John 6:47 - 71
I have it a little on my heart to seek to unfold, as God may enable me by His Spirit, the verses we have read in this chapter, which are more especially connected with the appropriation by the believer of the death of the Son of man. I need hardly say that this connects itself very intimately with the blessing of eternal life, into which the believer is brought.
I would first say a few words as to the general place in this gospel of these two chapters, the fifth and sixth.
There is a certain development in the truth that runs all through the gospels. There was more than one side in the Person of the blessed Lord, and we get this opened out by the four evangelists. In John 5 Jesus is presented to us as the Son of God acting in divine sovereignty: "The Son quickeneth whom he will". And then again: "The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son". The great point of chapter 5 is that the Lord Jesus exercises divine prerogative. God is the Judge, but all judgment is committed "unto the Son: that all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father".
But in chapter 6, what is brought before us is the form in which eternal life was presented to men; it is an incarnate Christ, the true bread from heaven, the Son of man, sealed by the Father, who gives His flesh for the life of the world. This is the great point that the Lord presses in this chapter.
The Jews claimed to be the people of privilege. They say: "Our fathers did eat manna in the desert as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat". But the Lord answers: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven;
but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world". An incarnate Christ was the form in which God presented His Son to man to be received; and a humbled Christ is food for the believer. He adds, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life". If the Jews had really discerned the grace of His humiliation, that He really was the Son of God, they would have had eternal life, but they must have gone on to appropriate His death. I have no doubt this would have been the case, but it is not my subject tonight. I wish rather to look at the absolute necessity for the death of Christ for us, and our appropriation thereof.
Most of you will remember these words in the first epistle of John: "There are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one". They all bear witness to the fact that God has given to us eternal life. But they also bear another witness, and that is, that if we have eternal life, it is not in Adam; it is not in ourselves it is in Christ. And that, I believe, is the teaching of the epistle; and this is how the epistle connects itself with the passage that I have read. It was when the Lord was dead that the blood and the water flowed forth; and the Spirit was not given until He had gone back to the Father. So that I do not get one of these witnesses until death has come in.
I question in my own mind whether we realise the solemnity of the fact that death has come in; and that, not death in ourselves, for, if it had been, we should have been for ever lost; but it is the death of Christ.
But I wish to say a few words more about these three witnesses. I believe that you will find that the whole of John's first epistle ranges itself under these three heads: the consequences of the water; the
consequences of the blood; and the consequences of the Spirit.
The first two chapters are rather the result of the blood, for that is what gives us title to be with Him. God Himself is always light; but the witness about God to Israel was that "Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was". Now the witness is: "If we walk in the light as he is in the light". God has come out in light, and Christianity has brought us into the light in which He is. It is not conditional. God has brought us "out of darkness into his marvellous light". This is not attainment; it is the privilege of every believer. "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin", and gives us the privilege to walk in the light as He is.
In the third chapter the question is the nature; that which is the product in the believer of the word. "Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures", as the apostle James says, and Peter: "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever". So here we get that we are the children of God, and that, "He that practises righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous". It is a righteous nature, which has its manifestation also in love; love that enables us to "lay down our lives for the brethren". It is a wonderful thing! We may not enter into it, but still there it is plain in Scripture. And men may not be able to see it in us, it may be obscured, but still it is there; it is the same nature as in God Himself, it is divine.
Then comes the third witness, the Spirit. This is the result; it follows on the water and the blood. An entirely new thing has been brought in, a new creation, and this is accompanied by the Spirit. The consequences of the presence of the Spirit are brought out in the fourth chapter.
The first is intelligence. The apostle says, "Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit". We know it because God has given to us of His Spirit, and He does not take away His Spirit. We continue in God and He in us. Besides this, the Spirit is here for testimony; He witnesses that, "The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world". Both these are the result of the presence of the Spirit of God in the believer. I have said thus much in preface, and would now add a few words on the passage I read.
The Jews were stumbled at once when the Lord spoke of giving His flesh to eat, and I do not wonder at it. "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you". This was the test. You may meet people who pretend to have life towards God, but if they do not know what it is to have eaten "the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood", there is no life in them. I need hardly say how much Socinianism there is in the present day. The death of Christ is slighted as to the solemn judgment of man's state effected in it. Now the Lord puts it as a test for the state of souls. "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you". If you have not part in death, you have not part in life.
There are three things brought out in our chapter about the Son. First, He has become incarnate. Second, He dies. Third, He goes up to heaven again, where He was before. Now the Lord was talking here to people who were setting up religious pretensions: "Except ye eat", you are clean outside the whole thing. You have no part in life if not in death. The old state is death, as children of Adam; the new is life in Christ, but through death. As to the Christian, it does not say that he has life in him, but life in Christ.
The next verse is not so much a test, as it is a proof. "Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath
eternal life". His death is the food of life. The eating in this verse is, I judge, an habitual thing. It is not a thing that is done once for all. And I ask, Is it not a privilege to feed on the death of Christ? I do not mean at the Lord's table on the first day of the week, I mean as the habit of our souls every day of our lives. It is an individual thing. Has not God brought in the death of Christ upon everything? From the cedar wood to the hyssop! I do not say it is our only food; for we have also the humbled Christ, the manna; but we do feed on the death of Christ.
And while contemplating, and a blessed contemplation it is, the death of Christ, in His perfect love to the Father, and in His triumph over evil, we have a part in what is eternal, in what never began and will never end. This part in life with Christ is what we are brought into; and when the time for display comes, He will raise us up. If, as having life, we delight to meditate on the death of Christ, Christ will raise us up at the last day! What a blessed thing! It is a present association with Christ, and the display and the glory are at the last day.
In the next verse we have a further statement. If we eat His flesh and drink His blood, He continues in us and we in Him. We have an eternal part in Christ; and, if I may use the expression reverently, He has in us. A person may in a sense have a part for a time in Christ, and then go away; but it is not this; here it is 'continue' as we get it in the epistle; it is a present and continuous, eateth and drinketh.
But more than this. It indicates a condition of dependence, for the life is only in Him; and the word 'continue' implies dependence. I have eternal life up there in Christ, and Christ is in me down here before the world. Christ did not present Himself to the world, but the Father; and so with us. We continue in Christ, and Christ in us. And if you want to
know what a Christian is, I can say it is Christ. People sometimes talk and think much of proprieties. Thank God, we have done with proprieties. And what tends to distinguish us -- that which ought to characterise a Christian down here -- is Christ, and that is what I seek. God does not value anything else but Christ in His people. It is what is before the mind that forms the person. If it is Christ that is before you, Christ will come out in your life and ways.
There is one more clause: "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me". I can only say as to this verse that I dare not expatiate on it. Indeed, what could I say about it? I little understand what it is for Christ to live on account of the Father. All that I can say is that the very same character of life as that of the Son is the life of the believer, and that inseparable connection with Christ is ours. In this passage there is not the thought of the body. It is life only that is before us. But life is essential to the truth of the body, and it is in this way that John is necessary to Paul; John gives us the life; Paul gives us the life in one body; Colossians 3. We cannot well appreciate church truth if we do not enter into what John teaches as to the life.
And then we have this closing expression: "This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever". The Lord reverts to what He had been saying in the previous part of the chapter. He knew very well that He was going on to death, and He insists, on the way to it, that He was the living bread which came down from heaven, "that a man may eat thereof, and not die". I do not doubt at all, if there had been a single one of those poor Jews listening to Him that could, in faith, have seen the Son of God through the humble exterior of the Lord Jesus Christ, that he would have had the
blessing, in anticipation, though, as I have said, he must needs go on to the death. It is a great thing to get into God's thoughts. The pretensions of man in the present day only move one's contempt and sorrow; but that a Man could stand upon earth and say: "I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever" is marvellous! Death has now come in, and life is the result. Is not that worthy of God! The death of Christ is presented to man as the way of life, and feeding on it is a proof to the believer that he has got eternal life. Take the simplest soul that you can, but find it delighting in meditating on the death of Christ, and it is to me a proof that it has eternal life.
The seed of the life is in Christ, and it is a dependent life, as we have been seeing: "He that eateth me, even he shall live by me". If you could take away Christ, you could take away the life of the believer. But you cannot take away Christ, for Christ is God.
It is a great thing for our souls if God, by His Spirit, establishes us in the understanding of this truth, and gives us to realise what a marvellous thing it is to be in the hands of Christ! To know that we are going to be the subjects of His mighty power, and that He is going to raise us up at the last day.
Psalm 133:3; Romans 6:22; John 17:3
I have doubted sometimes if it be sufficiently seen that, when life is spoken of in Scripture, it is presented to us as a moral state into which one is brought through faith (the just shall live by faith), to which the nature begotten in the believer of the Spirit by the word necessarily answers. This moral state is formed by, and dependent on the way in which God is pleased to reveal Himself. The contrasts in which life is presented to us in the word may serve to the elucidation of this. I think the mistake has been made of viewing life too much according to natural ideas, as a sort of deposit in the believer -- though indeed there be a seed of God in him -- but in viewing it in this way, the moral character and import of life appears to me in measure lost.
Two or three passages will show the contrasts to which I have referred. In Psalm 133:3, life for evermore is the explanation of "the blessing", and it is identified with Zion, and therefore with all the moral force of Zion. "There the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore". In Daniel 12:2, eternal life is contrasted with shame and everlasting contempt; in Matthew 25:46, with everlasting punishment; in John 5:24, with a state of death, and so too, in Romans 6:23. These passages are of moment, not exactly as describing what life is, but as showing it to us in contrast either with death as a moral state in the present, or with shame, contempt, and punishment in the future.
I may here notice the moral sequence which we find in Romans 6:22. It begins with liberation from sin and bondage to God, it goes on to fruit unto holiness,
and the climax is eternal life; there is evidently a moral progression here, though it doubtless ends in glory. And this brings me to another point, namely, the kind of persons who are spoken of as passing into life, of whose course down here life may be regarded as the consummation. In Matthew 25:46, it is the righteous. In Romans 2:7, it is those who, by patient continuance in good works, seek for glory, honour, incorruptibility.
Now I think it will be evident that life thus regarded could not be viewed as existing, so far at least as man's participation in it is concerned, until the necessary conditions should be there according to God. I do not, of course, intend to give always to life, as presented in the word, precisely the same force. This must be ascertained from the particular context in which it stands. Hence, in the Old Testament, it doubtless refers to a state of blessing to be enjoyed on the earth under Christ, when the law is written in the heart; while in the New, it is in the Son of God, Christ Jesus, carrying with it relationship and inheritance in Him, and is the fulfilment of God's eternal purpose.
Now for the display of life it is plain from Scripture that two conditions were necessary; the first was the manifestation of life, of and according to God, in a man, the sphere of it being properly in glory, and this in One who is a quickening Spirit, the second Man, out of heaven; the other was the removal of sin from before God, and that in such a way as that the glory of God might come in where the full power of sin had been; and with this was the condemnation of the state of the first man. Now in the incarnation of the Son of God, the first condition was, in measure, fulfilled, and the second pledged. He was the living bread come down from heaven, and the bread that He would give was His flesh, which He would give for the life of the world.
I will endeavour to trace a little the way in which eternal life is developed in the writings of the apostle John. In John 17:3, its character and privilege are described by Jesus Himself as the knowing the Father as the only true God, and Jesus Christ His sent One. This indicates at once its moral character, and renders it manifestly inseparable from the Son. Now what was necessary as from God was really present when the Father was manifested in the Son, become Man; but there yet remained to be accomplished the setting aside of the flesh that man might be wrought for the blessing; and to this I suppose the Lord refers in speaking of the brazen serpent in John 3. Nevertheless in the manifestation of the Son there was something far in advance of all that had ever been before. Light had come in as to the portion which the grace of God had in reserve for man. In John 3, the Lord speaks of eternal life through the giving of God's Son as the witness and expression of God's love to the world, and it is into the enjoyment and joy of this love that the believer in the Son is brought. This is eternal life, and is far beyond any question of kingdom. In John 4, the worship of God as Father is spoken of, the result of the living water in the believer; it springs up unto everlasting life. Thus we have God known in His love, and worshipped as Father in Spirit and in truth. In chapter 5, it is the effect of hearing the voice of the Son of God, and there is the consequent passage from death unto life. Here, as I have before shown, it is an entire change as regards the state of things in which a soul lives morally. In chapter 6, the Son of God incarnate is presented as the bread of life -- the bread of God -- and the way of life for man was to eat of this bread; all the grace of God was seen in the form in which the life was presented to man. At the same time He would give His flesh for the life of the world, and His death of necessity became the test of faith. Except they ate His flesh and drank His blood they had no life
in them, and the Lord warns them that His words must not be understood in a carnal sense, for they were spirit and life. The true secret underneath all, was that the Father was drawing souls to the Son; and in an incarnate and crucified Christ faith has a portion given and enjoyed in communion with the Father and the Son. And this is eternal life, which for us will find its completion in resurrection at the last day.
I think the passages cited show that the idea of life, in the first revelation of it in Scripture, is a moral order of things into which the believer enters through grace, where wholly new objects are presented to him, which he is capable of enjoying in virtue of a new nature implanted in him. And the same thing is evident in the first epistle of John, where the believer is viewed as being in life, enjoying the knowledge of the Father and the Son -- born of God that he may enjoy it -- having confidence with God, knowing the love of God, into the enjoyment of which he is introduced, and delivered from fear because love is made perfect with us, "because, as he is, so are we in this world". And, in chapter 5, the apostle reverts to the fact of the eternal life being in the Son, and ends with the expression, "He is the true God and eternal life" that is, that eternal life means a new order of things, so far as man is concerned, true only in the Son, and in believers as abiding in Him. The boundaries of the land of Israel's inheritance might be limited, and there might be a limit to the subsistence which the land could afford; to Christ there can be no limit; the extent and area for blessing, so to speak, and the power to maintain those blessed are illimitable. In the writings of Paul, life is viewed rather as a display in the future, in which God's eternal purpose for man's glory will find its accomplishment. It was promised in Christ before the world was; it is now brought to light by our Saviour Jesus Christ, who has annulled
death; and grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Thus, though the apostle recognises the present power of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, and exhorts Timothy to grasp eternal life, yet he speaks in general of eternal life as the consummation of the believer's course, but which is at the same time the fruit of God's eternal purpose. It is all the difference between a state of life in Christ in glory, and a state of life in blessing on the earth under Christ. The apostle Paul, speaking of life more in display, connects it with Christ in His present position in glory, rather than, as is the case with John, with the Son become Man.
There is another point, in connection with what I have said, of considerable importance, and that is, that life, as to man's participation in it, is in Scripture commonly linked with faith. The necessity and fact of new birth is constantly spoken of in the word, and in Peter the gospel is said to be the word by which it is produced; but it still remains true that faith is the way of life, and this is of the highest moment, because, though a soul may not in believing be very intelligent as to the import and moral bearing of faith, it really means the receiving of Christ, and the consequent renunciation of self and the world. What is done administratively in the putting off the old man and putting on the new, is really effectuated morally in faith in Christ crucified and risen. A soul is thus committed to Christ, in principle owning that, as to its own condition, it is lost; and having thus been drawn of the Father to the Son, the Spirit is received, the power and witness of the state of life and blessing in Christ, into which it is brought. My impression is that it is in this way life is presented in Scripture; not so much as a deposit in the believer, though indeed Christ lives in him in the power of the Spirit, but as a state of blessing, whether in Christ in glory, or under Christ on the earth, into which a believer, conscious
of his own state of ruin by nature, is through grace brought, and for which he is wrought by the power of God.
May the Lord give us to know the greatness of the blessing.
The employment of words in Scripture is an interesting subject of study. Words in common use amongst men, and recognised as conveying certain general ideas, are employed to communicate thoughts in connection with God, with the consequence that the revelation of God imparts to the words a peculiar force of meaning which is not found in dictionaries, and which can only be learnt from Scripture itself. A word of this kind is 'piety'. It appears in the Authorised Version only in 1 Timothy 5:4, the original being in other cases rendered 'godliness'. Piety, however, unquestionably conveys more correctly the idea. The Scripture employment of the term has one point in common with the dictionaries, in that it refers it both to God and to parents. The dictionaries differ among themselves, some explaining it as bearing (reverence, respect, etc.), and others as discharge of duty, conduct, etc. The object of the present paper is to seek to present the force with which the word is used in Scripture.
It is doubtful if its precise equivalent is to be found in the Hebrew scriptures -- the expressions which most nearly approach it being probably the word commonly rendered 'fear' of the Lord (see Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 1:7), when speaking of a quality, and that translated 'saints', or 'godly' (see Psalm 4:3, etc.), when referring to a class of persons. In the New Testament the expression is in two instances applied to persons not as yet in the enjoyment of Christian privileges. (See Acts 10:2 - 7)
As piety is presented in the first epistle to Timothy as the antidote to different forms of evil which the apostle by the Spirit foresaw would corrupt Christianity,
it is important to ascertain what is intended to be conveyed by it. At the outset then I would say, it is a quality generated in the heart by the sense of benefits received from one rightly entitled to reverence and affections. It would hardly be an obligation on the part of parents to show piety towards their children, or masters towards their slaves; the converse would hold good. Piety is not like faith. The latter is the reception for once and for all of a divine testimony, or the substantiation of things hoped for and conviction of things not seen. Piety is rather a growth in the heart, stimulated by the knowledge of the goodness of the one who is its object. Practically it may perhaps be defined as the exercise of reverent affections in a spirit of grateful confidence. It brings the comfort of the knowledge of God into present things, supporting in endurance, and tends to that quietness and rest of spirit which leave the mind free to find its occupation in the things of faith.
Having thus given the general idea, I proceed to show how piety is presented in detail in the epistles, as opposed to the forms of evil anticipated by the apostles. The first of these is spoken of in 1 Timothy 4. It is not looked at as universal, but 'some' would in the latter times depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats. I suppose that the end proposed by such commandments was, by depriving the body, to attain the subjugation of evil. The practical result was to introduce a class of separatists, not in the power of the Spirit, the remains of which may be seen to this day in popery and the like. However plausible the end proposed, the means by which it was to be reached were very bad. In addition to the legality involved, there was a still greater evil in the slight thus cast on the beneficent provision of God for the creature. The Christian is still in the place of the creature, and whatever mercies
God may have ordained for the creature are not to be refused, but received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.
Now in piety there was the recognition of this -- the confidence begotten by God's grace -- and hence it was the safeguard against these commandments which falsified the character of God. The blessed God who has bestowed the greater benefits does not withhold the lesser. There is, too, in piety that warmth and nurture of soul in which lies the secret of keeping in subjection the body. A well-nourished soul is the real security against unruliness of body. Hence Timothy is exhorted to exercise himself rather unto piety -- the range of its value being far greater than that of bodily exercise. The working of it is that instead of practising abstention in a legal way from mercies which are God's provision for the creature, the soul rests in the confidence of being specially the object of God's kindness and care, and finds piety profitable unto all things, having promise of life, of the present one, and of that to come. Thus reverent affections and happy confidence, perhaps amid labour and reproach, are set forward as against legality and asceticism, by the spirit of which souls would be withered.
But if on the one hand, piety recognises God's beneficence even to all men, and accepts His mercies with thanksgiving, it refuses on the other, to run in the ways of the world, in pursuing present advantage, and so leaving the place of dependence on God. In this way it guards against another form of evil which has pervaded the church, and which, we learn from 1 Timothy 6, originated in heterodox teaching, and insubjection to wholesome words, the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. Wholesome words tend to health in the soul. If the Lord has said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you", it is a wholesome word, which should settle the whole question of "these
things" for the disciple. But where the spirit of self-will and insubjection wrought, there came in, not only questions and strifes of words, but a sense of the importance of worldly gain; and piety came to be regarded as a means to this end -- "holding gain to be the end of piety". Now the gain in piety is not prospective -- to be sought or schemed after -- but present. Piety with contentment is great gain, and for the simple reason that the soul has for its resource God and His goodness. It may be a question as regards ourselves whether there is not a deficiency in point of piety. In the midst of the influences of the world, we are seduced almost imperceptibly into walking in its ways, ordering our business and our homes according to man. Individually, our piety is our testimony, since it results not only in maintaining a path of separation from the world and its ways, but in bearing witness to those around that a living God is, to us at least, a blessed reality, and a resource as to present need.
I conclude with a remark or two as to the way in which piety is introduced in 2 Timothy and 2 Peter. In the former, the apostle refers to the state of evil which would be prevalent in the last days, when men would be marked by passions and evils as gross as had existed in heathenism. They would, however, have a form of piety, but denying its power. And the teachers and those that would exercise influence over weak and superstitious minds would arise out of this state of things. Thus, unbroken will and unsubdued passions, all the darkness of the human heart, might be covered by an exterior of affected humility and self-abnegation, which would gain a reputation for sanctity in the eyes of the uninstructed, but would be only piety in form, and not in spirit.
In 2 Peter, piety is in one case coupled with life, and in another with holy conversation; and in the chain which is found in chapter 1: 5 - 7, piety follows endurance, as brotherly love follows piety. What I
understand by it is, that endurance on the part of a saint is not stoicism, but marked by the spirit of affection and confidence toward God; so that, whilst enduring, the heart may be kept fresh and warm; and then, where true piety is, that the soul, whilst right in its attitude God-ward, should be mindful also of the obligation of love toward the brethren. Each successive quality is adorned and added to by that which follows.
2 Timothy 1:12; Ephesians 2:13
It is of all moment that we should first clearly understand the things which are distinctively characteristic of Christianity, and then see how they affect us in our pathway through the world. It is in this pathway that the faith of saints is practically tested. Many of us would like to find some unvarying rule by which, in the midst of church difficulties, to steer our way; while, as to circumstances, we should be well pleased to see, as another has said, a full supply for every need within our reach. Neither the one nor the other is at all likely to be the experience of saints if going on with God, since there would in either case be but little call for the exercise of faith, or of moral perception. The question then arises, Are we to be dismayed by the anticipation of troubles in the assembly, or of pressure in our individual path? What is the antidote? The answer is confidence -- and confidence is the effect of nearness, having its source in the knowledge of God: "I know whom I have believed". Nearness may be spoken of as the peculiar characteristic blessing of Christianity. Now that redemption has been accomplished, and Christ is exalted as Man to God's right hand, God has begun to effectuate the purposes of His will, and in this the heavenly takes precedence of the earthly.
The two great parts of God's will are constantly before us in the Hebrews, in the distinction between the sanctuary and the covenant. As being for the moment God's people on the earth, Christians come incidentally into the blessings of the new covenant; but the calling is as priests to serve a living God in the sanctuary. Every part of the New Testament coincides in showing nearness to be the peculiar portion
of Christians. The beginning of the gospel of Luke is that God has approached man where he is in such wise as that the pious Simeon could take the infant Saviour in his arms. The Son of God had come down into man's place and circumstances. The end is that the risen Lord takes the repentant thief to be with Him in His place. He first visits man here in grace, and then, in virtue of His work, takes man to be a resident with Him in paradise.
In John we find not only the manifestation on earth of the eternal life which was with the Father, but also the work of the Father who was seeking worshippers in spirit and in truth, and was drawing to the Son, that the Son might introduce those drawn to Him into the blessing and privilege of eternal life; and this not deferred, but present, though the communion of His death was essential to it. He that ate His flesh and drank His blood had eternal life. As He lived because of the Father, so he that ate Him would live because of Him. The place suitable to this was the Father's house, to which He would bring His own; but meantime the Comforter would come, and in that day they would know that Jesus was in the Father, and they in Him, and He in them.
When we come to Paul we find more definitely the new place for man in Christ, and the truth of new creation. The expression "in Christ Jesus ... made nigh" in Ephesians 2:13, may mean dispensationally, in contrast with the previous place of Gentiles; but the climax of the teaching is that God has made Jew and Gentile to sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the coming ages He may display in them the exceeding riches of His grace. But already we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Jesus.
Now no expression is more remarkable than this -- to have boldness with God, and liberty with confidence. It is a condition of things which could exist only where
the Spirit is, and certainly conveys the idea, that we have to do with a God who has pleasure in being approached, and who sets Himself to encourage those who have the privilege of approaching.
In the Hebrews we are on somewhat different ground, and it is important to remember that no shadow in the law contained the very image of Christian privilege. There we find that though believers have, as being incidentally a people of God on earth, a throne of grace, the calling is that they are sons, whom Christ is not ashamed to call brethren; and that, as a priestly company, they already have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, to serve the living God. We not only receive, as Israel will, the effect of Christ's death in forgiveness here, but we must go through that death into the marvellous light of God's presence, into which flesh has no entrance.
Now here are privileges which properly belong to heaven, and to those who have the Spirit of God's Son. They are the proper inalienable portion of saints now; and our life down here being, as it were, an incident in the ways of God, is subordinate to our heavenly privileges. We miss the mark if we attempt to reverse the order. More than this, it may be doubted if any saint who has tasted the blessing of nearness, and the peculiar delight of boldness with God, would care to attach much importance to life and circumstances here, save as they give him opportunity of doing God's will in patience, and having part in the ministry of grace. And the touchstone of things now is not how they compromise our character in the eyes of men, but how they affect and hinder our sense of boldness and liberty with God.
Now where we fail to walk in the enjoyment of our privileges, the spirit of distrust soon finds place in the heart. On the other hand, there is a warmth in nearness which nourishes confidence, and if we ask anything according to His will, we know that He heareth
us. It is thus we are enabled to go fearlessly through the world.
In the presence of difficulties in the assembly, saints are often puzzled and overwhelmed by a cloud of writing and talk; what we need is to be so in the enjoyment of liberty with God, that we maintain confidence; the result is, that we instinctively gain a sense of what is according to God, and a moral judgment often of spirits as well as of words. The Lord had, as one may say, His intuitions from above (John 5:30), and we have to try the spirits whether they are of God, because everything is not now to be trusted. The same spirit of confidence applies to difficulties in the individual path of saints. The secret of ability to endure is confidence in a living God, who is the Saviour of all men, and especially of them that believe -- a confidence that leaves all with God, in the sense that from the outset He has laid out all our pathway down here, having in view an end that is worthy of His goodness. There is no other secret of health and comfort in the soul of the saint, and it is in the liberty of nearness to God that this secret is learned.
May the Lord awaken saints to the sense of their privileges, that the Father's house may be the fitting climax to their experience here!
John 17:1 - 3
I dare say, beloved friends, some may wonder at my taking up such a passage as this to speak from. In fact, I feel some hesitation myself. There are many parts of Scripture which one would not have the same feeling about at all, but one has some difficulty about taking up such expressions as these -- the prayer of the Lord. What I read is part of the Lord's prayer; some of us have been accustomed to think of something else as the Lord's prayer, but this is really the Lord's prayer. One feels some hesitation, as I said, in taking up part of the Lord's prayer as the subject of an address; but it is only with the thought of bringing out two or three points which come before us in these first verses.
What I first wanted to lay down as a principle, is this: the greatest blessing God has conferred upon us is the knowledge of divine Persons. It is the greatest blessing God could confer upon a creature; no other blessing can come up to it. I do not think anyone can contest that for an instant. If I think of what our future is to be, we come into an inheritance; but whatever we come into in that way is below us. Naturally it is so. Suppose I was heir to a great estate now in my father's possession, and constantly heard it said all this was to be mine; I should say, I have a privilege much greater than that, I have the privilege of knowing my father. If things were not altogether out of course in the world, people would think so. They would consider the privilege of intimacy with one's father greater than any advantage one could come into by being the son of his father. When I look at divine
+Notes of a Lecture given at Quemerford in July, 1889
things, I see there is no blessing God could confer upon a creature to be compared to the knowledge of Himself in the blessedness of His own nature and His own thoughts; for that is what is involved in the knowledge of God. Poor sinful creatures that we are, we are called to heavenly blessing, to the knowledge of God Himself as He has been pleased to reveal Himself in His blessed Son.
That is the first principle I want to lay down before I touch these verses; and then another thing, namely, that the blessings that belong to us as Christians, lie completely outside this world of sense. I do not doubt there are many things we enjoy down here, such as justification and peace, and the sense of acceptance. More than that, God has given to us the Holy Spirit to conduct us through the wilderness, the pathway down here. We have grace ministered to us in our circumstances day by day. How could we get on without it? And not only that, but mercy. Mercy and grace are not precisely the same thing: the Christian has both. As the children of Israel had manna for their daily necessities, so I have grace ministered to me for mine. We are the recipients of a thousand mercies from God to us down here, as the Lord said to His disciples in regard to temporal necessities, "Your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things". Do you not think you have the care of God in your pathway here? Do you not remember what the apostle says: "Therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour (Preserver) of all men, specially of those that believe"? I ask the poorest Christian here tonight: Do you not think God cares a great deal more for you than for those who do not believe? He is the Preserver of all men, specially of those that believe. That is the care of God for His people. We are subjects of that. The Lord told the disciples not to be careful for the morrow, what they should eat or
what they should drink. He says, Your Father knows. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you".
I only just bring this forward because it is of all importance that we should apprehend and understand the care of which we are the subjects down here. I do not believe there is a single thing which exercises me, that is not a care for God. You remember the exhortation: "Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you". I should be very sorry to get into an unreal Christianity; and it would be that, if we failed to see the care of God for us down here. But my point tonight is, that the privileges that belong to the Christian, his proper portion, are outside this scene altogether. These blessings are ours by faith, made good to us by the Holy Spirit; it is not that we have not the power to reach them, but they are outside this world of sense. Suppose a Christian dies, what is the effect of death to him? He goes nearer to his blessings. Suppose it were possible for a saint to die in the millennium, he would go away from his blessings, they will be all upon the earth; but with a Christian it is totally different. If I die, I simply go to where my blessings are; I go to the scene to which my blessings belong. The blessings and privileges which God has given to me are completely outside this world of sense; and whatever may be said about it, the highest of these lies in the knowledge of God Himself. Who were the most privileged class in Israel? The priests. They had no lot nor inheritance among the people. What was their portion? They had access to God in a figurative way (not really), and they were the only class who approached God. It was the highest privilege God conferred in those days. What are we called to? To have access to God, as we read in Ephesians: "Through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father". That is the peculiar privilege which belongs now to the people of God.
Now I pass on, beloved friends. I merely lay down these two principles: the greatest privilege you can possibly have, consists in the knowledge of God, as He has been pleased to reveal Himself in the Son; and the blessings peculiar to the Christian are outside this world of sense altogether.
I want to dwell upon the first of these verses, and then to show you how the third verse connects itself with the first. "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent". I desire to show what it is to know the Father, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, His sent One. I will speak a word or two at the end as to the capacity, but now I want to speak about what the blessing is in itself. The Lord prays these words (He speaks here as a divine Person): "Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee". He, the Son, prays to be glorified, in order that He may glorify the Father. I wish that God might enable me to make plain, in some degree, the force and meaning of that verse. It is a very great verse. He was no longer to be here in humiliation: He prays to be taken out of humiliation; to be glorified, that He may glorify the Father. One word about the Father. It is a great thing to know the Father, to understand what God intends to convey to us by the name of the Father. There is nothing connected with the name of the Father in Scripture but pure grace. Scripture keeps every other thought apart from the name of the Father. There are things connected with the name of the Son that are not in connection with the Father's name. For instance, judgment is not connected with the Father's name, but is with the Son's, because He, as Son of man, has been humbled. I remember we were once pretty much taught that the Son was for us, and God, as Judge, against us; but Scripture brings before us a very different idea in connection with the name of the
Father. I beg you to bear in mind, that the thought in Scripture connected with the name of the Father is pure grace. All the counsels of grace flow from the heart of the Father; "As the living Father hath sent me". If you were to go through the whole of the gospel of John, and find every place where "the Father" occurs, you would, I think, find in every one that it is connected with grace. "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work". I hardly know a more precious verse. Do you remember the occasion of it? The Jews were reproaching Jesus for breaking the sabbath. That was His reply. The Father had been working ever since sin came in. He began then to work in grace. We do not see the Father in creation. The Father is the name of God revealed in grace. There never would have been a bit of grace for man, or a hope of salvation, if the Father had not begun to work when sin came in.
When the Son was here, what was the Father doing? He was drawing to the Son. "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him". The Father was drawing to the Son, that souls might be blessed by the Son, that He might bless them, because they were given to Him of the Father. There was, what I might call, the most wonderful administration of grace when the Lord Jesus Christ was here upon earth: the Father drawing to the Son, and the Son delighting to bless those who came, because the Father had drawn them. He delighted in them; He appreciated them, because they were given of the Father. "Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out". Why? Because they were drawn to Him by the Father.
Two or three other expressions I refer to: "My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven". The Jews wanted a sign, and said their fathers ate the manna in the wilderness. Jesus answers, "Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the
bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world". Then, too, I recall another passage in John 4"The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth". This is the necessity of what God is; but as to the activity that was going on Jesus says, "the Father seeketh such". I bring these quotations forward to prove my point, and it is a very important one, that Scripture takes care to keep the Father's name connected with grace. All the counsels of blessing belong to the Father. It is a great thing to see the glory of each divine Person. Each divine Person has His own peculiar glory. Counsels belong to the Father. The Son says, "All things that the Father hath are mine", and again, "The Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth". I want you to see the thought connected with the Father's name, and that He is the source of all the counsels of grace.
Now the Lord says, "Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee". What do you think that means? It is not the same thing as the Son of man being glorified, "crowned with glory and honour", as in Hebrews 2. Here it is the Son of God: "Father, ... glorify thy Son". He prays that He may be taken out of the condition of humiliation into which He had entered, and to be glorified, that He might glorify the Father. How would He glorify the Father? I will tell you: by giving effect to all the Father's counsels of grace. That is the idea which is connected with the Son. He says, "I come to do thy will, O God". He has become the sent One in order that He may accomplish God's will. He is what we may call the Agent, the One who effects all. If He is to give effect to these counsels He must be glorified. He could not give
effect to them in humiliation. He came down here in humiliation that He might put away sin; but He is no longer here in the place of humiliation. He was down here, and, in a sense, His glory was veiled. It is no longer so now: He is glorified, that He might glorify the Father. These are the thoughts connected in Scripture with the names of these blessed, divine Persons. "The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world". He is the source of all these counsels and we have the Son now glorified to give effect to them.
I pass on now to verse 3, to speak for a moment about the Father and the Son. I wish I knew more about it! I wish I were more in the power of the Holy Spirit to bring it with more unction before you. The great thing is to find an attraction in these names. I think people need to be attracted, to be drawn from the influence and power of things here, and I wish I could present the attraction in the names of the Father and the Son! It is a wonderful thing, that when sin has come in to spoil everything here, we should find there were counsels of blessing in the heart of the Father, the thought as it were of reconstructing everything -- of new creation and all connected with it; and then the Son comes down here in humiliation, taking part in flesh and blood, going down to death that He might put away sin, and then be glorified in order to give effect to all these wondrous divine counsels of the Father; and these counsels are bound up with our blessing, and the blessing of the world too. It is indeed blessed to know this in the midst of this world of ruin and sin. It was wonderful for the Lord to be able to say to a poor woman: "The Father seeketh such to worship him". Sinful, degraded as you are, you are not below the notice of the Father. "My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven"; but He had also to say to the Jews, "Ye also have seen me, and believe not"; and then, there had to be the silent
work, the drawing of souls to Jesus by the Father. You may depend upon it, beloved friends, heaven will be a wonderful scene; I quite admit we enter into heavenly joys now by anticipation, but heaven will be a wonderful scene, where the Father will be fully known, and the Son, too. These blessings belong not to the earth but to heaven, where the Father and the Son are known without a veil.
"This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent". This is what we are called to! The highest and greatest privilege to which we are called, is to know these divine Persons. To know is a very great word. It does not mean to know there are such divine Persons, but as we say in natural language, I know such a person: that means, I am intimately acquainted with him, I delight in his company. That is the idea of 'know' here. "This is life eternal, that they might know thee". The Father was to be known as the only true God; and who is the Father? Such a One as I have been trying to bring before you -- the Source of all the counsels of blessing. I often think, when we are in the presence of the Father, whatever we are before the Father, originated in His heart; and it is not only the knowledge of the Father, but of "Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent". I do not think the disciples, when the Lord Jesus was on earth, could completely know Him; and for this reason, His glory was veiled. It could not help being veiled, because of the condition in which He took part as Man down here. But His glory is not veiled any longer; He is glorified; He is taken out of that condition into which He entered down here; He is risen and glorified. And now it is, "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent".
I ask every one here tonight, how far do we enter into this? How far do we appreciate that this is the
privilege and blessing God has conferred upon us? There are many things we rejoice in. People rejoice in the knowledge of salvation, and rightly; and they rejoice in hope of the glory. But what I desire to bring before you is, your present privilege (for it is present and not future only), that we should know the Father, the Source of all the counsels of grace, and the Son, who is become the sent One to give effect to all the Father's will.
Two or three other points I desire just to speak of -- our side of it, as I might call it, as to our capacity, and so on. I do not think one could ever understand it, without apprehending first, the position in which we are placed; and the power and capacity God has given by which we can enter into this privilege: for I need hardly say, no creature, as a creature, could enter into it for a single instant. The point is, we are to know the Father and the Son in Their own circle, if you can understand the expression. It is not as the angels know God; they do not know the Father and the Son. The Lord said, "In heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven"; but they do not know the Father in the sense of this verse. You must be in that circle, as the apostle John says in his epistle: "That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ". I do not, of course, mean to say but that the Father has His glory, and the Son His glory; but we are put into that circle. How are we put into that circle? Do you remember a verse in John 1, "As many as received him, to them gave he power (title) to become the sons of God" etc.? Jesus has given us title to that place (we could not have it without title), the One who died because of what we are; the Son of man lifted up, who has borne the judgment of our state, that He might bring us into His own relationship as Man with the Father. You get it all brought
out in John 20, "Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God". You see that the first thing which He does, as risen from the dead, is to place the disciples in the same relationship as Himself with His Father, and His God. He puts them into this circle and family privilege. Scripture tells us of other families in what one might call the economy of blessing; but I speak of this one family privileged to enjoy communion with the Father and the Son. The first thing is relationship. The youngest babe in Christ that has the Spirit, cries "Abba, Father". I admit it; but I do not think every babe appreciates, and enters into this knowledge of the Father and the Son, as we get it in this verse of John 17. It belongs to them, the youngest and oldest alike; but to enter into it involves faith, and the knowledge of deliverance. All this belongs to every Christian. Faith in Christ belongs to the babe; deliverance by the death of Christ belongs to the babe as much as to the father, but I question if the babe enters into it as the father does. A very good thing if it were so, but I do not think it is so.
Realisation is a very good word, because you realise what belongs to you; so that with the blessings of the Christian, everything belongs to every Christian alike, but very many Christians may not have realised what belongs to them in the gift of God; but it is none-the-less the gift of God to all alike. It is a very great thing to enter into the enjoyment of this circle of blessing. I ask every one here tonight, Do you know what it is to enjoy fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ? Manifestly that is outside this world. You have to go in the power of the Holy Spirit by faith outside this world altogether. It is the greatest blessing that God could confer upon us, but it is completely outside this world of sense.
I have spoken about the relationship Christ has
given us as children; and there is another thing -- the divine nature. I must be according to God as to nature -- one in nature with Christ. If I am not according to the Father and the Son in nature I could not know Them. If I had only human nature, even if it were perfectly pure, I could not know the Father and the Son in this way. We have the nature: it is not only that Christ has given to us the relationship, but the nature. The Son quickeneth whom He will. He quickens after His own order. He gives us a nature suited to the relationship in which He sets us.
Then there is a third thing needed, and that is power. We have that, too. The Holy Spirit is power. After the Lord, in John 20, had conferred upon the disciples relationship, He gave them power. "He breathed into them, and says to them, Receive the Holy Ghost". All these things belong to every Christian: every Christian is brought into this privileged circle by the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ has gone to the cross, in order that He might close up my history here; He bore the judgment of my state, so that He might bring me into relationship with His Father and His God. That is what He has done for every believer; every believer is entitled to know it, is set in that relationship; the nature is given by the quickening power of the Son, and the Holy Spirit is given that we may not only have the nature but the power. It is the Spirit of God's Son that is sent forth into the hearts of Christians. As Paul says, "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father".
Well, now, dear brethren, I feel my great inability to bring the Father and the Son before you according to what I may call Their own proper attractiveness, and indeed it is only the Holy Spirit who can do it; but it is a most wonderful thing to me to think that the Father should have been pleased to reveal Himself in the
Person of His Son, in the midst of this sin-stricken world. Knowing what the world is, knowing what I am, it is blessed indeed to know what counsels of grace have been in the heart of the Father from all eternity, and that the Son should have become the sent One in order to accomplish all this. "The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world". And here are we brought into all this privilege now -- everything given to us to qualify us for it. We could not have the knowledge without the relationship: and not only the relationship, but the nature and the power also given that we may have fellowship with the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.
I should be inclined to insist strongly upon the importance of faith and deliverance. I do not mean simply the acceptance of the work of Christ for us; that is the beginning; you would not be a believer at all without that, of course; but what characterises the Christian is present faith in Christ. He is to me the Object of faith, and governs my soul because He is; and by His death I am delivered from this present evil world. The link is broken. You will have to go through this world. I quite admit it; but I am sure it is a great thing to realise that you are free from it; it has no claims upon you. I do not care about my status in this world; it is not of moment to me. I pass through in the grace of God, but I am free of it, because the grace of God has set me in a heavenly state and relationship before Him.
I pray God in His grace to come in (if I have not made things clear, and very likely I have not) to present to you the attractiveness of the Father and the Son, that you may know all the blessings in Scripture connected with the Father's name. Christ not only declared the Father, but He manifested the Father's name; John 17:6. The wonderful truth that came out was that God could stand in relationship to a man as Father. Jesus manifested His name. I can now
say, Father; I know Him in the consciousness of His love to me, and I know Him, too, as the Object of my love. Scripture takes the greatest possible pains, as I have said, to keep clear the Father's name from everything but thoughts of grace. Then, too, if you think of the blessed Son: who became Man that He might bear the judgment of our state, who as Son of man was lifted up, and, having glorified God, is Himself glorified, in order that He may give effect to the Father's counsels of grace.
It is only a little while, and all these wonderful things will come to light. We are privileged to enter into them now by faith, but the time will come when these eternal counsels will be fully displayed, and then in heavenly courts we shall rejoice eternally in the knowledge of the Father, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, His sent One. That is the circle to which you and I by grace belong. Our blessing is bound up with the knowledge of these blessed, divine Persons, and the nature and the power is given to us by which we may enjoy this knowledge, which the Lord speaks of in this verse.
Beloved friends, have you ever been really exercised about it? People ought not to remain just upon the threshold of Christianity. Forgiveness of sins, and even the gift of the Holy Spirit, is the threshold, as it were. The point is, to go in, to enter into the house -- the circle into which you are brought by grace, to enjoy fellowship with the Father and the Son. We could not know these divine Persons if God had not been pleased to reveal Himself to us.
May God really give us exercise of heart about it, that we may not go on grovelling here, but that we may have grace to go within, and know these blessed, divine Persons where They are at home, if I may so speak. It is a great thing to know a person at home. You never know people till you know them at home. Christ was not at home down here, He was in a foreign
scene. Now He is at home, and we have the power to know Him there. We have the relationship, the nature, and the power. Then what do we want more? We want faith, and we want deliverance. It is not that they are not ours, but we are slow sometimes to accept them.
May God exercise our hearts! I assure you I am exercised about it, and about the miserable, low state of the people of God. How they grovel down here!
May God stir us up, beloved friends, that we may enter now into what is to be our blessed and eternal portion!
John 16:13 - 16, 23, 28
I do not think there is anyone who would not admit that we can recognise in the New Testament what might be called two parts in the ministry. Paul speaks of it distinctly; there was that which he ministered to those not established, and what he ministered to those who were 'perfect'; he did not minister to the unestablished what he ministered to those who were 'perfect'. "We speak wisdom among them that are perfect", whatever the word 'perfect' may mean; I do not go into that now. One point distinguishes one part of this ministry (I do not quite like to speak here of ministries) from the other; namely, that what he ministered to the perfect were "the deep things of God"; what we are accustomed to understand by that is, that he ministered to them the counsels of God, the things God has purposed for His own glory -- our glory, too, as far as that goes. In connection with that he brings forward the subject, not of what saints had, but of what they were. The condition of a vast number of souls is, that they need to understand deliverance; they do not apprehend the meaning and power of the work of Christ as deliverance. They know it as justification, but I do not think they know it as deliverance. So long as they are in that state, I do not doubt the apostle would talk to them, and we ought to do the same, of what they have; but with the others, the 'perfect', it is what they are. When I come to God's purposes, and look at saints in reference to those purposes, it is no longer a question of what saints have, but of what they are in relation to them. In Ephesians it is, "May grow up to him in all things". That is not what I have, but what I am. Growth is in what I am for God. "Holding the truth in love", and so on. I think, in
another line, we get both things brought out in this chapter; John 16. The Lord tells the disciples what the Holy Spirit will do. He is referring to the time of the Holy Spirit, and is telling them what He would do. On the one hand, He would bring before them the Father's things that were the Son's; and on the other hand, they would have the freest access to the Father in the name of the Son. I want just to suggest these things. I do not feel I can give a very orderly address, though each of the subjects is vitally important. If we intend to go on, that is what we have set before us.
One thing is very noticeable in this chapter, and distinguishes it from chapter 14. You do not find in it a single 'if'; not a single condition introduced; it is a chapter of privilege; it brings before us God's sphere. It is not a question of our responsible walk, or anything of that kind; it is the sphere of the Father's things which the Holy Spirit is to bring before the disciples; and what marks the end of the chapter is, that they would have the freest access to the Father in the name of the Son. You will find all the latter part of chapter 14 is conditional; it is all on the ground of their walk down here, I can understand it. The great subject of chapter 14 is comfort; and even what comes out -- the Son manifesting Himself and the Father and Son making Their abode with saints -- is all as comfort in the pathway down here. Therefore it is, in a certain sense, conditional on our keeping Christ's word. It is not attainment or anything of that kind; it is all simple. But if they were going on in that pathway, the Lord brings to their minds the comfort they would have in it. But here (chapter 16) there is nothing conditional. You get, if I may say so, the free power of the Holy Spirit, but it is in connection with the sphere and range of the Father's things; and this is what I want to say a word about for a moment.
Jesus says, "All things that the Father hath are mine". He says of the Holy Spirit, "He shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you". If I understand the expression at all (and I only suggest it), when the Lord speaks of "all things that the Father hath", it brings before us the whole universe of bliss, the Father's purpose, which is to be filled by the Son. Another point is, this has been revealed to us; it is real to us. I could hardly say the same thing when the Lord Jesus was down here, although He did say, "All things are delivered unto me of my Father"; but now He is exalted, glorified; and therefore the whole range of the Father's counsels comes to us as truth. That is a very great expression, "He will guide you into all truth". You say, You are leading us on to the ground of imagination! No. I would seek to lead you on to the ground of faith. Christ is in glory; everything is established in Him. I am not dealing with imagination, but I would seek that our souls may understand that expression; "All things that the Father hath are mine", and all the range of the Father's counsels and purposes which He will display in His blessed Son, who is glorified. That comes to us in the way of truth. It is for faith, and not something to minister to imagination. It is revealed by the "Spirit of truth". "He will guide you into all truth". He would bring before the hearts and minds of the disciples the whole range of the Father's counsels. That was to be the world in which faith was to live.
I should like to say a word in connection with this. This present world is not truth; the principle of the world is not truth; there is nothing truthful about it; the world is a great falsehood, there is no doubt about that. The god and prince of this world is a usurper. We have to pass through it, and the Spirit of God carries us through it, and the grace of God keeps us, and we experience many a mercy of God as we pass
through, but the character of the world is false. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, everything false and evil, nothing of truth in it. The prince of the world is, as I said, a usurper. There is nothing of truth in this organisation which we are accustomed to think of as the world. But everything is truth in the Father's universe; the Father's world is what is truth. All the counsels and purposes of the Father are to be fulfilled in the Son, on the ground of redemption. He has exalted Him far above all heavens that He may fill all things. Christ has not only cleared the ground, but He is going to occupy the ground He has cleared. He fills the whole of God's universe. That is what the Father has purposed, and what will be accomplished in the Son; and the pledge of it is, the Son is no longer here in the place of weakness, but in the glory of God, in the highest place, as we get in the next chapter: "Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee". He was to give the fullest effect to all that was purposed.
That was what the Spirit of truth was to bring before the minds of the disciples. If we are in the power of the Spirit, that is the world in which faith lives. It is not a world of imagination, but a world of truth. Christ is in the place of power and glory. If we are living here in the faith of Christ, in the power and energy of the Holy Spirit, I have no doubt faith will delight itself in this vast universe of bliss. We sing of it sometimes
Not only is He the Head of it, He is to fill it all according to God's counsels. He is the Lamb of God; He has died for it all. He takes away the sin of the world, and He establishes the universe according to God, and fills it with blessing. He brings us to a scene of blessing of which He is the centre and glory.
I only say that much to bring in the latter part of
the chapter. We may put ourselves in the place of the disciples in this chapter. We find ourselves in the presence of God's counsels. The first thing is this Jesus goes to the Father. He says, "A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father". A puzzle to them! The reason He gives is of all moment -- "because I go to the Father". We should say, naturally, that would bring to an end their seeing Him. But no; His going to the Father really meant their going to the Father. He did not go back to the Father merely for Himself. He did go back to the Father; His place was there. He might have gone alone for the matter of that; but He went back in the value of redemption, and so made a way for us there. His going there means our going there. We have free access to the Father. He says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me". And the first thing that comes out here is this: He is gone to the Father, and we now have joy, because He is gone to the Father. That is a wonderful thing. Not only are the whole range of God's counsels revealed, but we have access to the Father, as the apostle puts it, "In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him". The Holy Spirit not merely conducts us through our responsible life down here, but maintains us in liberty with the Father, in the name of the Son. "Through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father". Jesus went to the Father. Because of that they would have joy; they were not to lose Him. It is a wonderful chapter, as opening out a new order of things. They had known the Lord Jesus down here, coming down, if one might so say, to the level of their weakness. They had valued His company; He had revealed to them the Father's name. But this chapter is in contrast to all that; it opens out the range of divine glory. He was going to the Father,
and because of that they would have liberty there.
I come to another point; and mark, there are no 'ifs' because it is a question of the free power of the Holy Spirit. He connects us with this new order of things. "In that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full". It is illimitable; and why? Because now we find ourselves in connection with the scene that is to be filled with the Son. "My name" -- that Name represents the Son in His absence; and whatever we ask in the name of the Son, the Father will give it to us. But we must lay hold of the first principle of the chapter, that the Son is to fill God's universe. The moment has not come for that (in display), but the Son is to fill me; we are to be filled with Him, and now we have the freest liberty to ask whatever will promote the Son in us.
It is a blessed thing to go to the Father in liberty. I am bent upon one thing; I do not want to do the best I can for myself in this world; in fact, I do not care so very much about this world, but I do care that the Son should fill me, that He should be promoted in saints. I want Him to displace everything in me that is not of Himself. It is practically "as the truth is in Jesus". The "having put off ... the old man ... and your having put on the new man". There is the displacing of the one thing to make space for the other. The great point is, that the Son should be promoted in me, and the same in every other saint of God.
If you want to seize the idea, I think you must get hold of the first part of the chapter, that is, all the counsels of God centred in the Son. The counsels are of the Father; the accomplishment of those counsels is by and in the Son; the Holy Spirit indwells the believer, and gives effect subjectively in the believer to those counsels as established in the Son.
It is just those two thoughts I desire to bring before you: what the Spirit of God would do in the disciples; the world of faith He would bring before them. Truth is a real thing, and these counsels of the Father are revealed and made true to us by the Spirit of truth. "He will guide you into all truth". What a thing it is to live in the presence of this wonderful revelation; to be led by the Spirit of truth into these eternal divine secrets! And then to know what the Father desires us to be; what the Lord desired for His disciples down here, that He might be promoted in them; whatsoever they asked the Father in His name He would do it.
I cannot improve the world, but I can seek that the Son should have His fullest place in me, and in every saint, and that everything else should be displaced. There is a complete end of the old man in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ; and all that has to be worked out, practically in detail, in every one of us. We want conscience, as we have heard, that the truth should do its work practically, and that the truth, as in Jesus, should have its place -- the disallowing of the first man, that there should be the fullest room for the Son in our hearts.
I only want to indicate these two thoughts in this chapter of deepest import; it paves the way for the prayer in the next chapter; chapter 17. Chapter 14 is the comfort of the Holy Spirit; chapter 15, the testimony of the Holy Spirit; but in chapter 16 the Lord shows what the Holy Spirit would do in bringing before the minds of the disciples this new and wonderful order of things established in Himself.
May God give us to apprehend our place in this realm of faith -- to live there. It is not a question of what we have; we have everything. It is a question of what we are to grow in, and of what is to be promoted in us by the power of the Spirit of God.
1 Corinthians
It has been observed that in the first epistle to the Corinthians the apostle reverts continually to the death of Christ, while in the second epistle, the glory of the Lord seems to be that which is occupying his soul, and is the standpoint from which he speaks. It is quite remarkable how the death of Christ is interwoven in the treatment of each succeeding subject in the first epistle; and it would seem that, in the application of that death to the Christian conscience, a sort of progress is observable; and this it is desired, with the Lord's help, to bring under notice.
It is evident that there were many things in the state of the Corinthians calling for correction, and these defects are in general dealt with by pointing out their inconsistency with the death of the Lord, which is to the Christian the test of things, whether in himself or in the world. Further, there can be little doubt that the levity with which the death of the Lord was regarded, accounted in some degree for the toleration amongst them of some who denied resurrection. For had they entered into the varied import of Christ's death, they must have apprehended the necessary consequence (morally) of Christ's resurrection; and the resurrection of Christ is the pledge of the resurrection of saints, as well as of the judgment of all men.
The apostle begins in reference to the schisms existing at Corinth, and the tendency to attach importance to men and to human wisdom. He recalls the great, and one might almost say, exclusive, subject of his testimony among them -- Christ crucified. The great groundwork laid by God had been, that in sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin,
He had condemned sin in the flesh; man's state as in the flesh -- the old man -- had in the cross been brought to an end judicially before God. While this is the foundation of grace, it at the same time declares that man is good for nought, whether for wisdom or for righteousness. Hence the folly of glorying in men. The want of apprehension on the part of the Corinthians of the import of the cross of Christ, hindered the apostle unfolding to them the hidden wisdom of God. But the defect had not been in the testimony presented. Many a Christian accepts Christ's death as the ground of forgiveness, who knows little of its meaning as the judgment of the flesh and the world system with it. Still the testimony presented had left no room, nor given any excuse, for the exaltation of men.
But to pass on to the next reference to the death of Christ, which is found in chapter 5. Here the question is as to the character of the assembly, and so of each member in it. The assembly were the people of God at Corinth, and Christ their passover had been sacrificed for them, and this was to become the test of their state. They could not connect the passover and the old leaven. They must be in suitability to it -- must, as a redeemed people, keep the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. This is to characterise us during the complete period of our sojourn here, for we must remember, that the things typified by institutions of periodical recurrence under the law, are to the Christian constant and characteristic. We see thus that, as the cross of Christ was the cutting down of man in his pretensions, so that we should not glory in men, the sacrifice of Christ is the test of character in a redeemed people.
The next distinct allusion to the death of Christ is found at the close of the subject treated in chapters 8 - 10. The question raised was as to the liberty of a Christian to perform an act, or to enter into an association
that might be construed by others into an acknowledgement of idols. The apostle, while maintaining Christian liberty, in his conclusion enjoins the most rigid withdrawal from idolatry. He speaks to the saints as to wise men, and presses on their attention that the cup of blessing which they blessed and the bread they broke, was the fellowship of the death of Christ. He does not speak here of the position which a Christian occupies as having been committed to Christ's death in baptism, but of the habitual participation of that in which Christ's death is symbolised, and in which act, intelligent appreciation of, and delight in that death, are expressed by each and by all -- the fellowship of the saints, as one body in the death of Christ. This made evident the impossibility of fellowship with anything that was an object of worship in Satan's world, a system which includes many things venerated by men. The Lord who had died would have no part with Satan, nor allow His people to raise any such question between Himself and Satan. We see then that Christ's death is the true test of objects here that claim the homage of men.
Finally, in chapters 11 to 14 we have the correction of disorder in the assembly as convened, and the first point has reference to the Lord's supper. Here it is that the Lord's death is brought in in the most touching way. The commemoration of it, according to the order of this scripture, appears to be the introduction to spiritual exercises and manifestations in the assembly; and lightness in this commemoration is wholly unsuitable. The failing, in eating, to discern the Lord's body, arising from lack of self-judgment, brought in chastisement. The spring of becoming conduct in the assembly is suitability in spirit to the Lord's death, and the first occupation there, is remembrance of Him in death, the affections responding to the love manifested in the giving up of His life for us. This is indeed a suitable prelude to the exercise of
gifts in love to, and desire for, the edifying of His members here.
To sum up, we have seen that the death of Christ is the test of human pretensions, of character, of associations, and of fitness in the assembly. It forbids the exaltation of man, and the allowance of the old leaven in the saints. It demands rigid separation in the whole body from idolatrous associations in Satan's world, and calls for self-judgment on the part of all in the assembly as gathered. Saints are to bear the impress of it in every circumstance. In every sphere, and in all its ways the assembly is to be free from conformity to man.
A word is added, in conclusion, on a point already indicated. It must be admitted, that any person having any degree of spiritual apprehension of the reality and meaning of Christ's death, would be impressed with the necessary sequence of His resurrection. He must be the first to rise from the dead; and once the truth of His resurrection is accepted, there is little difficulty as to the resurrection of the saints. This is the line of argument in 1 Corinthians 15, and we may conclude that lack of conformity in the Corinthians to Christ's death was the secret of the allowance among them of a denial of resurrection. Saints are established in the faith of the latter, in having in their souls the solemn and practical bearing of the former.
2 Corinthians 3 - 5
There is avowedly and manifestly in this epistle a contrast to what is found in the first. The apostle's mouth was open to the Corinthians, his heart enlarged; even though the response in them was not complete. He is free to bring before them the wonderful nature of the ministry, and the way in which the vessel is fitted for and maintained in the ministry.
The ministry, as presented in these chapters, refers to the gospel. It does not go on to the mystery, to our union with Christ and with one another. But the basis of the gospel is enlarged beyond what is found in Romans, where the groundwork is the death and resurrection of Christ. The light, here, is the glad tidings of the glory of Christ. The knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ has shone forth as light. Evidently, the prominent truth is of the elevation in which man, in the Person of Christ, has, so to say, been installed of God; and this glory is producing its effects now on those looking at it.
We have seen, in a previous paper, how, in the first epistle, the death of the Lord is continually introduced as being, for a Christian, the test of everything here; and this must indeed be so, seeing that it is the one point where truth as to everything has been absolutely expressed. The exaltation of man on earth and fleshly leaven in the saints are rebuked by it. In the second epistle we have the great idea presented to us of the glory of the Lord as the standard, and conformity to that glory as the end now for man. This is, manifestly, a completely new order of things for man.
In chapter 3 of this epistle, the ministry, that which marks this epoch, is presented to us. It is an accepted time; a day of salvation. Not the establishment outwardly
of the new covenant in the way of public relations with an earthly people, but the introduction of an era in which the blessings (in principle) of that covenant are ministered here, with the view of forming a people for the glory of God.
Instead of there coming from the place of God a demand on man for righteousness, there was the ministration, as from God by Christ, in effective power, of the Spirit and righteousness of that which fitted and qualified man for God Himself in His own place -- that which is embodied and expressed in the last Adam, the quickening Spirit -- and the result is that the believer, having received all from there, can look at the glory of the Lord and be conformed to it in moral and increasing superiority to all here. That glory is connected in his thoughts with grace, and not with law, with giving instead of demanding. God is known in a new way, as Jesus said to the woman of Samaria, "If thou knewest the gift (giving) of God".
Now in the glory of the Lord there is, as in the glory in the face of Moses, the witness and proof of the divine origin of the covenant; and hence the apostle made no secret of this glory. He obscured it neither in walk nor word. If his gospel was veiled, it was veiled in them that were lost. If we would understand the nature of the ministry, we need to be instructed as to the glory of Christ: that glory is, in truth, its sanction. All has to be learnt in what has been effected in Christ, and this is the substance of the testimony. In Him, man has been taken from the lowest place (sin having been put away, and God glorified) and exalted to the very highest. Christ has been exalted far above all heavens, to fill all things. He has secured for man a heavenly order and place, and Himself rests in it. He is the image there of God. The Holy Spirit has come to bring report of His glory, and works here in power by gifts for the deliverance of man and for forming him according to Christ. Further, in this
exaltation is seen the glory of God, His peculiar blessedness. He has raised up man out of death in the virtue of redemption, and set him in heavenly glory. Satan and man pull down and destroy. God raises up; John 2:19. It is His peculiar and blessed prerogative to bring man out of death, the fruit and judgment of sin, in heavenly suitability. In this is displayed the power and glory of God; John 12:28. The testimony of this illuminates and certifies the ministry of the new covenant. The knowledge of the exaltation of man in the Person of Christ in the efficacy of redemption, and the glory of God displayed in it, are the assurance to the soul of the reality of the blessings ministered from Christ. He has reached the glory from the lowest place, where man is in nature, and is in the highest in the interests of man; to deliver him from everything that He has Himself overcome, and to conform him to Himself there. We can understand thus the ministry of the Spirit and righteousness.
There are two other points that come before us in this connection. First of these, are the motives that were effective in the apostle to maintain him suitably in this ministry. If God wrought specially by him in the introduction of this era of heavenly blessing, it had to be made manifest that the power was of God. The vessel must be broken, that the light might shine out. The apostle had to be practically divested of all sense of human competency, and set free from the influence of worldly motives, to be the instrument in carrying out this ministry. He must be independent of every influence, and of all fear of consequences, carrying his life in his hand, confident in every condition. We see how all this was effected and maintained in him by the power and grace of God.
Further, in dealing with men, he must himself be alive to the realities which men have to face, so as to be in a condition to persuade men. He had to deal, practically, with consciences and hearts -- the moral
elements in man. If men were to find in Christ their life and righteousness before God, it could not be without exercise of conscience. They had to be brought under the fear of the Lord, and to a sense of their state of alienation from God. Here was the point where the apostle was brought, practically, into contact with the moral elements and necessities in man, persuading and beseeching. Not only bearing testimony of the blessings existing for man in a glorified Christ, but dealing with men in reference to their state, beseeching them to be reconciled to God. At the same time announcing to them the great groundwork of this ministry of reconciliation, in that God had made Him, that knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Thus we find, that underneath the fact of Christ having been made sin, lay the wonderful conception of divine grace, that men, once wholly controlled and characterised by sin, should become the expression of this divine righteousness before the heavenly principalities through all eternity, and should be made His God's delight as regards righteousness.
Such are the glad tidings of the glory of Christ, the blessed answer, to His having been made sin, and the pledge and assurance of what is in Him for man, through grace, and ministered through the inspired word of the apostle.
What I want to bring before you is the way in which God has seen fit to present Himself to us in respect of His purpose. This is a point of moment, especially at a time when Christianity is in decay in this world. The house of God has been corrupted in the hand of man, and has become a great house. The grace of God has been neutralised to a large extent in Christendom by mixing gospel and law. But if this is recognised in the soul, the point for us is to fall back on the purpose of God, for it is impossible that God can be diverted from His purpose. Behind the testimony in the early days of Christianity, God had His purposes. In Luke 24, the Lord gives the apostles their commission: "Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem". That was the testimony in which God saw fit to approach man. Forgiveness of sins and inheritance are the two terms of God's testimony. But behind this testimony, God was setting to work to accomplish the counsel of His will. The name of God was blasphemed through Israel, but God will accomplish His purpose in Israel. The name of God may be blasphemed -- and is largely blasphemed -- through Christianity, but God will surely accomplish His purpose in Christianity. He cannot be diverted from it; and therefore, in a day of ruin like that in which our lot is cast, it is highly important, for the establishment of our souls, that we should enter into the apprehension of the purpose of God.
Now, when God speaks of His purpose, you commonly get the expression in Scripture, "in Christ Jesus". Christ Jesus is the vessel of God's purpose.
Anyone can readily see the difference in speaking of Christ as Lord and Saviour, and the presentation of Him to us as the vessel of God's purpose -- the expression and revelation of it. It is a wonderful thing that God has made His counsel known to us, His counsel in a living Man. You could not learn it simply by reading the scripture; it is made known to us in a living, glorified Man.
Every promise of God is in Christ Jesus, and He is presented to us so that our hearts may receive instruction in the counsel of God. All will see the importance of being instructed of God. If I saw what God's purpose is concerning me, I would not desire to thwart it or to hinder it; I cannot further it; but I think it is very possible to hinder its effectuality in one's own soul. The Galatians had begun in the Spirit, and now the apostle had to say to them, "Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?" What is the truth? The truth is the expression of God's will. We have the letter of the truth in Scripture, but the Spirit is the Spirit of the truth. It is a most important thing for us to know the truth; the Lord said to the Jews, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free". When you get an insight into the counsel of God, and all that is contained in His will, the practical result in you is that you are brought into liberty, and then your anxiety will be not to thwart His purpose.
I hope that you will take in the thought I have referred to, namely, that when God speaks to us as to His purpose, you get the expression, "in Christ Jesus". It occurs two or three times in this chapter. One instance of it is in verse 14: "That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ"; and again, "For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus".
Now, there are certain blessings which, as Christians, we get down here, which are incidental to our being
on earth. For instance, we get the forgiveness of sins, and this in Christ; but the counsel of God's will is something of a different order from that. The calling of the Christian is involved in the counsel of God's will. What I have as a man down here, the forgiveness of sins and the inheritance, is incidental to me as in the place of responsibility here on earth. The counsel of God's will has its own character, and if you get into the sense of it, you reach the line on which God is working, and that is very important. The effect of it will be that you will have experience of the power of God. I think that a great many Christians have but a poor sense of the power of God, because, as to their sense of things, they are not on the line on which God is working: but on the line of His counsels, you get a great sense of His power. What power of man can compare with the power of God? God is working here according to His mighty power to accomplish all the counsel of His will.
What we get in this chapter (I am only going to dwell on two points in it) is the blessing of Abraham that in Christ Jesus has come to the Gentiles, and sonship -- in other words, things old and new. There are certain things in Christianity which are new, that never were revealed before; but there are also things which are taken up from the Old Testament. The Lord Jesus said to His disciples in Matthew 13, after He had spoken all the parables recorded there, "Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old" (verse 52). If I speak about the blessing of Abraham, that is not new. I will tell you what is new about it, that is the way in which it has reached the Gentiles. But the blessing of Abraham was not in itself new. But when you come to the truth of sonship at the close of the chapter, that is new. Sonship never could come to light until Christ came. Paul says about
himself in the beginning of this epistle, "But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me". That was a very new testimony indeed. It did not form part of the blessing of Abraham, or of what God had made known to him. Abraham had his blessing, and we, too, have part in that blessing; but sonship could not be known until the Son of God became Man. When the Father revealed Christ to Peter, the latter entered into it to some extent, he got at least a glimpse of it; he apprehended the Lord in a new light. He had received Him, and believed on Him as the Christ, the son of Abraham and son of David, but now in the Son of God he had the light and expression of the divine purpose, and that was a great point to come to, because on that line, as I have said, God is working. Nothing can be more confirmatory to the soul of the saint than to get experience of the power of God.
Now, as to the blessing of Abraham reaching the Gentiles, I will first endeavour to tell you what the blessing of Abraham was. In fact it is stated here "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness". In believing God, in the eye of God, Abraham disappeared. He disappeared from the position in which he was as a man in this world, under death, but, on the other hand, he was approved of God; God took account of him for another world. He believed God. But do you think that God was going to endorse anything in Abraham? Not at all. In faith he was gone; but there was the other side of it; God counted his faith to him for righteousness. That has never come into effect yet. It will do so in another scene. Christ said, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad", and in the day of Christ, God's reckoning of Abraham will come to light. God accounted it to him for righteousness, but though he had this reckoning from
God, yet as to himself, looked at as a man in this world, Abraham disappeared. That is, I judge, the principle underlying it, and, in fact, you could not come into blessing in any other way. Take a Jew in this world, under the curse of a broken law, and the judgment of death. The law was the ministration of death; it made matters worse, it added the curse to death. Man was already under death, and the law came and added the curse. This was a terrible position for man to be in; how was man to escape it? That man must disappear. Abraham disappears, but he reappears, according to the reckoning of God. I do not doubt but that is God's way; it is the way in which, by faith, we pass out of the judgment of death and the curse.
But now, as to the way in which the blessing has reached the Gentiles. It is in Christ Jesus; "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith". The Son of God became Man, He accepted the place of the curse, and entered into the judgment according to God. This was according to the will of God. He says, "Lo, I come to do thy will, O God", and in the accomplishment of the will of God He disappears as after the flesh in death. Christ died, but He reappeared in resurrection, not after the flesh, but according to the power of God. He left death and the curse behind, and He reappeared as the communicator of the Spirit. He comes out as the Last Adam and the Second Man. Death and the curse were in our cup, but Christ took the cup; He died out of the state to which it belonged, but He reappeared in the power of God's victory, and as a life-giving Spirit to men. Christ is marked out in John's gospel as "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the
world", but at the same time, He is the One who "baptises with the Holy Spirit".
Well, the same principle is true in regard of us. God communicates to the believer the gift of the Spirit, and the Spirit is the proof that, as after the flesh, you have disappeared from under the eyes of God. It is on that ground alone that God could communicate the Spirit. "Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you". The history of the flesh, in this sense, has for God's glory been closed up in the death of Christ in order that Christ might communicate the Spirit to men. But what I feel is that, though we have received the Spirit, it is a long time before we understand that we have disappeared as after the flesh. We have each to learn that in its own proper way, and this takes us a long time. As a matter of fact, you may be sure that you disappeared after the flesh in the eye of God before God ever communicated the Spirit to you. It was really in the death of Christ; but when it comes to the question of what is true as regards our consciousness, it is a long time before we come to that point.
When you do come to it, you are brought into Christian liberty. The Holy Spirit is the witness on God's part to the Christian that he has disappeared after the flesh, but what is true in God's eye is a very different thing from what is true in our eye. God has arrived at the truth from His side, but we have to arrive at it, beloved friends, from our side. I do not think that you get practically free of the flesh until you have first learned what the flesh is; in the same way, you do not get free from sin until you have learnt what sin is; but you would never learn these lessons if God had not given you the Holy Spirit. And when in the goodness of God we have learnt that, as after the flesh and as under judgment, death and the curse, we have disappeared, then we have reached the point where God began.
Now, take the case of the Galatians. They had begun in the Spirit, the apostle takes them up on that ground. They had believed God's testimony, and God had imparted to them the gift of the Spirit, but they had not learnt that they had disappeared from the place of men under the curse. If they had, do you think they would have put themselves afresh under the law? Who would be such a madman as that? The fact is, they had not entered into the truth. The practical working of the truth in the soul is this, that, as regards this scene, I am content to disappear; I have been buried. Our righteousness and acceptance with God belongs to another scene, another world. In this scene of sin, the true path for the Christian is to get out of sight. You were out of sight in God's eye as after the flesh when God communicated to you the gift of the Holy Spirit.
It is a great thing for a saint to know that he is accepted by God apart from works entirely. He has accepted you in regard of a scene which will be according to His pleasure, and when God reveals that scene, His acceptance will come to light. In that day you will have glory with Christ.
I think you will see the importance of understanding this principle which has been verified in Christ, that is, of passing out of sight as under the judgment and curse, and reappearing as the recipients of the Spirit. We have disappeared as in one life, but have reappeared in another. The blessing of Abraham has come on the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
What I have been speaking about hitherto, are "things old" -- the blessing of Abraham, and that side of things. The promise of blessing was first made to Abraham: "In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed", and afterwards confirmed to the seed of Abraham in Genesis 22. The same promise was made: "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be
blessed". This plainly contemplates that which has now been fulfilled here, namely, the blessing of Abraham reaching the Gentiles -- not in Abraham, but in the Seed of Abraham, in Christ Jesus, in view of the promise of the Spirit.
But in the New Testament the truth comes to light that the seed of Abraham was the Son of God, and that brings in the things "new". You could hardly have learnt that in the Old Testament; when we read the Old Testament in the light of the New, we see many things much more clearly. The fact is, I have sometimes thought that one might put the New Testament before the Old, for it is in the light of the New Testament that you understand the Old. The prophets did not understand the prophecies; it is we who understand them. The Old Testament scriptures were not written for the contemporaries. Christianity is the real beginning for God. I quite admit that God had taken a people provisionally, but as to the accomplishment of God's counsels, the beginning was Christ, and the continuation of Christ is Christianity. We have come to the consummation of the ages and the starting-point is at the end of testing. God has set to work to accomplish the counsel of His will.
Now, as I said before, Christ Jesus is not only the Seed of Abraham, but the Son of God. We read in verse 24, "Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are all the children (or sons) of God, by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptised unto Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise". Now, I think this, that the expression "in Christ Jesus" invariably refers to Christ in resurrection.
He is the expression, the revelation, of God's purpose. Christ was always that, but this did not come out fully until He was severed from all connection with man after the flesh. When Christ came forth out of death by the mighty power of God, then it is that you get the full light of God's counsel in man. I think you will see the force of this in connection with the apostle Paul. Paul probably never knew Christ after the flesh. He says, "If even we have known Christ according to flesh, yet now we know him thus no longer". He knew Christ only in glory; Christ appeared to him from heaven, that is the first light which Paul ever got of Christ. And that is the full expression of God's purpose in regard to the church.
Now, I dare say some would say, But does not the expression 'children, or sons of God', occur in the Old Testament? I know it does. Adam was in a sense son of God. 'Son of God' is an expression which is applied to the angels. Israel is called son of God; you will remember God's word to Pharaoh, "Israel is my son, my firstborn". But all these expressions are more or less vague, and you must take each one in its connection. Israel had a special place on earth in relation to God, and God owns it. So, too, the angels are called sons of God. But that does not explain to you the idea of 'sons of God' as brought to light in the New Testament. If you want to know what 'sons of God' means, as we know it in Christianity, you must learn it in Christ Jesus. You get a statement in the next chapter: "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, come of woman, come under law", what for? "That we might receive sonship". God thus made known the counsel of His will. Christ came "that he might redeem those under law, that we might receive sonship". The purpose of His coming was the accomplishment of God's will, and in that way God presents Christ Jesus as Son of God, the pattern of what we
are going to be. Was there anything like Christ until Christ came? A blessed Man, who could declare the Father's name, and was in the consciousness of the Father's love -- that is what Christ was down here. There had been men of faith according to God's heart, but in Christ is seen something totally new -- which never could have been made known until the Lord came from heaven. So Jesus said, "We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen". That was His testimony in this world. When Christ rose again from the dead, a great many things were altered, but His relation to the Father was not altered. Christ was cut off and had nothing, but this could not affect His relation to the Father. He sends, in John 20, the message by Mary to the disciples: "Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God". There was a new platform, and that was association with God's Son: He calls them His brethren in sending that wonderful message. He was the pattern of their place; if they would know what they were in the eye of God, they could learn it alone in Christ risen again from the dead. God "has predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he should be the firstborn among many brethren". Now, what the apostle says to the Galatians is this: "Ye are all God's sons by faith in Christ Jesus". There are a great many things that many Christians do not understand. They do not apprehend how they have disappeared from the eye of God in the cross of Christ; but I can say to the youngest or the most advanced Christian, you are the object of God's counsel, God has His own purpose about you, and that is sonship, and sonship is His gift. You could not become a son of God in any other way except by His gift. "Ye are all God's sons by faith in Christ Jesus", that is, that in Christ Jesus, God has revealed the counsel of His will in regard to us, and that is sonship. Now, mark the greatness of it;
see what the apostle says here, speaking of it: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus". All is on resurrection ground. It is only on that ground that these distinctions after the flesh can be escaped from. Sonship is on resurrection ground, and why? Because Christ is on resurrection ground. He was, as here, the corn of wheat that would have abode alone, but in resurrection there is a new platform on which He is not ashamed to call the saints His brethren. It is on that line that God is working, bringing many sons to glory. You may testify to people in this world what great things God has done for you, and has had mercy on you, but you will have but little real power in this world in God's testimony, except as you are in the light of God's calling. The lack of this is the cause of the great weakness that marks our testimony.
Now, I want to say a word to indicate to you how God is forming you according to His purpose. God puts you first into the relationship, and then gives you the Spirit of it. If you have not got the qualification for the relationship, you are not fit for it. It is the sovereign will of God that puts you in the place, but not only does He put you in that place, but He proceeds to form you for the place. And the beginning of this is, "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us", Romans 5:5. Sonship conveys nothing if it does not mean that I am in the love of God, that is by the Holy Spirit. If you get the sense of the love of God, you will respond to that love, but you can only enter into it as you are taught of God. Do not suppose that you are taught by me; no teaching will really stand except that which is of the anointing, which is of God. The scripture says, "They shall be all taught of God". Christians are divinely taught. You may be helped by the words of one or another, but nevertheless, it is
that which is of the anointing that stands, and the effect of that teaching is that you are assured that God loves you, and you then answer to that love.
Now, that is the value of sonship. Eternal relations are established between God and the Christian, the principle and character of which is, that I am the object of His love, and that I love God; and more than that, I am of a company of which God's own Son is the blessed and eternal Head and Centre. He has taken that place; "I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee", Hebrews 2:12. He leads the praises of the assembly. All praise will be led by Christ; it is most wonderful how this opens out in the Psalms: "In the midst of the congregation will I praise thee", and then, "My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation", and "I will sing unto thee among the nations". My conviction is this, that in the millennium all praise will be led by Christ. I cannot tell the manner of it, but I believe it will be. Every circle will be conscious that Christ praises there, whether it be the great congregation, or the nations. Christ is the centre, because He not only reveals God, but sustains all. The light of God has come to us in Christ, but He has taken the priestly place on man's side. We see Him taking up everything on man's behalf, so that He becomes the leader in every circle.
Now, our calling is sonship. You get this truth substantiated in the beginning of the epistle to the Ephesians. God has predestinated us to sonship to Himself. I would like Christians to be in the blessed reality of God's calling, as to their consciousness of things, and on the line on which the power of God operates. This may not be a mighty display, it is a mighty power. The great power of God is exercised in leading saints into the consciousness of God's love, and in giving them to respond to that love. God may put forth His power in many ways, but that is the line
on which the power of God is operating at this time, to make His love a great reality to the hearts of Christians, so that they may be a worshipping company. "I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them", John 17:26.
Now, I trust you will keep together the things old and new; the blessing of Abraham, and God's call into the place of sonship. Do not put things off to the future. God puts us into the relationship now, and not only that, but He forms us by His divine power, according to the relationship in which He has been pleased to put us.
May He give us to understand something of the greatness of association with Christ!
I think this is a legitimate and important subject of inquiry -- and the more so as by the inquiry we are enabled to apprehend what sin is in principle. It is certain that in the coming of the Son of God into the world, the two great forces that were in conflict were the truth and sin.
Before going further into the subject, it may perhaps be assumed, that truth is, on the one side, the setting forth and expression of what is of God, and therefore in nature divine, and, on the other, the consistency of the creature morally with the position in which God has set it. It is evident that on the latter side only could sin come in, and consequently sin can never be co-extensive with truth.
In Christ we see the perfect realisation of truth. He is the truth. In Him has been fully set forth what is of God in nature and character before men; and at the same time, He has maintained before God, in true moral suitability, every position which as Man He was content to occupy in His presence. He set the Lord always before Him.
Of God, as such, it is said He is true; but not that He is the truth. In the Son is the expression -- He is the Word. Hence it is not difficult to see that Christ is the test of everything.
Now sin in its fullest character and development sets itself to oppose and resist the truth. Had not Christ come and spoken to the Jews, they had not had sin, and the logical conclusion of this resistance of the truth is, that the man of sin takes advantage of the rejection of Christ to show himself as God.
The beginning of sin was, I judge, when the creature turned to itself as an object, and so ceased to have God as such. It departed from God. That is first
seen in the devil, who sins from the beginning, and abode not in the truth. He first became enamoured of his own beauty, and puffed up, and afterwards, as it seems to me, coveted a position that God had given to man (as head and centre of a system) and had not given to an angel. Morally, Satan ceased to be in the truth of the creature. His position he could not change, but was no longer in moral accordance with it.
The same may be said of man. Being tempted, he sought to be as God, knowing good and evil. He, too, became an object to himself; self came in, and sought elevation, and he ceased to be in moral consistency with the position of the creature, though he could not alter that position. He stood not in the truth. The climax, as we have seen, is in the man of sin, the son of perdition. Backed up by Satan and worldly power, he opposes and exalts himself against all that is called God, or worshipped, and sets himself in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. He virtually says there is no God in the heavens, and man on earth is God. He has truly become an object to himself, and would be to others. He has wholly ceased to be in the truth of his position as a creature.
Now sin being such, and working in this way, it is evident that it must ever resist the truth, since in the truth there is the setting forth, not only of what God is in His blessed nature, but of what the creature should be before God. As we have seen, all this is found in Christ, and, in taking away the sin of the world, He Himself comes in as the truth. But this must be gone into a little more in detail.
The Son of God has come forth, become Man, not only full of grace and truth, but Himself the truth. This seems to point to a wholly new order of things in the universe, in that everything, instead of standing on its own footing of responsibility, will be established in and maintained by Christ. The first great step in this is in His having become Man. Though truly God,
and ever expressing here what was of God; yet, having come into the position of the creature, He never ceased to be in moral suitability to the position He had taken. Perfect God-ward, in love, dependence, and confidence, He pleased not Himself. And all this comes out most distinctly in His death. In obedience He laid down a life in which sin had no place, and on which death had no claim; but was in suffering in perfect moral accordance with the character of God, though made sin that He might remove it from before God, and be Himself eternally separated from it, that He might in result take away the sin of the world, so that there might be a new creation in those that had been of the old. Hence we have sin removed, while Christ abides, the truth.
We arrive now at this point, that all is shut up in Christ. In Him alone is the eternal security of blessing -- since in Him, not only is God's nature displayed, but everything, every position in heaven or on earth, is headed up in Him in whom it will be set forth suitably to the character of God who created it.
Hence in the millennium it is not so much man, as Christ, that comes into view. He, so to speak, covers all. All is secured and maintained in Him. He fills all in all. It is of moment to see how everything, law, old covenant, flesh, old creation, the world, have all been brought to an end before God in Christ, and that He remains who is to fill all in all. He is the new starting-point, in whose death the true judgment of God has been expressed in regard to everything, while He Himself, as Man, is the truth, the expression of what is according to God's mind as to everything, be it man, Israel, or what not.
Now Christians are of the truth, having part in the new man, which, after God, is created in righteousness and holiness of truth. This is, of course, looking at them abstractly as in Christ, born of God. In this sense they cannot sin, being the offspring of truth,
and not simply being responsible to abide in the truth; nothing can come from them but what is of the truth.
As to practically abiding in the truth, it is a question of grace, and faith that finds its delights and enjoyments in all that Christ is, so that we are maintained under the power of what is of God and divine, and morally in keeping with it.
The above is but a very bare and brief sketch of the subject, but may be of interest as opening up in measure how completely sin is to be displaced, and how in its place we have, in the coming in of Christ, the expression on the one side of what is divine, and blessed, because it is divine; and on the other, the maintenance and security of every position which God has created; the perfect triumph of truth over all.
1 Corinthians 1:17 - 31
I have read this scripture with the thought of bringing before you something of the great principles of God's ways. These come out clearly and prominently at particular moments, but they were always with God, they were not new. You have to distinguish thus between the particular occasions when certain things come to pass, and the principles which are enunciated in these things. Every promise of God is Yea and Amen in Christ. He is the Yea and the Amen, but the promises of God were in His mind always. The promises of God are scattered in detail over the Word, but they form part of the scheme and principle of promise. God may speak about certain things to Abraham, and about other things to David, but all the things of which God speaks form one whole -- they are not fragments and detached, having no connection. And the scheme of promises was complete when God brought to light the truth of the church. The church, though not a promise, was, in a certain sense, the completion of all; there were no more promises to come out; God has revealed all, and the church is the crowning stone in the edifice of grace.
But it is not my purpose now to go into the promises of God; I only referred to them as to the principles pervading them. There are two great principles expressed in the passage I read, which are of all moment for us to understand; they are the Cross and New Creation. These two principles are testified in Christ. So the apostle lays, in 1 Corinthians 1, a great deal of stress on the preaching of the cross; it was God's wisdom and God's power. And later on you get another thought, "Of him are ye in Christ Jesus". That is the other side of the truth. One side of the
picture is the cross, but the obverse is new creation in Christ. "Of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption; that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord". You are not to glory in man, because the cross has disposed of man, as we shall see presently, but you are to glory in the Lord because you are of Him.
I want to speak a little about the cross as the power of God and the wisdom of God, to show what it was in the purpose of God to effect by the cross, and more than that, what God has effected by the cross. I do not mean exactly in the way of the salvation of souls, but as the public testimony of God in the world. Its power is greatly hindered at the present time by the state of Christendom; the enemy has come in to thwart the testimony -- and he has succeeded only too well -- by corrupting Christianity. It is, however, important to see what it was in the purpose of God to overturn by the testimony of the cross. Anyone acquainted with the history of the world knows very well that Judaism on the one hand, and philosophy on the other, were both overturned by the testimony of the cross. It was light expelling darkness. It was in the purpose of God to do this. No doubt they have reared their heads again, but that is because the enemy has succeeded in corrupting Christianity. As long as the testimony of the cross was maintained here according to God, it effected what God intended it should effect; it overturned every pretension to light that existed, and God intended that it should do so.
The thought of the "power of God" in this chapter is that of a sign of God's intervention. The Jew looked for a sign, and the Greek sought after wisdom. The Jew demanded a sign; it was so when the Lord was here, they asked for a sign. I suppose they thought themselves entitled to it; one would judge so from their language. A sign was the evidence of
divine intervention, like the manna in the wilderness. On the other hand, the Greeks sought after wisdom. The force of the word 'wisdom' I understand to be resource; that is, I think, the prominent idea in Scripture in the thought of divine wisdom. Now the point is this, that the cross was both the power and the wisdom of God. It was the sign of God's intervention, and, on the other hand, it was the resource of God, and why? Because it was the divine means of saving souls. The power of God in the cross was to subdue man, and the wisdom of God was to enlighten man; that is, that man was to be enlightened by what came out in the cross. The cross was thus the resource of God.
Now, there are two aspects of the truth of the cross; there is the divine and the human side. I am not now speaking of the hand that wicked men had in it, but of what the cross was according to the thought of God. I am regarding it as being wholly of God. Christ was crucified by wicked men, but it was not the work of wicked men that accomplished redemption. The cross was the divine way of accomplishing redemption. The passage I read does not refer to the work of wicked men at all. Peter, when preaching on the day of Pentecost, spoke of the part that wicked men had in the death of Christ, and you can understand this, for the Jews to whom he spoke had crucified Christ, and Peter was seeking to reach their conscience. But the apostle Paul looks at the cross as entirely the work of God.
Now, as to the two aspects I spoke of, I think one is the human side, and the other the divine. One side was the demonstration of what man was as before God. In the ways of God it was ordered that there should be such a demonstration. Christ entered into man's place. Even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that was not a question of wicked men, but of divine necessity. It was necessary, for the glory of God,
that there should be a demonstration before God of the true position of man. In the cross, an expression which you get in the law, was fully exemplified: "Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree". The curse had to do with a broken law. The effect of the law on man was that he came under the curse, though he was under death before. The law was the ministration of death, God never intended that the people were to have life by the law. No law was given able to quicken. The law said, "This do and thou shalt live", but in the divine mind the law was the ministry of condemnation and of death, and death and the condemnation must have been there to be ministered. But the law added this, that those who were under it and did not continue in all things written in the book of the law, came under the curse. Now, Christ was made a curse in the eye of God that there should be a demonstration of the true place of man as before God. We pass over things very lightly and never really understand what we are in the sight of God except as we apprehend it in the cross of Christ. That was our merit, our desert. My own feeling about it is that, in order to apprehend what my true place is before God, I need to learn what the cross was.
Now, there is another side to the cross that we can dwell upon -- a very much more blessed side. The cross was the foolishness and weakness of God, at all events in the eye of man. But "unto us which are saved it is the power of God". The fact is, that the incarnation of the Son of God enabled God to come in testimony into death itself, that He might reveal Himself to man. It may seem a strange thing to speak of God coming into death, but that is the real testimony of the death of Christ. He did not come into it as God, but became man in order that, in the way of testimony, God might come into death. The cross was thus the wisdom of God and the power of God, for it is the unmistakable sign of God's intervention
on man's behalf. I dare say you remember that when God confirmed to Abraham the promise that he should inherit the land, Abraham took certain animals and cut them in twain, and at dark a burning lamp and a smoking furnace passed between the pieces. God came thus figuratively in testimony into death to give a confirmation of the covenant. It is a point worth pondering over. Considering what man is, I do not think that he can learn anything at all about God except in the death of Christ. The first lesson that God imprints on man in regard to Himself is that of righteousness -- for His purpose is to lay in man's soul a moral foundation. Nothing can be more perfect and beautiful than the work of God in man. He makes it evident to man at the outset that sin is intolerable to Himself and that nothing can set aside God's judgment of death. It is impossible. Man's judgment may be set aside; in human things, the prerogative of mercy belongs to the queen, but it is impossible that God's judgment can be set aside. The righteousness of God is inflexible, and if it were not, you would not absolutely and implicitly trust God. It is the very sense that the righteousness of God is perfect and unalterable which really enables me to trust God. But He has proved this in His Son bearing the judgment which was upon us; the death of Christ is thus the witness of God's righteousness. It proves both that sin is intolerable to God, and that God's judgment cannot be set aside, but has been met by One competent to meet it on behalf of man. "There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave himself a ransom for all".
Now I take another point. Where do you learn the love of God? As we have seen, in the death of Christ. God came down into death, in the way of testimony. Surely the Son of God, who died, had part in divine love. I am quite alive to the fact of His having become Man. There was the setting forth before God in the
cross of what man's state and place were, but at the same time, in that same cross we get the blessed testimony not simply of righteousness, but of God's love. The death of Christ would scarcely have been a commendation of the love of God if the One who died had not part in that love. And therefore, you can understand that the cross is the wisdom of God; it shows the resource that was with God -- the means by which God could reveal Himself in love to man and yet at the same time maintain the inflexibility of His own judgment.
But there is still another thought in connection with the truth that the cross is the power of God: it is the sign, the mark, of God's intervention on man's behalf. The first sign that God gave in Christ was in the Babe. The Babe was the sign of God's intervention on man's behalf; the Son of God came into the place of the weakness of man, and that was the sign of God's intervention on man's behalf. There was no help for man in the strength of flesh. You get the sign again spoken of in John 6. Christ was the living bread come down from heaven, the blessed expression, in humiliation, of the grace of God to man; the humiliation was morally suitable to the grace. The people wondered at the words of grace which proceeded out of His mouth; they were food for man. Jesus "went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him". Such was the pathway of service of the Lord here on earth. But the cross was the greatest sign of all. In it God in testimony came into the place of judgment. Man must go, but the love of God abides. The cross is not only the wisdom of God, but it is the power of God. There is nothing like the cross; it is really God coming in testimony into the very place of man's judgment, to make manifest beyond all question His thoughts of love. The mighty power of God could not have come in except death had been there to God's glory. In the
resurrection of Christ, the One who was raised had part in the power that raised Him; there could be no attribute of God expressed in the death and resurrection of Christ, in which the Lord Himself had not part as a divine Person, though Himself proving experimentally what those attributes were. You cannot deny His righteousness or His love. The incarnation could not alter that. The effect of all is this, that when the wisdom of God operates in souls, it teaches men, just as the power of God subdues men. There is more instruction in the cross than you and I will ever take in.
Now, I want to say a few words as to the purpose of God. This was, by the testimony of the cross, to overturn every pretension to light that existed; that is, on the one hand Judaism, and on the other hand heathenism. The heathen were at the time of the gospel dreadfully debased, but religious pretension, and the pretension to wisdom, were found in Judaism and philosophy. The Jews demanded a sign, and the Greeks sought after wisdom, and it was the purpose of God to bring both to nought by the testimony of the cross, and this was done. I do not doubt that if Christianity had not been corrupted by the artifices of the enemy, the effect of the preaching of the cross would have been far greater even than it was. In our day, the principles which God intended to overturn by the testimony of the cross, have reappeared in the name and under the guise of Christianity. The great evil of the day is in the accommodation of Christianity to Judaism and philosophy. They have reared their heads in the midst of Christendom, and the power of the testimony has been greatly neutralised. The point for us is to get back to the cross. It is God's testimony as to Himself on the one hand, and as to man's state before God on the other. We see in it the revelation of God in the very place of man's judgment. What a wonderful exchange the believer makes, in his thoughts, by the cross; he exchanges himself for God, he gets
the light of God's revelation in place of himself that was under the curse. Instead of seeking to improve himself, or vainly imagining that there is some fountain of goodness in himself, he is in the light of God's goodness. God, in His grace, has given him an appreciation of Himself. Nobody has this naturally, but the Christian has it through the light of God having shone into his heart.
I add a word or two as to the closing part of the chapter, just to present the other side of the truth. God's ways were so ordered that no flesh should glory in His presence, but then, in the last two verses, we have the truth that we are of a new stock, of which God is the source: "Of him are ye in Christ Jesus". It is of all moment that the Christian should take account of himself as being of another stock. If Scripture speaks about what is of God in Christ Jesus, it evidently refers to Christ Jesus risen, and He is the source and spring of the Christian; you are of God. I suppose it may be spoken of as new creation, and He (Christ) is made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. It is difficult for a Christian to take account of himself as being of another order, because the order of Adam and the order of Christ do not correspond. When Christ became Man, He came into the order and place of the first man, but, raised again from the dead, He is eternally separated from that order, and is the Head, the Beginning, of a new order. It is most important to take into account, in our minds, what we are in Christ Jesus as outside of what we are in the flesh. In the flesh, there are many things which pertain to us which can have no connection with what is in Christ Jesus, such as natural relationships, and the like. In Christ Jesus there is not the distinction of male or female, on which relationships down here are founded. All is very different from that of which you have experience. But what we are in Christ Jesus takes
precedence of what we are in the flesh, and therefore it has to be more important in our eyes. We often fail there, and put what we are in the flesh first, and what we are in Christ second. But to put it in the language of Scripture, we have to "put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, ... and ... put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness". That is what is to rule in my ways and conduct down here. Paul says to the Galatians, "In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God". When I talk of Christ Jesus, it brings before me at once the thought of a new order, and so of a new system of relationships. There is a system of relationships connected with man as God made him, and there is also a system of relationships connected with Christ Jesus, and these relationships, with the Christian, take precedence of the relationships after the flesh. The Christian has to take account of himself as of God in Christ Jesus.
Then the apostle goes on to say, "Who has been made to us wisdom from God". The object of that is to render us independent of man and man's pretension to wisdom. We know the resources of God in Christ Jesus. But He is also made unto us righteousness; Christ is our righteousness. He is further made unto us sanctification. How is sanctification to be effected? It is as you are conscious of being in Christ, and grow in grace. You have not sanctification as a matter of faith; such an idea is a great mistake. Christ is sanctification to us, that is, as having Him for an object. Then follows the closing word, that He is made redemption to us. All culminates in redemption. The force of the passage is to make nothing of us, and at the same time to make us independent of all the
pretension of man. The Spirit of God presses home these things, the testimony of God on the one hand, and on the other hand His work in us. We stand in a new order, and in that order Christ is everything. How far is that verified in you and me? We turn, I fear, to a great many things. Reading is sometimes a great snare to Christians; they read all sorts of things, and the things which they read are to a large extent the creation of man's imagination. I do not think such reading profits. If you want wisdom, Christ is God's wisdom, the One by whom God is going to accomplish everything for His own eternal glory. He is wisdom to the Christian, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, objectively.
Matthew 16:13 - 20
It is a great thing for us to know who the Person is to whom we have come. He has said, "come unto me". He came and presented Himself to the Jews, and had they received Him, all the blessing would have gone out from the midst of Israel, as Elisha said of Naaman, "let him come now to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel", but they rejected Him, and He accepts the rejection from His Father's hand. "No man knoweth the Son, but the Father". The Father well knew whose hands He was putting everything into: the Son who was ever in His bosom knew well what was in His heart, and is the One to make it known to us, all was in the hands of the Son. It is not now, 'come to Israel' as a fountain of blessing, but "come unto me", He is the bright gathering point now, not Jerusalem or this or that place, but Christ. Now He wants us to know who we have come to, and what is founded upon that. In chapter 12 He is thoroughly rejected. They attribute what He did to the devil, and then when His mother and His brethren come, He disowns the natural link, and stretches forth His hand to His disciples. A beautiful thing to see Him saying to us, Those are the ones I own, those who have come to Me; the same is my brother and sister and mother.
In chapter 13 the Lord is sowing a new seed in order to get a people for Himself. The parables in this chapter furnish a picture of the mystery of the kingdom. The word produces an outward aspect of things; that is what man's eye is upon, but the Lord's eye is upon the treasure. He says, I have a treasure down there in that field; to Him it is the pearl of great price. And that sets us thoroughly in the company
of the Lord; He is very dear to me, but I have learned another thing, that I am very dear to Him. Any poor sinner says -- He is dear to me, see what He has done for me, but do we know that we are dear to Him? In chapter 14 Christ's forerunner is killed. In a figure it points on to the last days, but it is the power of the world against Christ. We are not going to suppose we are to have an easy time in this world; the One precious to me is cast out, which makes this world a wilderness. The disciples come in the evening and say, 'this is a desert place', we have found that out; the Lord is rejected, all the power of the world dead against Him and we find we are in a desert place. But if the blessed One we have come to is there in the desert, we are sure to be fed, there is enough for us all, and there is not one the Lord cannot feed. We may say, 'There is very little, Lord', but the Lord was there. Do we know what it is to be in His company? The Lord is gone away on high, and they are crossing all the stormy waters of this world and apparently they are alone. But His eye sees them, and in the fourth watch of the night He goes to them. Now I learn, not merely that if it is a desert place He can feed me, but whatever the waves, He is above them. He does not make a calm here, but He shows there is a power He has which is above them all. He walks on the top, and I learn this fresh thing about that blessed Saviour. They were troubled till the word reached their ear: "it is I". Do you know who it is? Peter answered Him; the Lord wants an answer. "Lord, if it be thou" -- not, I would like you to give me that power, or, Will you still the water, but "bid me come to thee"; I would like to come to you. Another point He brings us to. I feel He can meet all my needs, but He presents Himself in this power of walking on the waters, and He wants this answer from our hearts. Peter had very little faith, but still he did actually walk on the water to go to
Jesus. He presents Himself in the same way in Revelation 22 at the end of all the storm, "I Jesus". He draws our hearts. He says, "It is I" -- now where is the answer? Like the virgins, I go out to meet the Bridegroom.
In chapter 15 religiousness is what we have to meet -- the scribes and Pharisees, and at Jerusalem the religious place; and the Lord exposes the whole of their formality and brings out at the end that "every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up", the distinction between all this religiousness and the true work of God.
Verse 21. We get the transition from the Scribes and Pharisees of Jerusalem to the most cursed race upon earth. The Lord departed from Jerusalem and goes to the coast of Tyre and Sidon, and a woman of Canaan comes to Him, first with a kind of claim, saying, "Son of David", but she was not one of David's people at all. Then she pleads in a certain sense her wants, "Lord, help me", a piteous cry, but no -- He does not answer to either, "it is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it to dogs". Then she says, "Truth, Lord", she takes the place of a dog, and then she gets the greatest answer anyone ever got, "Be it unto thee even as thou wilt". If you take the ground of debtor to mercy alone, you may have anything you desire. I have no claim, I get on the ground of sovereign mercy, and then there is nothing He won't give, a full overflowing of goodness to the worst of sinners.
Verse 32. There is a difference between this and the other case of feeding the multitude. We learn that the Lord is always the same. Jesus never could be anything but what He was. All the rejection, all the failure cannot alter Him, and this is a great comfort, for if we look at all the wonderful provision of grace the Lord gave at the beginning we may say it has all
failed; but if there have been eighteen hundred years of failure we can say the Lord is always the same. The twelve baskets signify the perfect order of administration. He gave all the gifts when the church was set up; it is very different now, but here they gather seven baskets full, a figure of spiritual perfection. Though we have not all the vessels of ministry, the servants of God, we can never say we have not the power of the Spirit of God to reveal Christ to us. We have no apostles and prophets, but there is the spiritual power and energy which the Lord can use to feed His people when we have not all the gifts. Now we see what a Saviour we have! In Jonah we have the Jew sent to the Gentile to bring the message of God, as the Jews ought to have done, but he gave it up, and fell into the judgment of God. The Lord points to the sky and says, You can tell Me all about the clouds, but do you not see your own sinful wretched condition ready for the judgment of God like Jonah? But that is where the church begins, we are on the other side of judgment. The Lord left them and departed -- nothing more solemn. In chapter 16 they had no bread, not even five loaves here, no resource whatever. The Lord says, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees". We always think if we have nothing to give Him He is chiding us. Ah! I have everything in Him, He is everything. He, as it were, says, Have you not Me, do you not remember the five loaves and the five thousand -- and then they saw it was the leaven of the Pharisees He spoke of, hypocrisy. There is no sin in poverty, the sin is in pretending to be rich when I have not a penny; the Pharisees had nothing but pretension to be something, but when I come to Christ I not only have everything from Him but everything in Him. Then He turns round and says: 'who do you think I am?' I could never know the deep mystery of His Person, not that He is a blessed Man, a prophet, one who can
walk on the waters, but the Son of the living God, except as taught of the Father.
We get here another thing: all we have had hitherto is in this world, but now we have something right outside this world. He has triumphed over death and He is building an assembly, outside of it all, against which the gates of death shall not prevail. Flesh and blood never taught Peter that He was the Son of the living God in perfect power over death. Now you see what the church is. I plant you on the rock of the confession of My own Person. I have been teaching you by your wants, and now you have this revelation of what My Person is. Verse 17: the Father reveals this to Peter. Verse 18: Christ says, Now I will say something to you; I will tell you, Peter, who you are, a stone; Christ the Rock, Peter a stone -- part of Myself, not only in My company and learning who I am, but I give you a name that tells you, you are part of Myself (Petra, a rock -- Petros, a stone), a bit of the rock. "He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one". Now we see how the church is formed. In paradise Eve was formed from Adam, and he calls her, "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh". Christ communicates to the believer His own life; the life that the believer has is all Christ. Christ his righteousness -- everything. He calls him first by his name after the flesh -- "Simon", but now he has another name which signifies that he was part of Christ. Now we see what the church is, members of His body. We get the judgment of flesh in the Jew (religion). Judaism showed that the flesh could not bring forth anything for God, the cup and platter might be clean outside but corruption was within. Then the poor cursed woman comes and He gives her everything. Is the church out of reach of death?
There is no necessity that we should die; we have a life that belongs to heaven, and if the Lord were to come we should not die. As the Holy Spirit forms
Christ in us we have the life that belongs to heaven. We know that the Lord had to die; that does not come in here, but to lay the foundation He must die; "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone". He must clear me as a responsible man out of judgment and death, but He could not be holden of it, and now He unites us to Himself by the Holy Spirit. In His death He ends our state as children of Adam to give us life in Himself the other side of death. We have a life in having Christ, that belongs to another region and order of things altogether. One thing more, He charges them that they should not tell anyone He was the Christ, and begins to tell them that He must go to Jerusalem, that the earthly religion would put Him to death, and, "if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross". After showing what His own Person is, He begins to open out that it must be the pathway of rejection and suffering down here. Man no more likes heavenly and unseen things now than he did in the Lord's day. How far we are able to tread that path is just how far we have apprehended the Christ we believe. He brings us to a place where we have nothing but Him, as in the boat with no bread, and then His fulness shines out on our souls and we feel well, we have got something now in having Him; brought to the end of self altogether. It is not knowing all the doctrine of the church and the right way of meeting, but if I am to be in the power of the thing I must know Him in this way. We might gather together and read and get blessed truths, and yet have nothing really, unless we get it with Him. We often read a passage and find but little in it, and another time if lowly and dependent the Lord lets His light shine in on it, and gives us what we never had before.
2 Corinthians 1:17 - 24
The passage which I have read is a remarkable one, and arises out of a charge which apparently had been made against the apostle Paul, from which he vindicates himself. I think it is evident that the charge of lightness, and want of steadfastness of purpose, had been brought against the apostle by the Corinthians, or, at all events, by some amongst them. The general state of an assembly is one thing, but there may be influences at work in an assembly, as at Corinth, sufficient to cause anxiety in regard to the assembly. They had taken occasion at Corinth of the apostle not having come at the time he intended, to bring against him this charge of want of fixity of purpose. The passage which I read is short, but the way in which the apostle deals with the matter is remarkable, and brings before us the fact that the apostle's ways were governed by the testimony committed to him. And so he vindicates himself by bringing before their minds this testimony and its proof of the stability of God's promises. A person is influenced by his knowledge of God; the knowledge which he enjoys of God, and the assurance of the firmness and stability of what is of God, is that by which he is affected, and his ways take their character from this.
Now that comes out in the passage before us. The apostle might have spent chapters in attempting to vindicate himself otherwise, but all the vindication on which he ventures in regard to himself is contained in two or three verses. If the apostle's ways were not in accordance with the knowledge he had of God, he was not worth much. And so it is in regard of us.
There are two parts in the passage. The first three verses, that is eighteen to twenty, speak of what may be described as God's side, and the succeeding verses, that is twenty-one and twenty-two, of our side. The apostle begins by saying: "As God is true, our word toward you was not yea and nay". Whatever there might have appeared to be in the apostle's ways, there had been no uncertainty about his word -- that is evident. "For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea. For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him amen, unto the glory of God by us". Evidently, the passage so far speaks of things on the divine side, that is, of the confirmation and establishment of every promise of God in Christ, with a special object, that is, "for glory to God by us". That is one side. Then you get our side. It adds: "Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts". The passage describes the way in which God has wrought in order that His glory might come out in us. In speaking of glory to God by us, I do not think that the apostle refers to the future, but to the present. God has contemplated that at the present moment there should be glory to Himself by us, and I believe that just in proportion as our souls are in the full light of the Son of God, and of what God has brought to pass in Him, so there will be glory to God by us. That is what God intended in the church down here. It is difficult to take these things in, in the present day, on account of the state of the professing church. Everything is so marred, so poor and weak, that it is hard to enter into the divine thought, and for the reason that you do not see the representation of that in which God's glory was to be expressed.
By way of introduction, I want to bring before you the distinction between the testimony of Peter and that
of Paul. The testimony of Peter was to an exalted Christ. That was the great power of Peter's testimony. On the other hand, the great subject of Paul's testimony was that Jesus is the Son of God. I think you have to appreciate the difference between these two witnesses in order to enter into the force of the passage we have before us. Peter and John had known Christ after the flesh, as Messiah born into this world according to promise, the Seed of Abraham and the Seed of David, the Prophet like unto Moses. I do not say but that they had more light; but when they came into the place of testimony in the power of the Holy Spirit, the burden of their testimony was that Christ was exalted. He had suffered at the hands of men, He had been crucified and put to death, but it had been by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. But now God had highly exalted Him, and the presence and power of the Holy Spirit was the occasion and confirmation of the apostles' word. I think everybody will recall the burden of their testimony: "Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear". The thought was of Christ having gone to the right hand of God. If you take this up in connection with the Psalms, you will see the force of it in a moment. In Psalm 2 we have the Messiah born into the world, the Son of God begotten in time, and in Psalm 110 David's Lord is exalted to the right hand of God. "Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool". You get the history of Christ in the Psalms, and Peter and John took up the testimony according to them. They witnessed what they knew. They had been associated with the Lord down here, and were witnesses to His death and resurrection; and now the Holy Spirit had come down as the proof of His being exalted to the right hand of God, and that was the burden of their testimony. "God hath made that same
Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ".
Paul's testimony is somewhat different. The point of it is that Christ is the Son of God. This brings before us, not that He had gone to God, but that He came from God. Paul was the first to bring that out. You get it amplified in the writings of John, but it had no part in the public testimony of Peter and John, so far as that is recorded. It waited for a special instrument to be raised up, and that was Paul. The very thought of the Son of God was of One who came from God. In confirmation of what I have said, I quote a passage in Galatians: "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law". We have here the thought of the sending forth. Now, if the Son of God comes forth, the point of His coming is to make God known to us. And further, in grace the Son of God came into the place and estate in which man was in regard of God. He was made sin, and became a curse; entering, too, into death. The purpose of it was that He might bring into death the light of God. He actually anticipated, so to say, everything which is upon man, and brought into death the full light of God. And the result of that is, that instead of our having to enter into all that which is upon us in its terrible reality, the revelation of God is light and life to our souls. That is what we see has come to pass in the Son of God. He brought the light of God into the place of our distance. I could not give you a greater proof of the grace of God. I think it is of all moment to see that the full light of God has come out in the death of Christ. It did not come out fully in the life of Christ. I quite admit that God was manifested in the flesh. There was abundant testimony in all the ways and words of Christ down here of who He was and who had sent Him; but it is in the death of Christ that you get the full revelation of God to us in regard of that which lay on us. God took
occasion of man's place under death and the curse of a broken law to make Himself known to us in the fulness of His love. The Lord speaks of this in John 3:14 - 16. You see there that the object of the Son of man being lifted up was to make room for the full light of God to come out in love. "God so loved the world". It is in the death of Christ that we learn really the nature of God. "God is love", and "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us". That is Paul's testimony. I would that everybody here might really know the full extent of the grace of God in presenting Himself to us in the Person of His Son in regard of all that which lay upon us -- the curse, and death, and judgment -- presenting Himself to us there in order that we, instead of entering into the reality of these things, might have the light of God as the life of our souls. And the application of that principle is very wide. It refers to every family, for the revelation of God will be, in greater or less degree, the life of their souls; only I would ask you just to bear in mind that you must not confound the revelation of God with man's ability, even divinely given, to enter into that revelation. Man may have more or less ability, by the grace of God, to enter into that revelation, but the revelation of God in the death of Christ stands good for all. It is a truth of universal application. I think it is in that sense that the Lord gave the commission to the apostles in the last chapter of Matthew, to baptise to the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. The revelation was good for all, for ourselves, and for Israel, and for the nations, but there may be a great deal of difference, in different families, in the power to enter into the greatness of the revelation, but, anyway, the revelation is the light of souls in every family. For instance, the way in which God presents Himself to Israel in the new covenant will be their light: "All shall know me,
from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more". It is a beautiful passage, and is prefaced by, "They shall not teach every man his neighbour and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord". Every soul will have the light of the knowledge of God, and that knowledge will be practically the life of their souls. They will have life in that light. And thus it is in regard of ourselves -- our privilege is to live in the light in which it has pleased God to reveal Himself to us, that is, in the light of His love. The office of the Holy Spirit in the believer is to shed abroad in his heart the love of God, and the Holy Spirit maintains your heart in that light, and that light becomes formative in the soul. The Holy Spirit works on that line, to bring my soul under the influence of the love of God. When it is a question of the revelation of God, it is difficult to distinguish between light and love, because the light is the love. The love of God has come to you as light, that is how we learn what God is, and this is not when we are with God in heaven, for God has already shone out in light. You may depend upon it as the truth, that the light of God is in us the formative principle, and the work of the Holy Spirit in your heart and mine is to bring our affections under the influence of love, that we may be formed for God. How do you think you are going to be holy and without blame before God in love? I judge by the Spirit of God bringing your soul under the influence of what God is; God is holy and without blame, in that sense, in love, and the Holy Spirit works to bring our hearts under the influence of what God is.
We come now to another point. "The Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, ... was not yea and nay, but in him was yea. For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him amen, unto the glory of God by us".
That is the point from which God has started in regard to man. There is the assurance that every man will take his character from Christ. Christ is the Head of every man. It is in the Son of God that God can secure man for Himself, and He has secured man for Himself, for it is in the power of God to affect man's heart by the revelation of Himself. That is how God works so as to secure man for Himself. God has gained the victory, and for the reason that He can affect and influence the heart of man by the light in which He has been pleased to shine out. Without the work of the Spirit in your heart, that could not possibly be the case; but if you look at things as to God's outward dealings here, He affects and influences the heart of man by the light in which He has been pleased to shine forth in His Son. I fear that a great many Christians go on for many a year without coming under the formative influence of the revelation. They believe the revelation, they know their sins are forgiven, and have peace with God, but their souls do not get enlarged and expanded by the light of God, or they would, I think, be very different from what they are.
But there is another point connected with the Son of God, namely, that every promise is now established in Him. The promises of God had relation to man, whatever they were. They regarded man, and therefore, in order that these promises might be effectual, they needed to be centred at a point from which God could affect and subdue man, for it was impossible that God's promises could be brought to pass if it were not in God's power to affect man according to Himself; but that is what God has proved His power and ability to do; it is in the Son of God that all the promises of God are yea and Amen. If you look for a moment at these promises, they related both to Jew and Gentile. The great promise to Abraham, "In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed", had relation to the Gentile as well as to the Jew, and so,
many other passages in the Old Testament relate to the Gentile. There are ample promises to the Jew, and at the same time rich promises for the Gentile. Christ is to be the "Head of the heathen: a people whom I have not known shall serve me". There are abundant promises for the Gentiles, in Christ. The great promise to Abraham was connected with blessing, but we have also foreshadowed the complete victory over the power of evil -- the head of the serpent was to be bruised; then there is, too, the promise of the new covenant -- man was to be morally a reflex of God; and when that came to pass, God would dwell among men. And we have also the purpose of God to reign. God Himself was going to take the kingdom. God had the kingdom, in a sense, when David reigned in Jerusalem. Then, when the line of David became completely unfaithful, and God had to break with them, power was put for the time into the hands of the Gentiles, and we have the times of the Gentiles. But we see in the Old Testament the purpose of God Himself to take up the throne; Jehovah would reign. The kingdoms of this world are to become the kingdom of our God, and of His Christ. Now, these promises refer to man, whether it is the bruising of the head of the serpent, or the blessing of all nations in Abraham. Every promise involves the blessing of man. But then, the promises could not, as I have said, be established until there was a point from which God would affect man. Now there is such a point, that is, the Son of God, in whom is revealed God's love, and every promise of God is held in Him to God's glory. That is the light into which we have come -- the light of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ, where every promise of God is established and firm, because from that point God can make man willing in the day of His power. That is what will come to pass in the case of Israel, and that is what God has done in regard of us. And now, in regard of the promises of God, in the
Son of God is the yea and the Amen, for glory to God by us, because the light of the Son of God can affect man.
And now, I just say a few words as to how we are affected. It is important to see that side of it, if these promises are to be to the glory of God by us. "Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God: who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts". The first expression that you get there is a little difficult to interpret. My impression is this, that it means attaching us firmly unto Christ. That is the work of God, and I think that work of God, as I understand it, is carried on in the hearts of the saints. God is the One who does it. The way in which it is wrought is this, that God gives Christ such a place in the hearts of the saints, as that He attaches us firmly to Him; He dwells by faith in the heart. Then, God has anointed us. He has given us intelligence in the power of the Holy Spirit, a spiritual intelligence of things. I think I can give you an interpretation of it. Look at the apostle's prayer, in Ephesians 3"For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom every family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love" -- just notice how all the Godhead is brought into the passage: the Father strengthens you with might by His Spirit in the inner man, that the Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith -- "that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend" (that is the effect of the anointing) "with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ" (that is, that your hearts may be firmly attached to Christ) "which
passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled with all the fulness of God". I think any one can very well understand that if Christ dwells in the heart by faith, your heart is firmly attached to Him; He rules in your heart. And then, you have intelligence, you are anointed, and can enter into the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, that is, into the whole range and extent of divine promises. You grasp the entire system, for all the promises of God form one grand system. The idea is not that there are a number of promises having little or no connection with each other, but that they form one grand system, of which the church is the crowning stone. All the promises of God in Christ are yea, and in Christ the amen, for glory to God by us -- that is, by the assembly. The assembly is the witness of them now, and the glory of God is expressed in the assembly, because the assembly has, and gives, the sense of the stability of all God's promises in the One who is the Yea and Amen.
Then, God has also sealed us. The seal is the mark which God has put upon us, and that is the Spirit. It is the expression, the evidence, that we are genuinely God's property. He has His mark upon us. We get the consciousness by the Spirit that we are not our own, but God's property. And more than that, He has given us the earnest of the Spirit; His Spirit is the Earnest of the inheritance and of glory in our souls. That is what God has effected on our side. What He has effected on His own side is in order that He might subdue the hearts of men by the revelation of Himself. What a wonderful company we should be if we were here in the full sense of the certainty and fixity of everything which God has promised, if our souls had power to take up the whole range of those promises! How conscious we should be of blessing if we saw the beauty of that system, everything established in the Son of God, and we firmly attached to Christ; anointed, that we might have intelligence as to the
knowledge of God; sealed, as the property of God; and having the earnest of the Spirit until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of His glory.
Now, I think you will admit that the passage is a very profound one. It consists of only two or three verses, but it is pregnant with profound meaning. It would be a great study for a young Christian to apprehend the promises of God as one complete whole. They lie about in Scripture, but they form one whole. God could not reveal them all together; He revealed them in part here and there; but now it is our privilege to see the completeness and perfection of the whole, established and firm in the Son of God.
It has been said, beloved friends, that in the first epistle of John a great point is fellowship, and hence it is that we have what is hardly alluded to in John's gospel -- the cleansing of sins by the blood of Jesus Christ. But what I wanted to dwell upon is what is unfolded in this chapter, namely, the way in which divine love is connected with us in all our history here; first as sinners, then as saints, and finally in respect of the day of judgment.
And here I may remark that in 1 John 4 the great point as regards the soul is knowledge, he that loves is born of God, and knows God. And knowledge, rightly understood, is an all-important element of the blessing that is peculiar to us as Christians. The shape that our blessing takes practically is knowledge, as we see in John 17:3.
The chapter before us supposes an ability to know which lies in the possession of a kindred nature, and hence we have unfolded here the whole economy of divine love in its application to us. The passage is plain enough. It is not here the question of relief, but of putting us in line with the wonderful way in which the love of God connects itself with the course of a Christian all along to the end, until all responsibility is over, and God will rest in His love. The line that John takes is to connect the love of God with the believer down here. He does not see him set in heavenly places; but he is not of the world, and is in the enjoyment of heavenly things. Some have said that John does not speak of heaven. Anyway he unfolds more distinctly than anyone what is essentially heavenly, and at the same time he gives us the moral judgment of the world. He tells the young men that
all that is in the world is not of the Father, and gives them the means of forming a moral estimate of what is in the world; and the things which we have judged we are freed from the power of. If a man is not free of a thing it proves that he has never really judged it.
But to return to our chapter: we see how love connects itself with us all the way through. Knowledge, as I said before, is an essential element of Christian blessing. It is the form which eternal life takes in regard to us -- to know the Father, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, His sent one. But then it is love that knows love; and the man that does not love does not know God, for God is love. We see the character of the knowledge in John 10:14, 15, where Jesus says, "I know my sheep, and am known of mine; as the Father knows me, and I also know the Father". It all lies in the new being, in what we are as quickened of the Son. Apart from this the knowledge could not be, however fully God might be revealed.
There are two principal elements in our blessing; namely, the relationship which we have in chapter 3 and the knowledge in chapter 4. The relationship peculiar to John is that of children of God unknown of the world, partners of Christ's rejection. The relationship of sons refers more to association with Christ in glory.
But now as to knowledge. In verse 7 we have, "He that loveth is born of God", and, the apostle adds, "knows God". Then immediately the love of God, in its application to us, is unfolded. It is long before we really come to the acceptance of the great truth that we love God because He first loved us. We are so much hindered by thoughts of self, and what we are for God, that we are little able to look at the love of God in itself. First, we see the love in its application to us as sinners -- when there was total insensibility as to God and His goodness. Then it was that He, of
His love, sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. And not only so, but the apostle adds, "herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins". Though spiritually there was total insensibility in our souls to God, there was at the same time responsibility, for we had consciences; and God sent His Son to meet the whole case, both as to our state and our sins.
The next point is the love that is toward us as saints. "We have known and believed the love that God has to us". Here it is love to us not as sinners, but as saints in our pathway here. The apostle had just said, "We have seen and bear witness that the Father sent the Son as Saviour of the world". Saints are viewed as being in this blessed circle, and the secrets of divine grace come out and enlarge the heart. "God is love; and he that abides in love abides in God, and God in him". I have thought that the Son by coming here, not only brought divine affections here -- for He was their object, and they rested on Him as man -- but He left them here; for He left objects of them, and hence the affections remained, resting on those who were loved with the love with which He was loved as a Man here. It was indeed a small beginning, but what great things have come out of it! The Son brought here the greatest thing he could bring -- the Father's love; and He left it here, while never Himself ceasing to be the supreme object of it.
And now, finally, we have love made perfect with us in regard to the day of judgment -- that which closes for ever the chapter of our responsibility. And here it is "that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; for as he is, so are we in this world". The object is that we may be without fear; for fear hath torment. The thought of the judgment-seat might bring some sense of fear, and that is met by the truth that as He
who is Judge is, so are we in this world. We are in the acceptance and favour already in which the One is who is Himself Judge. Every bit of fear has to be dispelled from the heart of saints; they are to be made perfect in love. And when we have reached this, it is then we are free to recognise that we love Him because He first loved us.
There are, in the passage before us, two principles taken up from the type of Moses bringing down the tables of the law: the first is writing, and the second is glory. The one was the accompaniment of the other. The introduction of the tables of stone on which God had written the ten words was accompanied with glory. The glory was in the face of Moses, the writing was on the tables of stone. Now, you get the antitype of that in this chapter: the writing is in the heart of the Corinthians, and the glory in the face of Christ. And what I want to make plain is the connection between the two things, for the one is really dependent upon the other; when there is the writing, then there is "beholding the glory". If the Corinthians were the subject of the writing, the writing qualified them to behold the glory. The apostle speaks of that in the last verse of the chapter: "We all", he says, "beholding the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord the Spirit".
I do not think, as far as I understand the passage, that the apostles were the only ones who looked at the glory of the Lord, for he says "we all". There is no veil now over the face of the Lord -- that is the idea of the last verse.
The two points I have indicated are of great practical interest to us. They make evident the greatness of Christianity -- what a contrast it is to all that went before, though it is the antitype of it. The writing upon the tables of stone and the glory in the face of Moses were evanescent. Where will you find the tables
of stone now, or the glory in the face of Moses? That glory was there but for a moment, it all passed away. Moses passed away; he had to die in the wilderness, he was not permitted to enter the land; and I suppose the glory passed away from his face long before he died. But the writing to which the apostle refers in the antitype is the real writing of God in the tables of the heart, and the glory with which that is connected is eternal. It is the reality in contrast to the type.
There is another important point connected with the subject, which we shall see more distinctly presently. Beholding the glory of the Lord is pretty much equivalent to entering the holiest. What the epistle to the Hebrews opens up to the mind of the Jew, this chapter opens up to the mind of the Gentile. To the Jew the idea presented was entering the holiest; here, to the Gentile, it is beholding the glory of the Lord with unveiled face. If you behold the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, you have entered the holiest, I think that is sufficiently plain.
I would desire first to give you the scripture idea of a veil. It is that which conceals the glory of God. You get an example of it in the Lord upon earth; the glory of God was in Him veiled. The glory of God was there, but under a veil of flesh. The Lord had taken the condition of man, in humiliation, down here. Now we have, in contrast to that, "beholding the glory of the Lord with unveiled face". There is no veil upon the face of the Lord. He is declared to be the Son of God by the place in which He is.
I will give you another illustration of a veil. Providences are a veil behind which God hides His glory. We are all familiar with the providences of God, in which a great many things come to pass in the world which are not according to God's glory. The providence of God is inscrutable. It is a wheel within a wheel -- a kind of riddle which no one can read. That came out in the case of Job. God allowed a great
many terrible things to befall Job in His providence, but the glory of God and His purpose in regard to Job were hidden behind. And so it is to this day; we see the providence of God, and the varied things which God permits in His providence, but they are no expression to us of His glory.
If you look at Revelation 4 and 5, you see the glory of God, the throne and the One that sits upon it, and those that surround the throne. You get the Lamb in the midst of the throne, and the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders. You get the glory of God coming out there, but in chapter 6 you find horses sent forth into all the earth, symbolising providential dealings and forces that hide the glory of God. This will not always be the case; the time will come when God will no longer hide His glory behind a veil of providences; the veil will be put aside and the glory of God be revealed. The sun is always shining, but it is often veiled by clouds. And so with the glory of God; though hid by providences, it will in due time shine forth. But the Christian is able in the meantime to go behind the providences of God, and see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
I will now take up the two points, viz., the writing, and the glory as connected with it. And I think that glory must be connected with writing. The ten commandments were first spoken to the children of Israel from the top of the mount. There was no writing or record then. The people heard the voice of God, and God intended that they should hear it. I suppose the idea prevailed that if God spoke to man, and man heard His voice, man would die, but in contrast to that, idea, the truth came out that God spoke to man, and man lived. Man being under sin, and death as the judgment of God, one could understand the idea that if God spoke to man, man would die, but the contrary comes to pass.
But when Moses came down from the mount, he brought with him the tables of stone. That is, he brought down a record, and this proved that, beyond the fact of the voice of God speaking to man, a record was in the mind of God. Writing is a record. A thing committed to writing is recorded, and it was in the purpose of God to have a record or transcript of His mind. For the moment, the writing was on tables of stone. Moses brought the tables of stone down to the camp, but the children of Israel were sitting down to eat and drink and rising up to play. Moses broke the tables of stone and went up to the mount the second time, and received other tables written, we are told, with the finger of God, which he brought down into the camp and put into the ark of the covenant. What that witnessed was that the law of God must be vindicated in Christ before it could be written in the heart of man. The tables of stone were put up in the ark, they were hid there, it was the divine provision for them.
The antitype is seen in the new covenant, in which God speaks again about writing. He writes, this time, on the fleshy tables of the heart. "I will put my laws into their mind and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people; and they shall not teach every man his neighbour and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for all shall know me from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more".
Now, the new covenant is in evident contrast to the old. The old was connected with the writing of God upon the tables of stone, but the new with the writing of God upon the heart and mind of man, and this means an effective work of God in man which makes man a reflex morally of God. God works thus to make man responsive to Himself. The law was in
itself good, but if man could have kept the law, he would hardly have been responsive to God, for the love of God was not yet made known. The time of response to God had not yet come, and that is shown plainly enough in the fact of the ten commandments being written on tables of stone. The tables could give no response. The effect of the writing of God is not simply that a man becomes acquainted with the grace of God, but that man responds to the grace which is made known to him. He apprehends that God loves him, and then it is that he loves God, and is thus responsive to God.
Now, there was another point that came out in connection with the writing, viz., the glory in the face of Moses. Moses came out from God, he came from the glory where God was, and he carried in his face the reflection of the glory. His face shone when he came down to the children of Israel. It brought out this, that the writing had the ratification of glory; and signified that when the moment came for God to write in the heart of man, man would then behold the glory of the Lord. For the moment, the glory was there in type, but the people could not bear the glory, nor were they allowed to see the end, and therefore Moses put a veil upon his face when he spoke to the people, but when he went in to Jehovah the veil was taken away. You get the apostle applying this as a figure to Israel in his time. When Israel turns to the Lord, the veil, which is for the moment on their heart, is taken away, as it was in the case of Moses.
I hope you will be able to carry together the two thoughts of the writing of God and beholding the glory of the Lord. If we have the privilege of beholding the glory of the Lord, of entering the holiest, our competency to behold the glory is the fruit of the writing of God in us. It was that which enabled the apostle to behold the glory of the Lord. Do you think the bulk of Christians in the present day behold
the glory of the Lord? I doubt it. I am not unchristianising them for a moment; they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but I do not much think that they behold His glory. The reason is that the lines of God's writing are so poorly impressed on their hearts. Israel will be in advance of many Christians, for they will behold the glory of the Lord; not, perhaps, in the sense in which we do, but they will turn to the Lord when the law is written in their hearts and they will all know the Lord. "All shall know me, from the least to the greatest; for I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more". Every one, from the least to the greatest, will have the knowledge of the Lord in that day, but then I think it is the blessed result of the law being written in their hearts and minds. Now, in the application to ourselves (for with us it is not the law written in the heart), we have something very much greater. What the apostle speaks about in the early verses of the chapter is not the law written in the heart, but a writing of Christ, ministered by the apostles, and in lines, not of ink, but of the Holy Spirit. That is, the Spirit of God is spoken of here in contrast to ink. I do not know whether you have ever noticed how an inscription is made upon marble. The letters are first cut out with a tool, but afterwards, they are lined in with ink. That is what the apostle, I take it, refers to here, and in contrast to the ink we have the Spirit of God. The lines become indelible; they are intended to be so. They are in the Spirit of God -- a permanent record of God. Now, I do not think that the work of God in a man's soul is done by an instrument. I think I can tell you to what extent God is pleased to employ instruments. Speaking in a general way, any light which man gets in regard to God comes to him by an instrument. I do not think that any instrument is seen in new birth, because it appears to me to be entirely and exclusively the work of the
Spirit of God. I think this comes out very markedly in regard to Israel in the future -- they will be born again; a nation will be born in a day. That must be the work of God; there will be no instrument employed there. But in the enlightenment of a man's soul (for that is what a man wants when he is born again) a human instrument is employed. The light exists, for the full light of the revelation of God was in the cross of Christ, but God uses human means to bring that light within the reach of a man's soul, and that is where the preaching of the gospel comes in. The commission to the greatest preacher that ever lived was "to open their eyes". When do you think a man's eyes are opened? When he is undeceived. The apostle was to enlighten the Gentiles, undeceiving them as to God. They were in the kingdom of Satan, in bondage to idolatry, and he was to open their eyes that they might "turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they might receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified, by faith that is in me".
The evangelist has to do a wonderful work. He may reason with people, like Paul did with Felix; he may persuade men, "knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men", but the great object to which all his means tend is that he may enlighten the souls of men in regard to God; in other words that he may open their eyes, that men may be undeceived by being enlightened with the revelation of God. And therefore you can understand that the more the soul of the evangelist is pervaded by the revelation of God, the better able he is to carry out his work of enlightening the souls of men.
As I have said, all the light of God has shone out in the death of Christ. The death of Christ is the declaration of God's righteousness. The holiness of God is witnessed in the cross. The grace of God is set forth in the death of Christ. And the death of Christ is
the expression of the love of God. "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us". The power of God was seen, too, in the death of Christ. There it was that man's foe was vanquished. Christ is not only the wisdom of God, but the power of God. The power of man's great enemy was ended in the cross of Christ. The truth of the cross is the great stand-by of the evangelist. The more he is acquainted with the truth of the cross, the more effective he is, because by it he is able to affect men by bringing light into their hearts, and the light that he brings is the revelation of God. The evangelist's capital is the knowledge of the love of God, but enlightenment is not all. Man's heart has to be enlightened, but he has also to respond to the light, and that is where the work of God comes in again. Man's heart is not only to be enlightened, but to be so affected that he may respond to the light. If God makes known His righteousness, man is to respond to it; he becomes the servant of righteousness. If God makes known His holiness, it is that man may be holy because He is holy. And if God reveals His love, it is that man should respond to that love. But all the response which man gives to the revelation of God is the effect of God's work in him. This is not the work of the evangelist. The evangelist is employed to enlighten, but the response which the soul gives to the light is the work of God from beginning to end. He has begun a good work in us and will complete it for Christ's day.
Now, that is what I understand to be conveyed by the passage before us. The apostle could say to the Corinthians: "Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart". Every line that is engraven in a man's heart is in the Spirit of God. If he loves God, it is in the
power of the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, if he loves the saints, it is in the Spirit. Everything written in the heart of a Christian is in the indelible lines of the Holy Spirit and that work never can be effaced. If I have got a great deal of light in my heart through the evangelist, that light may pass away; but if there is response to it in my heart, written in the lines of the Spirit, that never can pass away. All that is really effected in the soul of the believer is the work of the Spirit of God. It is most interesting to contemplate the work of God. God concerns Himself about every individual soul, He is no respecter of persons. He patiently carries on His work in the soul. It is very possible for you and me to hinder God, like the Galatians. The point for us is this, that, having begun in the Spirit, we should go on in the Spirit, that the Spirit of God may be left free to do His own proper work in the soul. The practical effect is that man becomes a reflex of Christ, as Christ, as man down here, was the expression of God. The Christian has put off the old man and put on the new. You could not speak of Christ doing this, though it is the truth in Jesus. Christ could put nothing off and nothing on. He was and ever will be what He is. He cannot be anything different, because, as a Man, He is morally the perfect expression of God. What came out in Him as a Man was what He is. He was the Living Bread come down from heaven. It is totally different with Christians. We have put off the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and have put on the new man, which is created after God in righteousness and holiness of truth. It is all God's work -- a new creation. Now, the practical result is that Christians become the reflex of Christ, as Christ is the expression of God. When Christ was here upon earth, every blessed quality that marked Him was perfectly natural to Him. He was the heavenly Man down here, everything he expressed was of God and
according to God. And the Christian becomes the reflex of Christ, that is, he is so affected by the light God has given to him concerning Himself, so affected by the love of God, that he becomes the reflex of Christ Himself.
Being thus the subjects of Christ's writing, and having boldness to enter into the holiest, we behold the glory of the Lord. What I understand the glory of the Lord to be is that He is the minister, in power, of all that is in the mind of God. Every divine purpose is centred there; from that point everything will be set forth. If you go through the Old Testament, you will see that all the purposes of God were set forth in figure in different men. God set forth one thing in Adam; another in Noah; another in David; another, it may be, in Nebuchadnezzar. Thus, different men were used of God in Old Testament times for the setting forth of different purposes. Hence you see the feebleness of all, because there was no man then in whom every purpose could be set forth so that such purposes could be held as one system. There was as yet no man competent to hold all God's purposes, and, as a fact, God was dishonoured in all. Adam fell; Noah got drunk; David sinned and became liable to death; and Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold and commanded all the world to be idolatrous. But now we behold the glory of the Lord, all God's purposes centred and set forth in one Man, who has completely glorified God in regard of all that had dishonoured God. The glory of God has been secured in the very place where God has been dishonoured, and the One in whom God has been glorified is at the right hand of God, the centre of every divine purpose. He is Son of man -- He takes up Adam's dominion; He takes up David's kingdom -- He is ruler over the house of Jacob; He is Head of the Gentiles. Thus every ray of divine glory converges in Christ and is set forth to us where it cannot fail.
Now the time has come for glory; God has been glorified, sin put away by sacrifice, Christ is at the right hand of God, the centre and expression of divine glory. And now we behold the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, because the lines of the writing of God are in our hearts.
You are competent to behold the glory of the Lord as the effect of the writing in you of the Spirit. I am more and more persuaded that God does that work Himself, so that every line of writing in the heart of man should be engraven, not with ink, but with the Spirit of the Living God.
Chapter 1
My thought, beloved friends, is, as the Lord may enable me, to seek to bring out what one might call the leading features in this particular portion of Scripture, the epistle to the Colossians. In many ways attention has been called to it of late. And it has a peculiar importance, because the special line of truth developed in it is in view of the proper testimony and service of Christians as one body on earth. I will show this more distinctly presently, but it is the peculiar character of the epistle. In order to help, I will contrast Colossians with other epistles. As I have said, the epistle has a peculiar interest if you want to know the service and testimony of saints as one body; not in their individuality. There is a great deal of our pathway which is connected with our individuality; I have to tread my path individually through the wilderness; and wherever saints are looked at as in the wilderness, it is always in their individuality. I do not see anything collective or corporate in connection with the wilderness; if you want to come to what is collective or corporate you must get beyond Jordan.
The epistle to the Colossians, as has often been said, does not contemplate Christians as having gone up into the land, but as over Jordan; they are at Gilgal, that is, in the place where circumcision is realised; that is, they understand what it is to be dead and risen with Christ in the place of spiritual circumcision, and spiritual circumcision is realised. In connection with this, especially in the third chapter, you get the saints as one body (for that is the point of view), and the character of Christ coming out in them. It has often been said, and I fully go with it, that no
one saint is adequate to express the character of Christ in its completeness; some feature or trait of Christ may be prominent in one particular saint, but if you want to get the character of Christ expressed in its fulness, you must have the whole body of saints in their relation one to another. And that is what we see in the third chapter.
Now before I pass on to what comes out in the epistle, I want to remark this: every epistle bears certain peculiar marks; and one mark which is stamped upon the epistle to the Colossians is, that it refers in a distinct way to Gentiles, it contemplates Gentiles. Other parts of the word of God, like the Hebrews, contemplate specially Jews, Jewish Christians; while the epistle to the Ephesians takes up in a peculiar way both Jew and Gentile; but the Colossians contemplates rather distinctly Gentiles. The proof of this is in the close of this first chapter, where the apostle says, "to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you" -- Christ in the Gentiles -- "Christ in you the hope of glory". And it is perhaps on that account, as being addressed to Gentiles, that in the first chapter stress is laid upon reconciliation. If you go to other parts of the word of God, where the Spirit of God is addressing Jews, you will find other distinctive marks.
Now, in speaking of this epistle in contrast to other epistles in the New Testament, I will first notice what you do not get, before I tell you what you do get. For instance, you do not get, as in Ephesians, the proper heavenly relationship of saints. You do not find, as far as I am aware or have looked into it, in the epistle to the Colossians, the truth of sonship, and that is the proper full heavenly relationship of saints. And it is the leading point in the epistle to the Ephesians, "Chosen us in him", we read there, "before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated us unto" sonship "through Jesus Christ to himself". What the epistle to the Ephesians opens with is the heavenly relationship to which we are called, that is, sons through Jesus Christ to God. But the epistle to the Colossians does not go on to that. Again, you will not find in it what you find in the first epistle of John. There the great point is the peculiar present relationship, as children, in which we stand. I do not mean to say but what sonship is a present relationship; but sonship in its scope and bearing refers to glory. We are predestinated to be conformed unto the image of God's Son, that is Christ in glory, "that he might be the firstborn among many brethren". That shows you the true idea of sonship. But what is peculiar to the first epistle of John is the relationship down here of children. I have no doubt there is the thought in both terms of association with Christ; but the thought of sonship is association with a glorified Christ; that of children is rather association with an unknown, rejected Christ. The latter is the peculiar truth which is developed in the first epistle of John; the calling of children, "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God", and in connection with this, the truth of eternal life. I do not think you will find either relationship brought out in the epistle to the Colossians. No doubt Colossians may touch John or touch Ephesians; but it has its own distinctive line, and that distinctive line is this -- the reproduction of the character of a heavenly Christ in the saints as one body, and it is this which leads me to say that the great point of the epistle is the testimony and service of the saints looked at as one body. You get it brought out in chapter 3 in the exhortations, while chapters 1 and 2 contain the doctrine which leads up to it.
Now I want to bring out a little, as the Lord may
enable me, the doctrine. I propose taking only the first chapter tonight, and I divide it into two parts. The first is the glory of Christ, which is the great introduction, the headship of Christ, if we may so say; and the second is the scheme of reconciliation which is in a way identified with His very being, and specially the reconciliation of persons which is going on at this present time.
In the second chapter the great leading thought is the suitability or correspondence of the saints to the Head. Then you come, in the third chapter, to the exhortations which show us the true character of the saints as one body down here.
Now, of course, all this demands death to the world. As long as people are hampered and hindered by worldly associations and so on, and take up the position practically of dwellers upon earth, the testimony is in measure marred. If you want to come out in this way, as part of the one body in which the character of Christ is displayed, you have to be set free from that which connects you with the course of things down here. Hence it is that circumcision comes in: we have put off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ to be vessels for the display of the character and life of Christ. But if that is to be the case you must have a practical breaking of the links which connect you with the course of things here.
Just one word more by way of introduction. You will find it peculiarly interesting to connect the epistle with John 17:20, of which it is the practical accomplishment, "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word, that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me". There it is, if I understand the verse aright, that the unity of saints here was to be the testimony to the world that the Father sent the Son. In Colossians the
point is the testimony of saints as one body. But then what it amounts to is this, that they become a testimony to the world that the Father sent the Son; that is, that if all the saints were walking together perfectly according to the mind and Spirit of God, the result would be a present testimony to Christ; and that is the object of this verse of the Lord's prayer in John 17, "That the world may believe that thou hast sent me". All turns to that; the more you look into it in the word of God, the more you see that the carrying out of Christian obligations all results in testimony to the Son, that the Father sent the Son.
I do not purpose dwelling on the first part of the first chapter, as my points are, first, the glory of Christ, and secondly, in connection with it the great work of reconciliation. I do not think we attach quite enough importance to reconciliation. We have to remember that it is the purpose of God to put everything on that ground; and I think I might go so far as to say that it was the eternal purpose of God. I do not doubt for one single instant that God perfectly well knew everything which would come in in connection with creature responsibility; and I think it was in eternal purpose that everything should be based upon reconciliation; that is, upon peace having been made by the effective work of Christ. To go back to Leviticus for a moment, I quite admit that the day of atonement, which might perhaps be rendered the day of reconciliation, does not come out until the failure of the priesthood. It is after Nadab and Abihu had offered strange fire and died that God brings out the idea of reconciliation. But then, although it comes out in that way in the course of the testimony of God, I doubt not that it was in the eternal purpose of God. Psalm 40 is a proof of it to me, because there it was in eternal purpose that Christ should become man, should take the body prepared for Him, and by the offering up of Himself lay the foundation of the will of God being accomplished
on that basis. Still it comes in in Leviticus strikingly, that after the failure of the priesthood, God reveals the great truth of reconciliation. Hence the day of atonement is the pre-figurement, the bringing out in type and shadow of the scheme of reconciliation; and that is what we have here in the first chapter.
And this has begun, although the time has not yet come for the reconciliation of things. Yet peace has been made and therefore God does not delay; and what is going on at this present moment, though not the reconciliation of things, is the reconciliation of persons. That is the great point of the present moment, so that the apostle can day, "You now hath he reconciled". The same thing is found in other parts of the word of God; in 2 Corinthians 5 the apostle speaks of the ministry which God had committed to him as the ministry of reconciliation, the basis of it being that "He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him", and what the apostle was carrying out was this ministry, preaching the word of reconciliation. In Romans the same occurs, "By whom we have now received the reconciliation".
But I will refer for a moment to verses 12 and 13, in which is beautifully interwoven the thought of the Father and the Son. It says in verse 12, "Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light", for counsels belong to the Father; the accomplishment of counsels is the part of the Son, "Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love". Thus we have a blessed unfolding of the Father and the Son; and further, "In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins". Now we come to the unfolding of the glory of the Son, "Who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born
of every creature: for by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by him and for him; and he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead; that in all things he might have the pre-eminence. For it pleased the Father", or, as the verse might be read, "For in him all the fulness was pleased to dwell; and, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself, by him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven". Now I would impress upon you one very important point in connection with the Lord, namely, that when He is presented to us in the epistles He is in general presented according to what He now is. There is plenty of unfolding in the word of God of what He was; but the point in the epistles is what is true in Christ now, what is true in Him as the risen glorified Man. If you want to understand the epistles, this is an important point to bear in mind. There is plenty in the epistles to tell you what He was; for instance, if I go to the second chapter of the epistle to the Philippians, I find what He was; that He existed in the form of God, and that He emptied Himself and took a servant's form, and became in the likeness of men; but in general where the epistles speak of the Lord Jesus Christ, they present Him to us according to what He is now, and they tell us what is true in Him now. For instance, in the next chapter: "In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily"; it could not, of course, be said that the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Him bodily until He became a man. Now that He has become Man, and is as man in glory, what we are told is that in Him dwells all the completeness of the Godhead bodily. John speaks also of what He is now; Jesus
Christ "the true God and eternal life"; that is what He is now as Man risen and glorified.
I only make that remark by way of preface before I pass on to speak of verse 15. What we find here is this, He is "the image of the invisible God". Beloved friends, He was eternally God; "the Word was God". Scripture takes uncommon care to guard the Person of the Lord Jesus; more care in regard to Him than in regard to any of the divine Persons, because He has become Man; and therefore Scripture is most tenacious of and careful to maintain His glory, the glory of His Person; "the Word was God". He existed as God, but when He existed in the form of God, you would hardly say He was "the image of the invisible God"; but now as Man He is, "the image of the invisible God"; for the invisible God is the invisible God, that is, He cannot be seen. But there is nothing of the invisible God that is not represented in that risen glorified Man, in whom dwells "all the fulness of the Godhead bodily". 'Image' is one of the strongest terms used in Scripture; Scripture uses both 'likeness' and 'image'; and 'image' is by far the stronger term of the two. There is no feature of the invisible God which is lacking or unrepresented in Him. But then it is all there in a man; He has taken the form of a servant, and become in the likeness of men, and is highly exalted as man, and remains man for ever; and in that Man dwells "all the fulness of the Godhead bodily"; He "is the image of the invisible God".
And then, more than that, He is "the firstborn of every creature". That is His relation as to creation. He is the 'firstborn', the One pre-eminent; just as God could say of David's son, "I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth". Firstborn of every creature is what He is in regard to creation: "For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible,
whether they be thrones or dominions, or principalities or powers; all things were created by him, and for him; and he is before all things, and by him all things consist". They all stand together by Him; apart from Him and without Him the whole fabric of the universe would fail; all subsists by Him. But the point of the passage is His pre-eminence in regard to things, that is, that no throne, or dominion, or principality or power, however exalted, can raise its head in the presence of Christ. They were created by Him, whatever they were. I could enumerate some of them, things that come out in the Old Testament, such as the king in Israel, the head of the Gentiles, the universal dominion of Adam; whatever it might be, "all things were created by him". Now mark another word, "by him and for him", that is, that He has a proper personal pre-eminence, a proper personal supremacy, in regard of every created thing. When the apostle speaks here of created things, he tells you what he means; he means thrones, and dominions, and principalities, and powers. "Thrones" and "dominions" refer perhaps more to what has been constituted and set up on earth; "principalities" and "powers" to what has been constituted in heaven. "All things were created by him and for him". That is His headship in regard to things.
But His headship would not be complete, if one might say so, if this were all; and we get another headship, and that is not in relation to things but in relation to persons. Now I want to call your attention to this. It says, "He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the pre-eminence". Here it is another character of headship altogether, and specially connected with the fact of His being man. He is the Head of the body; that is not a relation in which He stands to things, but to persons. The body is composed of persons. "He is
the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead". He is morally the beginning of everything; that is what He is in His own blessed Person in this connection. I believe that in the working out of God's ways in new creation, everything starts from the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ as man. He is "the beginning", in the virtue and excellence of His own Person. And not only the beginning, but He is "the firstborn from the dead"; He is pre-eminent among those who rise from the dead; "that in all things", as it says here, "he might have the pre-eminence"; that is, that He might be pre-eminent in regard of things, and pre-eminent in regard of persons. There is a double headship, as it were, brought out here, in order to pave the way for reconciliation; because it was according to the purpose and counsel of God that He should stand pre-eminent in regard to things and to persons. And so when the church thinks about Christ, He is "the beginning"; the church derives its life from Christ; and what is more, He is "the firstborn from the dead". And that is the truth which is unfolded to us in connection with this blessed risen glorified Man. Nothing, I believe, is more important for us as the starting point -- and it is the starting point of the epistle -- than to get the Lord distinctly before us in the glory of His Person. If anyone wants to help me, and I would wish to be helped, I would like him to inform me about that glorified Man. I want to know what He is, and what is the title He has as man to be there; because His glory there is the answer to what He effected here. The One that went "into the lower parts of the earth" has "ascended up far above all heavens that he might fill all things". But His ascending up "far above all heavens" is the answer to the going down to "the lower parts of the earth"; the exaltation is equal to the humiliation. The greatest reproach is to be put in "the lower parts of the earth"; and the exaltation
corresponds to it. And not only that, but I would like to know what He is in the moral qualities of His being; what that Man is that is in heaven. You may depend upon it, it is a study of eternity to know the truth of that heavenly Man; "the living bread out of heaven", as the Lord speaks of Himself in John 6, "I am the living bread which came down out of heaven". I would like to know the grace of His Person, and to maintain in my soul, at the same time, His own proper dignity and glory as the eternal Son, equal with the Father.
But now I turn to the other point which comes out here, namely, the reconciliation -- what Christ is in reference to reconciliation. It says, "In him all the fulness was pleased to dwell, and having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven". Now, beloved friends, here we get a statement which witnesses to us the essential deity of Christ: "In him all the fulness was pleased to dwell".+ This verse tells us what was, that is, that nothing was lacking there that is of the completeness of God, neither morally, nor in attribute, nor in anything else. "In him all the fulness was pleased to dwell". The point is this -- that the Son having become Man, the Spirit of God carefully maintains the glory of His Person.
+In the reprint of these lectures the following words which appeared in the first issue have been omitted, namely: "I do not know when-that is not the point; and it does not say here 'bodily.'" Also a subsequent sentence: "It is not what is peculiar to the Son, it is only maintaining His essential deity, because all the fulness of the Godhead dwells in the Father; and so, too, in the Holy Spirit." The reason for the omission is that it has been represented to me that the Greek form of the words "to dwell" would connect the clause "In him all the fulness was pleased to dwell" with the Son as become Man. I had regarded it rather in the light of what was eternally true in Him as a divine Person.
But now I find another point which is exceedingly important; and that is how the great truth of reconciliation is connected, as it appears to me, with His eternal being. Look how the thought is carried on in verse 20. I do not know how otherwise to speak of the passage except as stating to us what the eternal good pleasure was. It does not say whose good pleasure. "All the fulness was pleased to dwell in him, and having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself". That is the great thought there, as it appears to me, connected with the Person and the glory of the Son, that in Him and by Him everything was to be reconciled to the fulness of God; everything was to be put on such a footing as that it might be for the good pleasure of God, the glory of God, that God might have His pleasure in it. It was all purposed in the Son, as far as I can see, and connected with His Person. It was He that was to make peace by the blood of His cross, and not only to lay the foundation in that way, but all things were to be reconciled by Him, "whether they be things in earth or things in heaven". It is not only a basis of reconciliation, but it is the carrying out of the reconciliation in effect, which He will do. Like the high priest, after he had sprinkled the blood on the mercy-seat and before the mercy-seat, had to come out to reconcile things in detail, that is, to put everything on the basis of redemption; and that is what Christ will do. I believe He will take up everything in His own Person: He will take up the thrones, and the dominions, and the principalities, and the powers; everything is to be headed up in Him, gathered up in one in Him for God's eternal glory. It is in that way, as I understand it, that everything is put really on the basis of redemption, and everything held for the glory of God.
I can understand, too, the suitability of it. He held everything for God down here in humiliation. Nothing
could be more wonderful than the pathway of the Lord Jesus through this world; standing alone, without any kind of support from man -- for He never got any, He had to support man, but He got no support from man -- standing alone in His solitary path here, tried by every possible kind of pressure and temptation, and yet maintaining all here for the glory of God, so that nothing was let slip, nothing was lost. There was one Man stood here completely in all His pathway for the glory of God, so that at the close He could say, "Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world". He stood solitary; but He stood solitary in devotedness and faithfulness to God. Everything was secured; the glory of God was secured in His pathway as man down here; and God was completely glorified, even in regard to the question of sin, in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore I can understand the suitability, not only of everything being reconciled on the basis of the blood of His cross, but that He should hold all things to the glory of God.
I will come now to the present application of reconciliation. "And you, that were some time alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death; to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight; if ye continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister". Now, beloved friends, reconciliation is a very important truth to us; because if everything is to be put on the footing of reconciliation, we must be reconciled. You could not now be in any relationship at all with God except on the basis of reconciliation. God has revealed His purpose to put everything on that footing. Peace having been made by the blood of His cross, if you are to be in relationship to God, it must be on the basis
of reconciliation. But the time has not yet come for the reconciliation of things, and therefore we get the thought introduced here of the reconciliation of persons. If God had taken in hand at once, as it were, to reconcile things, you could not have had the church; but God has made room for the forming of the church, while the time has not yet come for the reconciliation of things. If you are not reconciled you do not stand in any present relationship to God at all; and, more than that, you are not justified. Reconciliation comes out, I think, prominently in connection with the Gentiles on account of their previous position: forgiveness of sins is more prominent in connection with the Jews, because they were under the law, and their sins were proved. Gentiles, as to their moral state and dispensationally, were far away from God, like the prodigal in the far country; not but that they needed forgiveness of sins as much as Jews; but in dealing with certain classes of people certain truths obtain prominence.
Now as to reconciliation, he says, "You now hath he reconciled". We have not got to wait for the reconciliation of things; if we had, we should not, as I have said, be in any present relationship with God. But, beloved friends, we are reconciled now; and I want to bring out, if I can, the character of reconciliation. "You now hath he reconciled", now mark this, "in the body of his flesh through death", that is what I want to bring out -- that Christ has so wrought as to put us on a completely new footing before God, death having come in upon the old footing. It is "in the body of his flesh through death". Manifestly I could not be reconciled by my death; but I am reconciled "in the body of his flesh through death". As God created man, man could never have gone into the holiest. "The first man is of the earth, earthy". The earthy man could never get into the holiest even as God made him; and to make a heavenly man out of
an earthy man, would hardly be consistent with His glory.LIFE AS PRESENTED IN SCRIPTURE
PIETY
NEARNESS AND CONFIDENCE
THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE FATHER AND THE SON+
THE FATHER'S THINGS
"Of the vast universe of bliss,
The Centre Thou, and Sun". (Hymn 11)THE DEATH OF THE LORD
THE GLORY OF THE LORD
THINGS OLD AND NEW
WHAT IS TRUTH?
THE CROSS AND NEW CREATION
CHRIST, THE GATHERING POINT NOW
GOD'S PROMISES STABLE IN CHRIST FOR HIS GLORY IN BELIEVERS
DIVINE LOVE AND OUR HISTORY HERE
GOD'S WRITING IN THE HEART TO THE END OF OUR BEHOLDING THE GLORY OF THE LORD
LECTURES ON COLOSSIANS