! (2 Chron. 3:17). May the two never be disjoined! May we, while we repent, believe; and while we believe, repent! And may repentance and faith, faith and repentance, be ever uppermost, foremost, the chief and principal articles, in the creed of our souls!” —J.C. Ryle, The Upper Room

Believing for Betrayal (John 13:21–38)

“I am telling you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he.”

“After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit, and testified, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.'”
—John 13:19, 21

John tells us once more that Jesus was troubled. Why was Jesus troubled? Throughout His earthly ministry, as John presents it, Jesus has seemed so calm, so in control, despite volatile and tangible hostility and misguided zeal. But beginning with Lazarus, we read of Jesus being troubled. “When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled” (John 11:33).

I think there were other days of trouble in Jesus’ earthly life, but John is wanting to tell us something profound. As the cross nears, the soul of our Lord is increasingly said to be troubled. “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour” (John 12:27). There, the anguish of soul Jesus speaks of relates to the cross in general and receiving the cup of wrath from the Father’s hands. But here, in John 13, the trouble of soul is much more focused. Jesus is troubled in soul “after saying these things.” He has just spoken of Judas’ betrayal. Also, He is troubled in His spirit and testifies. He testifies of Judas’ betrayal. What Jesus has said and what He will say speaks as to why He is troubled. He has washed the disciples’ feet, but not all of them are clean. Not all are blessed. Not all are chosen. One will lift his heal against Jesus. One will betray Him. And this troubles our Lord, (v. 21).

See and marvel at our Lord’s tender humanity. As God, He, with the Father, eternally willed this betrayal. And yet, as a man, this betrayal stings. It is no strain to see David’s pain as anticipating that of our Lord. “Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me” (Psalm 41:9). We don’t need to take liberal poetic license to see how that song is fulfilled here. Jesus’ sorrows included those of betrayal by a close friend.

In His divine nature, our Lord, is impassible. His joy is indestructible. He isn’t moody. He isn’t moved by outside forces. He moves all. He does all that He pleases. All that He pleases, He does. The incarnate Son reveals something of this to us when He tells the disciples that He was glad that Lazarus was dead and not merely sleeping, (John 11:14–15). Our God doesn’t wring His hands. He has never pulled His hair. He has never sought treatment for anxiety. Because He needs no comfort, He is the comforter, the God of all comfort.

But our Lord Jesus, remaining what He was (God), became what He was not (man)—one person with two natures. In His divine nature, Jesus remains impassible. In His human nature, He was “troubled in his spirit.” He was troubled in spirit, and without sin. He is troubled because one of these disciples, one of these men who He has spent years with, teaching, laughing, praying, rebuking, eating, sharing, and communing—one of these will betray him. One of the twelve. One of those whose feet He has washed. Judas is His close friend. And his betrayal troubles Him.

There are tares among the wheat. There will be apostasy. There will be betrayal. It will be unexpected. It will come from those we trust. It is not for us to figure out ahead of time. It will sting. It will trouble our souls. It will confuse and befuddle. Take comfort. Our Lord knew such pain. He knew the betrayal would come and still it stung. He divinely ordained it, and yet, in His humanity, it troubled Him. But don’t forget that your God works all things together for good. The betrayal of His close friend was for the redemption of His true friends for whom He laid down His life.

To Do Good Your Must Do More Than Do Good. You Must Tell of the Good Done.

“Does any reader of this paper want to do good in the world? I hope that many do. He is a poor style of Christian who does not wish to leave the world better, when he leaves it, than it was when he entered it. Take the advice I give you this day. Beware of being content with half-measures and inadequate remedies for the great spiritual disease of mankind. You will only labour in vain if you do not show men the blood of the Lamb. Like the fabled Sisyphus, however much you strive, you will find the stone ever rolling back upon you. Education, teetotalism, cleaner dwellings, popular concerts, blue ribbon leagues, white cross armies, penny readings, museums, —all, all are very well in their way; but they only touch the surface of man’s disease: they do not go to the root. They cast out the devil for a little season; but they do not fill his place, and prevent him coming back again. Nothing will do that but the story of the cross applied to the conscience by the Holy Ghost, and received and accepted by faith. Yes! it is the blood of Christ, not his example only, or his beautiful moral teaching, but his vicarious sacrifice that meets the wants of the soul. …If we want to do good, we must make much of the blood of Christ. There is only one fountain that can cleanse anyone’s sin. That fountain is the blood of the Lamb.” —J.C. Ryle, The Upper Room