Gospel of John (Study 17 of 24, Chap 8 Start) — G.W. North

Prayer for the Spirit's Teaching

Then let us pray. Father, we come to Thee as those that need to be taught of the Spirit. We have no knowledge of our own. Everything we have is but a receptacle to receive the genuine Thee. We look to Thee, our only true and living God, the Great Original.

We bless Thee, Father, that Thou hast granted unto us the opportunity of hearing Thy Word, and reading Thy Word, and purging ourselves from all the mere words of men. We look to Thee, Lord, for we can truly wash in Thy blood and be clear and clean.

And we bless Thee, Father, for this, that Thou didst provide for us the only salvation from mankind, provided for mankind by Thyself, God, who has come to fill us, our vision, our hearing, all the things of which Thou didst compose us in the beginning.

Lord God, our Father, we must come to Thee, that great I am, and we love Thee, for granting us the privilege, Lord, that angels might well grasp at, and yet Thou hast provided for men only. We thank Thee, Father, for this, that Thou didst spend Thyself and expend the life of Thy Son, and Thou hast sent the blessed Holy Ghost, that He of Thyself, by Thine own will, should lead us unto Thyself and into Thyself, that we should be incorporated into the body of Christ.

Now, Lord, what love we shall know there, what glory we know there, what blessing we know there, that I have not seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man, the things that Thou hast laid up for them that love Thee.

We would not stay at mere believing, we would go on into loving, and being so that Thou shouldst see the image of Thy Son in us. Father, gratify Thine own heart, who lives to gratify the heart of men, if they would receive Thee, so we bless Thee this morning.

Thank Thee for these past days, when we have looked into this Thy Word, with the intention of drawing us by the aid of the Holy Ghost unto Thyself. We long for the day when Thou, Father, and Thou, Son and Holy Ghost, being obviously one unto us, we shall bow our knees and say that God is all in all, with Thee forever.

The Transition from John 7 to John 8

Chapter of John, where we notice that the chapter division really ruins the truth that was being imparted to us by John. Per contra to everybody else, he who was born into a manger, we usually say born in a manger, he had nowhere to go, verse 53 of chapter 7, except the Mount of Olives.

He chose that, I suppose. He didn't go home. He made it so in the end he had no home on earth. It's very wonderful to notice the Lord Jesus, we who spend so much time in and money on and attention for our homes.

Rightly so, I suppose, but he went to the Mount of Olives. I can only guess what he did there with his father, I guess. Now, let's go on, shall we? So fresh, if you like, from that place, verse 2 of chapter 8, early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him, and he sat down and taught them.

Hallelujah. Lord, make me a teacher like that. I don't know whether things fill your heart as fill mine when I read such words. I hope they do. I hope you're not thinking of the future so much as at the present.

Has that shocked you? When you're taught to get yourself saved, think about the future all the time. I have no future, but there is now. I am God's child. I have much to learn. But all my training by the Holy Ghost is to make me like the Son of God.

And he longed to be with his Father. So wonderful, really, but that's not my subject. I'm tending to preach to you. Let's go on. He went into the temple, and all the people came unto him there, and he sat down and taught them.

Jesus and the Woman Taken in Adultery

And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery. May I say this before I go further? I must say this every time I think about it. If she was actually taken in adultery, then where was the man?

Just where was the man if she was actually taken in the act of adultery? I'm tempted to think, perhaps being human and in a world like this, he may have been one of them and they were sheltering him. Cowards all men are.

Liars all men are. Until people are born again. It's all a big sham, a cover-up. Let's go on. When they had set her in the midst, they say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery in the very act.

Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be sown. But what sayest thou? This they said, tempting him that they might have to accuse him. Because you will know that it was forbidden of the Jews to take life, that in legal things it had to be done by Rome.

Or the representative of Rome, Pilate was the one, of course, at that time. So if he'd said stone her according to Moses' law, they would have reported him. Of course, you do know why stoning was God's chosen method of execution, don't you?

Well, if there were 20, 30, 40 people there, they would each be responsible for having taken a hand in the death of the person being stoned. It was the roots done to bring out the repulsion of the Jewish nation against sin.

Everybody, not one person killed anybody, not in the middle. They all had to take up a stone and do it, saying, we reject thee, the nation rejects you. You see, not a hangman or a person that puts a poison pill in someone sitting in a chair.

Nothing like that. It was the responsibility of the nation, the judgment of God against sin. So once you get that well back in your minds, as much as you would have loathed to have done it, you were speaking of your own anger and rejection of those that broke the law.

If you were there as the death party, that's what they would have done. They would have accused him of breaking the Mosaic law. This was very precious to them. They worshipped it. Jesus stood down and with his finger wrote on the ground as though he heard them not.

So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him cast first a stone at her. And again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last.

And I have to say, assuming that his disciples and apostles were with him, they had to go out too. It might have been those who hung on to the last before they went out. The woman was standing in the midst of a crowd once, but only in the midst of the temple at this point.

When Jesus had lifted up himself and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Perhaps strangely enough, that is to human ears or eyes now reading it, He said, Neither do I condemn thee.

God's sin no more. You know, have you learned this lesson? How easy it is to fall into this sin of condemnation against a person. But he never condemned the person, he condemned the sin. Don't you fall into the trap.

Perhaps giving a Christian opinion you so-called, you condemn the person. You should never condemn a sinner, never. Have you condemned your dad or your mom or your sister or brother or an erstwhile friend?

Have you? Have you condemned people that you read about in the newspaper? We cannot dissociate sin from the sinner in our thinking, but God does and thank God he does. You'd all be going to hell. And me with you.

That's a tragedy. We'll read the Bible and never think about it really. You've got to think, beloved, and think deeply. Just think now, people you condemned in your life, he this and she that, I'll go no further.

But just think and humble yourself because God condemns that, that sin. And thank God he hasn't condemned you with it. Just think, if I gave you five minutes to think honestly before God, would you crawl under the table?

That's the trouble with people. Don't really understand Christ at all, though we say we do. What a marvellous thing. He was introducing the new covenant, you see. He was the introduction to the new covenant, which did not begin until after he had shed his blood and returned home to his father and gave them another 40 days tuition in preparation for the fact that 10 days after that 40th, that's the 50th day the new covenant was going to be instituted on this earth.

And he did the blood shed first and then taken to father himself. Wonderful. I can discuss that with you all day if I never got too choky. Let's move on, beloved, because as we read in the beginning, you know, I should really take about three years with this gospel.

I took three years on the epistle of Ephesians once. One meeting a week, of course. I've only got to read a verse of Bible. This is honest, I get carried away. I don't slog over daily Bible reading. Sometimes a verse is enough for me.

But mind you, I am 80 odd and so. But we all learn. Let's go on with God, shall we? You must remember that he came in, and this is almost the first statement about him, but the very first statement in the beginning was the word.

That's how he began with that woman. Woman, has anybody condemned you? No man, no condemnation. I'm not going to condemn you. It's so glorious. I love the Lord, you know. Love him beyond words. And until you come to terms with this, you'll be no good as a preacher, only half-baked.

You've got to understand what it's about. His blood would be entirely useless if he went about condemning people. His blood was to redeem them. How could he talk contrary to that? But then, here we are, let's go on.

Christ as the Light of the World

He came and he threw light on God. When he came into the world, as the word was made flesh, the light shone. And right there in chapter one you get it. You have to come to the light. That woman did not know she had come to the light.

She would have been under the impression that she was going there to be condemned and put to death. It would have been darkness, darkness, darkness. For that poor woman lived in darkness and died in worse darkness.

And gone into everlasting darkness. Here's the thing for us to see, beloved. Never become dislodged from Christ. Once you start thinking just on text of the Bible and you haven't got Christ in you, and Christ at the bottom of your thinking, or the beginning of your thinking perhaps, you're never going to get anywhere.

Oh, you can become very clever and you can do all kinds of things. In this world, the one that is most like Jesus is the greatest of all. Didn't you know that? Not accolades or whatever we've got. It's you and me be like the Lord.

Well, I think you're having to pay the penalty for having been left alone in the room this morning just before I came. I sank back into God and the well was open. You have to see, beloved, what it's all about.

Because if you don't, you've missed everything. Now, that woman did not know she was being brought to the light. Here it is. Then speak Jesus again unto them saying, I am the light of the world. Thank you, Lord, for telling me that after having that other story written.

She came to the light and she was not exposed by the light except to her own conscience. He never exposed her and said, you've been living in the death of sin, now die physically, prematurely cut off from the earth.

He just said what he said. I could spend the rest of the morning on this. It transports me into a realm of love and understanding and absolute honesty and perfect light. Wonderful. And unless you see things with this light, beloved, you don't see anything.

It's going to be worth anything to you or to anyone else. What a tremendous thing it is. I am the light of the world, he said. And you notice he said he, he might have said she, but he that walketh, followeth me, shall not walk in darkness, but you shall have the light of life.

You see, she'd be born in the dark. She'd be living in the dark. Only he saved her from dying in the dark. We're all saved. What a marvelous thing. He says, now, just follow me. There's only a vestige of light on one side, but it's the full light of him.

You've got to see this perfect one, this full of love, this wonderful Jesus. Don't fill yourself up with miracles. John's Gospel isn't full of miracles. God's the greatest miracles of all. This is so wonderful to see this.

I want you to get acquainted with John, and I know that under the Holy Ghost, with the Lord, I mean, and I know that by the Holy Ghost, if you want to get acquainted with him, you've got to read this Gospel, and let it master you.

It's so wonderful. Lest you get carried away by the spectacular. I saw him raise someone from the dead. You see, marvelous. I saw him, but nobody saw him, you see. It's only him and the woman. Be sure you're not one of the accusing observers.

He got rid of all them. It's a marvelous thing, beloved. Of course, aspire to the life that can't be accused. But it can only by liars, of course. This is the thing that we're going to find in this chapter.

So you can see we're not going to get very far this morning. You follow me, he was saying. I hope the woman heard him. You've been walking in darkness. You've been walking in darkness. You thought your body, your sex, and your fulfillment was the great object of being alive on the earth.

You will walk in darkness. That's all darkness. All of it. But shall have the light of life. Because you do know that his light was only the light of his life. If in him was life, we read very much in the first chapter.

It's all in the first chapter. He's all out working. I've said this once or twice. Through this gospel, the thing he said in the preface, if you like. Pharisees therefore said unto him, I must go on. Thou bearest record of thyself.

Thy record is not true. Jesus answered and said unto them, though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true. For I know whence I came and whither I go. But you cannot tell whence I came and whither I go.

You judge after the flesh. I judge no man. How wonderful. That's why if you sin, having knowledge of the sinless life, you can go to him and you won't be judged. He said I don't judge anyone. It will be more or less on this principle that you read in this glorious thing.

Neither do I. Never stay away from God because you're afraid, because of what you've done. Especially you. That's what it's about, you see. It's all done to draw me unto God. And he said this. No man can come to me except my Father's drawing.

If there isn't a drawing in your heart, friend, an almost irresistible force at work in your being, you're not a God. He has to make you like that. We stop on the hedges, and they're usually Berberus.

That is, we've got spiky thorns on them. And we stay there instead of through into God. If the devil can trap your mind into thinking, everything which is definitely wrong, call it negative if you want.

I mean, you've got to be modern. Negative and positive. Go through, if we stay there, friend, what you can call the negative. He's a very negative person. Well, you're almost saying they're a non-person.

Oh, God. Let's go on with God. Here is the tremendous thing about this being. You judge after the flesh. I don't judge anybody. Yet if I judge, my judgment is true, for I am not alone, but I am the Father that sent me.

The Unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

So you see, there were two making the judgment, I and my Father. Just keep it clear. They only saw the visible revelation of God. That's all. In fact, the Holy Ghost was there too. He tells them that in John chapter 14.

Not putting it in those words. But here they are. Wherever one was, all three are. And wherever one is, all three are. You can't divide the being. Three persons to express the being perfectly. But Father and Holy Ghost were with him.

Hallelujah, keep this right. I want to be like this. And I'm spending time on this, beloved. If I never even get through the chapter and have to bid you farewell. Oh, I'm coming back in some time in June, I believe.

But if I have to leave you suspended in the eighth chapter, I don't care. I bear record. You judge after the flesh. I judge no man. And if I judge my judgment is true, I'm not alone. But I am the Father that sent me.

It is also written in your law that the testimony of two men is true. I am one that bear witness of myself. And the Father that sent me beareth witness of me. Then said they unto him, Where is thy Father?

Jesus answered, You neither know me nor my Father. If he had known me, you should have known my Father also. These words speak Jesus in the treasury as he taught in the temple. No man laid hands on him for his hour was not yet come.

That's the way to pass your life in this world. Understand that. You can't be touched. You can't be touched. Unless God allows it. Do you understand that? Jokingly, coming along in the car this morning, we were talking about travel.

Air, sea and land. You know, the air crashes and this, that. And I said, well, sometimes people say that you pray about if you have to fly all these tremendous differences. No, I said, rather, I say, there can't be a crash.

I'm all good to be on it. He said, well, now, what's he talking about? They're all safe on this plane. I'm going on it. That's, that boat, you got a big, call it what you like. But it comes in here at what's called an ashore.

Mind you, he's got to have all your life. Some people use airplanes as a convenience. I use them only as a necessity to do the will of God. That's the whole point of it, you see. Oh, but I know Christians who crash in airplanes.

Yes, I know. I know. Listen. I'm going to tell you what I said. We were quipping in the car, really. But God wants us to live in the present knowledge, power, grace of his will. That's far beyond redemption, though within easy grasp if you'll get there.

I mean, you can keep harping on redemption. Did you know this? There's not going to be any blood in New Jerusalem. You read it. No blood in New Jerusalem. The blood will have done its work. And now it's only the Lamb with the Father.

You've got to go back to the Lamb, even beyond his blood, through his blood, if you will, if you like, but beyond that, unto him. The ultimate of all bloodshed in the Old Testament, if you've never been informed of this before, is within the veil.

Living within the veil with God. I know Aaron didn't stay there long, but that was the ultimate. There's ways your thinking's got to go beyond the blood. I don't say miss it out now. Don't misunderstand me.

It's very vital to each one now to cleanse our thoughts, even whilst we're thinking. But the ultimate is New Jerusalem, where the Father's sitting on the throne at the head of the river, and the only thing you can drink there is the river of the water of life.

Oh, I could dissertate on that now for another hour, but we must go on. I want, if only, to drop seed thoughts in you so that God may make you as perfect as he can make you. You say, well, through his blood, by his grace.

Yes, yes, yes. We're in a company, beloved. We don't need reminding of that. Aren't we? Let's go on. In verse 21,. Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and you shall seek me, and shall die in your sins.

Jesus' Warning About Dying in Sin

I think that's one of the most horrible things in the whole Bible. If Jesus said to me, you're going to die in your sins, I think I'd cut my throat or something. That's it being told there. By the Lord Jesus, you're going to die in your sins.

When he never accused that woman, taking her, never accused her. How about that? An adulteress. Practicing adultery. It might have been a whore, as we say. Never condemned her. You, people, you think this and that and the other.

You are going to die in your sins. And in the ultimate, that is the only place you can die. In your sins. You understand that? Unless you're redeemed from them. You can't say, I'll die in uniform, or I'll die on an airplane, or I'll die in a bed, or I'll die of cancer, or whatever.

There is nothing, these things. Not compared with this. That's why he said, after he'd forgiven this woman so wonderfully, he said, it's just, I'm the light of the world, Gershwin. I'm the light. Now let the Lord shed light on this.

Perhaps you, I've lived longer than you, and have been able to read and think, and come to evaluations. I trust not that we don't all have to do that. At whatever stage of life we're in, without even knowing we're doing it.

When we're babies, for instance. These great things, beloved, you've got to get into your system. That's why you are students. I know I'm not lecturing you properly, but that's it. And we go right on.

Where I go, he said, you can't come. Their hell, if they had been sensitive to it, had already started on earth. For sin is only a foretaste of hell, though it may seem very sweet to that poor woman, when she started perhaps as a girl.

Here then is the thing, he says unto them, you are from beneath, I am from above. I can't say it like him. It must be glorious to actually listen to his tones. You are of this world, I am not of this world.

I said therefore unto you, that you shall die in your sins. For if you believe not that I am, he is not there in the Greek. And this is the beginnings, really, of the sort of thing that took place in the rest of this chapter.

You know, before Abraham was I am, and so on. It's all there. If you believe not that I am, there was his claim to being God. Very plainly stated, leave the here, cross it out if you haven't done. Shouldn't be there.

I've got many things to say to you, but I want to pause at this point. Now you wonder, or perhaps you won't wonder, why he said, you've got to be born from above. I was born from above. We didn't put that in, but he was, via Mary.

Not from Joseph, and all the Marys in the world call on blessed is your one. Couldn't bear a son like Jesus, because he was born from above. The angel came, and spoke to her. And it was the seed of everything that was manifest in the flesh, when at last it was placed there.

Being Born from Above

You have to see this, beloved. Are you from above? If you're from above, beloved, aim at it, whatever you've done in the past, you remember this, however you've been, whatever your attitude, when you, either of anybody, being taken in adultery, say like Jesus, neither do I condemn you.

See this is it, you can't live this life, unless you're from above, like Jesus was from above, into flesh. You must understand, you must be born from above. I am from above. He could say, I was born from above.

But he wouldn't put, I was, because he used, I am. He's been the everlasting one. Learn your Bible, beloved. Learn, soak in it, until you're so saturated with it, that you'll find yourself thinking from a lot that's called evangelical.

To know the blessings and wonderful truth of God. Fancy being born from above. Think of it. Say to yourself, I'm born from above. Then you might think, well why do I think this way? Why do I speak this way?

Why do I act this way? You know, old John, as near as it's possible to say, was a microscope. He looks, oh, because you know there are three ways of looking at the Bible. There is a microscopic method, when you probably stay on a word, get everything out.

Then, the telescopic way, as they give you the whole of the book in one lesson, something like that. Alright? And then, there's a panoramic. Put it down in your book. You won't remember it, unless, you say, there, there is the microscopic, there's the telescopic.

When you were standing afar off, but you brought it to you, by a telescope. Then, you know, the panoramic. You know what the book says from cover to cover. Apply yourself to it. God is saying tremendous things here.

I'm from above. I was born from above. And now, you've either got to be born from above, or else you are of this world, utterly. You're just flesh, tooted flesh, even in theological things. But to get into the reality of what God is talking about, because you've got to come there.

And if that woman was following him, he was saying, I don't condemn you. Go and sin no more. He's saying, you've got to be born from above though. That's the thing he's talking about. This great distinction between having sin forgiven, and being born from above.

There's a world of difference between the two. A world. Because if you sin, after you've been born again, that means to say, you've got to be born again, again. If you think they're both the same, they are not.

How wonderful it is. You love it. You were born in sin, and you've got to be born out of it. You were born in this world. You've got to be born, not of this world, but out of it. Once we really begin to understand what Christ is teaching, it revolutionizes our lives, and our preaching.

Continuing in Christ's Word

He said this, Jesus said unto them, they said unto him in verse 25, Who art thou? Jesus said unto them, Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning, I have many things to say, and to judge of you, but he that sent me is true, and I speak to those, to the world, those things which I've heard of him.

They understood not that he spake to them of the Father. Then said Jesus unto them, When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then shall you know that I am. He is not in the original. You will know that I am, and that I do nothing of myself, but the word that is not in the Greek either, and I do nothing of myself, but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.

Wouldn't you like the Father to teach you? He teach you how to dispose yourself to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, who he sent through him. Christ by the Father, taught of the Father. Fathers always handled babies very gently.

They hardly know how to hold them at the beginning. Mothers seem to know all about it, but there it is. God is, he's very human. God thinks humanly, because he patterned the human being after his thoughts.

For Adam, made from dust, was after God's thoughts. He thought he would know it, and he did it. Hallelujah. Glory to God, I love this book. It is my meditation day and night. Well, not quite all night, and not quite all day.

I do eat potatoes and meat, beef as well, if I like. Here is the thing to get hold of, beloved. I do always those things that please him. Now, that's where your test lies. The test lies there. In the end, it's what you do.

As he spoke these words, many believed on him. Isn't that lovely? At last, he'd won a whole lot of people to believe on him. Now listen. Take this into your heart. Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, not the unbelievers now.

If you, if you continue in my word, then are ye my disciples. Indeed. Indeed. It's not in your first believing, it's in your continuing to believe, and you walk in his. If you don't have the word of God in your heart, in blessing upon what you are doing, stop it!

You say, well, I must let my career go. Good job. Because that will only lead you further into disobedience. This is why there are so many unsuccessful, backsliding, and I don't know what people. They've never really been taught what the Bible teaches.

That's why I do. Bless your principal here. He gives you as compulsory what the Bible teaches. That's right. Torrey never confessed to being one of the great theologians. You understand that? It's a marvelous thing.

What does the Bible teach? Unfortunately, we can substitute that for what Jesus teaches. Print on paper. Even though it be what God has said, or some great saints have said, never save your soul. It's Christ.

It's Christ. It's Christ. The other will fill your head with knowledge, but Christ will fill your heart with knowledge. They can go together. Don't misunderstand me, but we've got to distinguish the things that differ and see what it's all about.

He says, you'll be my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free. Isn't it great? I love this. I absolutely love it. It's meat and drink to my thinking. And then, of course, comes the great passage that we can take up after I've had my tea, please.