As to -------- he is quite mistaken, he confines the work of Christ too exclusively to the sin offering. Christ embraced every offering. In one offering He surpassed each and all. The simple thing to lay hold of is Christ's work. His work determines my place. Where His work puts me, a believer, there I am. This is a great point. The thief on the cross got the benefit of Christ's work without any break -- from the deepest degradation to the highest elevation. "To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43); that was the effect of the work, and there the work brought him. The work of Christ embraces the beginning and the end; of course it does, or it would not be finished. There must be an end as well as a beginning: out of Egypt and in the land; out of the far country and in the Father's house, as you get in figure in Exodus 24, the blood shed and heaven in sight. Hence our blessed Lord begins with the finish of His work to the woman of Samaria, and He calls His work there God's work. "I have meat to eat that ye know not of.... My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work" (John 4:32 - 34).
There are four aspects of the death of Christ from Egypt to Canaan -- the blood on the lintel and the Red Sea, which are God's side; the brazen serpent and the Jordan, which are our side. But Christ did all. in one death, in one stroke, as I might say. Thus all the offerings were at one and the same time. I do not learn them without a break, but they were done without a break, and the good of the work is assured to me without a break. The blood of the bullock on the day of atonement gave God liberty to have the high priest and his house inside the veil, and the blood of the goat sprinkled on the mercy-seat gave
God liberty to send from within Melchizedek to bless Israel outside. The same blood gives the blessed God liberty to do two very different things -- to put two companies of believers in totally different positions; the blood is the same, but the blessed God blesses each according as His grace leads Him -- one inside, within the veil, and the other outside or in earthly places.
PS. -- It was, of course, the one blood in Christ's work, but there were two bloods in the type to mark the difference of effect.
... I have been deeply interested in studying Christianity. I think we have learned salvation and relationship, but very little of intimacy or the essential distinction between us -- the bride of Christ -- and His earthly subjects. I begin with the gospel; if you preach the antitype of the two goats (Leviticus 16), you would preach a very full gospel -- eternal redemption in the presence of God and all your sins carried away into the land of forgetfulness, entitled to the possession of every good thing on earth. Add the bullock to the gospel and then you are on Christian ground. I must leave it to yourself to describe the difference. As a rule, the measure and nature of the acceptance which the bullock ensures is not known. Now if there be a defect in the gospel, there must be a defect, only more glaringly, in every other stage. If we knew that our special privilege and right were to accompany our Aaron into the holy place to enjoy our portion there, and that being of the priestly company we were precluded from an earthly portion, nothing earthly would divert us from it. Nothing diverted the sons of Aaron from their holy and peculiar calling. Their service was within the veil. Now- the Christian is first a priest before he is a Levite; though many prefer the Levitical service to the priestly. Christendom has lost or surrendered the priestly, and the pious are satisfied with the Levitical -- service to man. There are the two classes -- those who go to war and those
who abide by the stuff. See 1 Samuel 30:24. The first take the spoil, but they must divide equally with those who do not go to the war. Apparently there would be no difference between them, but there is a great moral difference. Say the spoil is 1,000 head, each class gets 500; but the first gives only one out of the 500 to the priests. The other class (who remained by the stuff) gives one out of fifty, ten times as much, and never rises higher than the Levites. Priestly service is Godward; Levitical is manward; very useful and very active, but with very little personal intercourse with the Lord. The Lord prefers your company to any and every service you could render. The attempt is to be a Levite before you know that you are a priest. I believe this is impossible: the Levites were given to the priests. You must descend: Every good and perfect gift cometh down ... One may say, as to snares that entrap us, 'Why does the Lord allow it?' He allows it to prove to me (see Ezekiel 14:4) that I have an idol in my heart, and He lets me have it as Lot got the green fields or as Jacob got Shalem. You may try to conceal it, but the Lord sees it, and He lets you have it, and after a time, if you are true to Him, you are very glad to surrender it. It is not at all unlikely but that you may, after you have been freed from one lust, be ensnared by another.
I must send you a short review of the state of Christians in general, or rather of the measure in which Christianity is known. I do not refer to mere professors: I confine my remarks to really converted souls.
No one has any hope of safety who does not believe in the efficacy of the blood of Christ in the eye of God, as we read in Exodus 12:13, "When I see the blood, I will pass over you"; and Romans 3:25. "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God".
This is the first step. Thus you have assurance that you will not be lost; you are like one in a lifeboat, saved from drowning, but you are still in the water, or in the place where all the danger is. From Abel down this step or state was known to the man of faith.
The next step is the new state, never known until Christ was raised from the dead. There was no resurrection of any sacrifice until Christ rose. Until the resurrection of Christ is apprehended as it is in the sight of God, you are not out of the lifeboat; no happy place, be assured, though there be a sure hope of safety. But no one who had been rescued from a watery grave would like to remain in the place where death stared him in the face; he longs for the shore, and however he may be assured of his safety, his hopes, his thoughts, his enjoyment never rise beyond safety. Safety is the only bright prospect before him. Now through the resurrection of Christ you reach the shore -- the new, the Christian ground. In type Israel (see Exodus 14) found a way through the Red Sea. God's light showed them the way; they walked it; they appropriated the way made for them through the sea. By faith the Christian appropriates the way made through death, through Christ's death and resurrection, so that like Israel he can sing, "I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he cast into the sea". See Exodus 15:1. So can you, when you believe that God raised Christ from the dead, for "being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:1). All our enemies have sunk like lead in the mighty waters. Until the value of the resurrection is seen, there cannot be any Christian progress.
It is here the divergence of one Christian from another begins. Christ was delivered for our offences and raised for our justification. You cannot enjoy justification until you believe in your heart that God hath raised Christ from the dead. It is seeing a Man, who had borne the death due to you, raised out of death, which obtains peace for you. The man (Adam) under the judgment of death has been judicially ended in the cross of Christ, and "For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection
of the dead" (1 Corinthians 15: 21). God now can "be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus" (Romans 3:26). The man under judgment has borne the judgment in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ; hence, as you believe on Him risen, you are entirely on new ground; you are on the shore; you are in the cloudless favour of God. God has effected your reconciliation; He can receive the returning prodigal with open arms. Adam, the first man, has for every believer, to the eye of God, disappeared in judgment in the cross; hence the Christian can say, 'I did belong to the man under the judgment of God, but I am through grace freed of that man in the death of Christ; I have passed out of death into life'. "If we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him" (Romans 6:8). If you believe in the resurrection of Christ, and therefore see that you are seen by God as now belonging to another Man -- the Man risen from the dead -- you begin to progress as a Christian. You are freed from the old man in the sight of God, but if you truly enjoy this, you will seek to be freed from sin as to yourself, "dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 6:11). It could not be otherwise. If the blessed God sees you to His heart's delight in all the acceptance of Christ, surely, when you know this, the next step must be that you should be practically as clear of the old man, and this is made true to you as you "walk in the Spirit", for then you would not "fulfil the lusts of the flesh". See Galatians 6:16.
It is lamentable how little Christians have believed in Christ risen. The reason is, as far as I see, that they, though thankful to be safe, are not prepared to be severed from the old man and to be now exclusively for and of Christ. They do not prefer Christ to Adam, and you cannot apprehend the resurrection of Christ except you see one man gone in death and the second Man risen out from among the dead. If you are of the Second you cannot be of the first, the two cannot go on together
There are two parts in our Christian history. The first is apprehending by faith the full gain of the work of Christ. This is what He is for us, and ever continues, and it captivates the heart more and more. The other is our relation to Him. This is twofold. You are a living stone, and a member of His body -- different privileges, both belonging to the one person. If you are truly a living stone, owning Christ's supremacy over God's house, you are practically part of the house now on the earth, otherwise you are not in function -- a very serious delinquency.
Timothy was bound to find those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. I think you will agree with me that a living stone is out of course if it be not in function, for it must ever be a constituent part of Christ's assembly, and certainly you cannot exercise your membership on the earth if you are not in the house character. The "wise woman" is not apart from the house.
I am not referring to any of your recent troubles in connection with the assembly. I merely address you as one who desires to be for Christ where His treasure is. No one can do anything rightly for Christ here who does not begin from the assembly. See Romans 12:4, and Ephesians 4. Take the earthly walk of the Christian in Romans, or the heavenly in Ephesians, in both you must start from the same centre. It is only in conscious union with Christ that you could understand Christ's interests. The wife only understands the husband's interests. I can tell you from the word of God what you are called to; but I cannot tell you how to do it. I can feel that you are in a difficulty, but "by my God have I leaped over a wall" (Psalm 18:29).
I heartily desire that you "might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing" (Colossians 1:10). I. like to think of you as you were in 1867. The blessed God always remembers our brightest day. See Jeremiah 2:2.
I have been thinking much of the difference between our place on earth, and that of the saints before the ascension of Christ. Since the rejection of Christ and His sitting down in glory, the whole of this world is unproductive of anything for one of His. Before His rejection, even during His walk on earth, the earth yielded something; He was here, and from His hand it was made to yield. He obliged evil and adverse things here to give way; infirmities were overborne, and made to yield present blessing to His people. Now since the rejection of the Lord, and His sitting down in heaven, there is a new scene where the blessing is unhinderedly enjoyed, and the "man in Christ" is there with Him. There I find I am blessed with all spiritual blessing. If I am blessed with all there, then I am of course not to expect to find any here; but this is quite a new and difficult lesson for the saint to learn. If I can find no spiritual blessing here, then I must feel this to be a desert. If spiritual blessing is now known to my soul as the true blessing, then I must accept this -- that there is none of that order to be found here, but all in heaven. This of itself in a very peculiar and distinct way diverts the soul from this scene, and turns it to heaven. But even after one has learnt that there is no spiritual blessing anywhere but in heaven, there is exercise of soul in walking through this scene, even though we may have ceased to expect from it. This is not an easy thing for the saint in full consciousness of the rights of God. A "young man" who had "overcome the wicked one" would naturally say to himself that God has rights in the world, and that he was at liberty to claim them and possess them, and therefore it is said to such (1 John 2:15): "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world".
With an Old Testament saint there was the power of God here to produce from things here an expression of
God's thought and love for His people, such as they could appreciate. Now that expression of His love is made in heaven, where there is no force used to produce it. It is all for acceptance on our part, and our enjoyment depends on the amount or extent of our acceptance of it. There we are furnished as Paul was, outside and above all of earth and man, and when down here, instead of finding anything to help me, and to afford strength and joy to me, I find everything the reverse; so that instead of its being the garden of the Lord, as it was to the Old Testament saint when he walked faithfully, it is a desert, where not only there is nothing that contributes to me, but where I must resist the very air, because it is pestilential, and I must, on this desert island where I am set as Christ's witness, draw all my supplies from elsewhere. The harbour where the supplies come in, is the only cheering spot in this dry and barren land where no water is. I must seek and receive from outside of this desert land, but I must refuse all in it. The Old Testament saint sought, and received in it; the mighty power of God fed him -- the faithful one, with the finest of the wheat, and with honey out of the rock satisfied him; but now, while you are here, there is not anything for you here, but all your supplies must come to you from above; you must enjoy them above; and here, you have only the power of Christ to make you strong in your weakness, so that a sense of weakness is a gain. I am looking to Christ who is above this scene, and I know His power in my weakness, and my enjoyment is not from this scene but completely outside of it, with Him in heaven. The Old Testament saint had joy from God's gifts to him here, and knew His power in making things here contribute to him. I know and have joy outside of it in heaven from what God has given me there, and here I do not seek that anything should contribute to me, but while I resist everything in the power of Christ, I become a contributor of the grace which nourishes and comforts me outside of it in heaven. But I need Christ's power to enable me to rise above my sense of infirmity in this scene, so that not only does this scene not contribute to me, but it makes me feel my weakness and need, and that I not only have to rise out of it to find
and enjoy my blessing, but that I need Christ's power in it, and as I prove His power I take pleasure in infirmities.
With the Old Testament saint the infirmities were removed, and everything was by the power of God made to contribute to His people. Hence it is a great change, and often a difficult lesson to accept fully that nothing contributes to me in this scene, but on the contrary that I take pleasure in my infirmity in it, in order that the power of Christ may rest on me. I am not only not contributed to here, but my infirmity is exposed, and it becomes a pleasure to me that Christ's power may rest on me.
We had altogether a happy morning at ----------, at any rate I enjoyed the breaking of bread -- my soul seeking company with Him who gave Himself to be broken here, and now calling me to remember Him, and to bear Him company in that act.
Every believer likes the gospel, but no one really apprehends the gospel who is not across the Red Sea, and no one enjoys union with Christ who is not over Jordan. I do not think that any one can accept Jordan until he is drawn over by the object of his heart; with Israel it was the place, with us it is the Person. Many a one can delight in God's grace to him who is not sufficiently attached to Christ to leave everything here to join Him outside of everything here. There is a large field of blessing belonging to the gospel while we are here on the earth; but in the church we are united to the glorified Man in heaven, and as you apprehend it an entirely new world is opened out to you, in which you cannot be but in Christ's life, out-side of your senses. I believe if saints had truly known their relation to Christ, that they would have been preserved in the late sifting.
Brethren with an increase of light on scripture have departed from the separation, the body of light, which at first gave them so much moral weight. Our separation from the world then may have been in a measure legal, but surely now that we have more heavenly light we should be still more separate, whereas with the increase of light we are as a company, socially and every way, less separate. Once any Christian becomes in any measure socially on terms with the world or a worldling, he is on the worst incline on the road; the more he is on it the more he will keep on it, until he be lost to sight.
The way every progressing soul learns death practically is very interesting and very solemn.
Of course you have heard of the death of Professor Tyndall. He was connected with Darwin and the evolution school. It is amazing to me the way man, professedly Christian, is being corrupted with infidelity; the specious way by which the delusion is effected. It is a standing miracle the way the Latin kingdom (I mean the old Roman territory commencing with Constantine) accepted the Bible as the standard for good government and good conduct. All the countries agreed in this. At this point, the huge system in these countries, called the Church, has been necessary to the State. Hence we have had church and State. Of late years the Bible is not the standard. There have been many innovations even in my time not sanctioned by the Bible.
The theory of evolution has helped on and prepared men's minds for infidelity. Evolution is the attempt to trace the development of man from a mollusc upward. It is to begin at the lowest in order to construct or reach up to the highest. The principle itself is unsound. I am amazed that men of great minds can be caught by it. Everything great descends. Every good and perfect gift cometh down. Devolution is the true principle. The least
is derived from the greatest. You must find out the greatest first before you can obtain any adequate idea of the least. The sun rules the day, and philosophers will tell you that all the light in coal, in wood, &c., came originally from the sun and was deposited in the coal and in other things. Man is the highest creature. No other creature is in any way his equal, though in every lower creature you may discover a trait of man. The Satanic object in evolution is that there can be development. Man is trying to throw off Christianity. No system of ethics among the Greeks elevated man as the Bible has done. The evolutionists are like the wren that ascended under the eagle's wing and then attempted to fly higher by its own power. But the evolutionists will, I see, produce men of mentality and scientific taste, but without any of the morality which, naturally speaking, elevates a man.
I have been much interested in Hebrews lately, you will see some notes on it in the November 'Voice'. The services of the High Priest in Hebrews 4 and in Hebrews 10:21 are very interesting. In Hebrews 4 He serves me with reference to my infirmity. In Hebrews 10 He serves me in relation to God. I believe that we must know the first service before we can know the second, and when one is looking for the second one is glad to find the first. The tendency is to limit the Lord's services to the first, that is helping me out of my infirmities, not seeing that He relieves me of the infirmities on my side, in order that He may conduct me to His own side in the sanctuary. It is very blessed that He lends Himself to my side, but it is unspeakably blessed when I am in company with Him on His own side. The loss is in confiding one's expectations only to one's own side, for then we are not prepared for the immensity which through grace is ours.
I see this is a defect often in what is spoken or written of eternal life. It is limited to Christ's life down here on the earth where He humbled Himself. Surely His life here was most blessed and necessary for us, but we must also follow Him where He is now in glory, where He is the full expression of eternal life. He was the manna here; we need it every day; but He is now the old corn of the land. He was always that; but now He is that to us. "As ... I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me" (John 6:57).
Another subject has interested me much -- our gain from a glorified Christ in addition to all we gain from Him in His death and resurrection.
I see three steps in the Hebrews:
First. The sympathy of the Lord in my weakness or infirmity. There are three classes of infirmities. The first circumstances -- or pressure of any kind from them -- too poor at one time, and too rich at another; when I am set for heaven He helps me out of the infirmity, lifts me above it.
The second is weakness of the body.
The third -- bereavement, sorrow. Now being helped out of the infirmity, I am occupied with His side. I am in company with Him, and as I am, I come forth in a new way. I am encountering and surmounting every obstacle between me and heaven; and this is the race. It is then strength through faith. I may begin every day with an infirmity, but I ought to go on to strength. I ought to surmount difficulties. By my God I have leaped over a wall.
The great point brought out, the other night, in Hebrews was that we on earth have to do with a great Priest in heaven, either for our infirmities from which He raises us into company with Himself, or in approach to, God,
we have a great Priest over the house of God. There was a great deal of interesting discussion as to the way He connects us with heaven, and whether Hebrews was the "house". It was admitted that the congregation was there because the Holy Ghost was there, but more as the synagogue -- Christ in the midst -- the sanctuary morally. In Ephesians, the great point is that there is the relationship of sons -- the highest relationship is declared, and from Christ in heaven we descend (chapter 4) from the church, which is first, to the family circle, but all is from heaven. I think they were particularly interested in seeing the difference between Romans and Ephesians. In the latter we act from Christ, and every ordinance of God is marked with the grace of Christ.
We had a reading for two hours on Hebrews. I felt the great truth that we arrived at was that we are heavenly by calling, and that there can be no increase in blessing nor in knowledge until we accept our position; we cannot be blessed nor edified anywhere else.
(Romans 8:1 - 13)
Remember that the first trait of being in the Spirit and not in the flesh (see Romans 12) is that your body is the Lord's.
We have had a reading on Romans 8:1 - 13. The first act of the Spirit in us (see Romans 5:5) is to shed abroad in our hearts the love of God, while for liberty to oneself He is the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus -- "hath made me free from the law of sin and death". First, He assures me of the heart of God toward me, and then, when I have learned that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing, He -- the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus -- makes me free from the law of sin and death. On God's side He sheds abroad love in my heart; and on my side He is life, to
make me free from the law of sin and death. There must be great love where there is the same life, and there can be no personal acquaintance with the risen Christ but in His own life. When this is known we enter on a blessed day.
We had a reading in this house, only a few of us, on the traits of the new company on the earth. You begin at the end of Luke 10. The law is not adequate to meet the misery of man. The man who fell among thieves, cured, carried and cared for in the inn, is in type the first of the new company on the earth. As long as you are in the inn all your expenses will be defrayed, you are a pilgrim travelling to the Lord's coming. Then we get the traits of the new company.
First trait. The word of God and prayer (Luke 10:39; 11: 1 - 14).
Second. A body of light (verse 34), because your eye takes in the light you are waiting and watching. These two traits are continued from the end of Luke 10 to the end of chapter 12.
Third. You are in your body superior to the power of Satan (Luke 13).
Fourth. You are at the great supper, and in the Father's house, and you know what your reception is there (Luke 14, 15).
Fifth. The way to use your master's property (Luke 16).
Sixth. The world and all the Jewish system are opposed to you (Luke 17).
Seventh. As to dependence, you are to be an infant in arms, clinging and crying to make known your wants (verse 17). This is one part; the other part is that, like the young man, you are to surrender everything to follow the Lord (verse 22).
I have given you a very meagre sketch, but I am
sure you will get more for yourselves. The Lord bless you both much, may you delight yourselves much in the Lord. I was contrasting this morning John 4 with John 2. The resourcelessness of man in the latter, and in the former the never-ending resources he possesses through Christ.
(John 20)
My impression is that you would distort the divine order if you make John 20 universal, or extend it beyond the church. You will bear in mind that the Lord is rejected in John, so that the Jews are called "the world" in John 15. Now is fulfilled the words (John 12:28), "And will glorify it again". The Lord is risen. Hence what relates specially to Himself is the beginning of the new order. The first creation finished with a man -- Adam. Adam fell, and all that creation was made subject to vanity. Now the new has come and it begins with "the second man out of heaven". Hence, I repeat, the circle of interest to His heart -- the bride in its twofold aspect as heart and hands, are present to us in John 20. Mary Magdalene represents one, and the eleven the other. The finest trait of the heart is there in perfection. She gathers, as has been said, the disciples. All are there but Thomas, who represents the Jew (who looked for the Messiah as visible to the natural eye), but the Jew is at length in this hallowed circle (verses 26 - 30), which is administration for Christ here on earth; indeed as in one sense it will be during the millennium. There is no administration in the millennium, as far as I see, connected with the kingdom, save through the New Jerusalem. When Lazarus was raised you might say there was then the opening for universal display on the earth, and as to fact, our Lord's entry into Jerusalem as King took place the next day. J.N.D. makes John 21 a millennial scene. Peter was out of the current of the Lord's mind when he proposed to go a fishing.
In conclusion, I may add that it is deeply interesting to apprehend from the word of God the portion and province of each company of His saints, if it were only to open out to us the peculiar distinctiveness of our own portion.
I am glad to get tidings of you and of those dear to the Lord around you. I rejoice to hear that you are going on. "Whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing" (Philippians 3:16). No one gets more but as he is going on, and prizes what he has received. I like to hear of additions, and if they are in the power of God they will be a gain to us all. I am often afraid that the acceptance of a truth is considered equal to the practical adoption of it. I see many have come into outward fellowship who have never in their souls "left the ship" and walked through death, the death of Christ, to join Him at the other side of death. See Matthew 14. I have seen in print that 'coming to the Living Stone' is conversion, building on the rock. This I am sure is incorrect. You are converted if you have "tasted that the Lord is gracious", but when you have come to Christ risen, the Living Stone, you are consciously of the same order as He is; you are of His kindred, His brethren, and you never know Him in resurrection until you come to Him. You come to Him, in His own life; you have appropriated His death, the water, and you are with Him who has breathed on you.
I may surprise you, but if you examine you will find that while many enjoy peace at times, very few are in the liberty of Romans 8:2. The Corinthians and the Galatians had not liberty. Liberty is that in the life of Christ you are free from the law of sin and death. Many imagine that they are dead to sin by the reckoning of faith -- a great deception. How could you believe that you are holy?
Holiness by faith is a delusion. If you were to say that in the eye of God you were perfectly clear, and that He does not impute sin, I should fully agree with you, but when any one says that he is holy by faith, I say he deceives himself. How could he believe that which is not true? The old man has been judicially terminated in the cross for every believer, and hence you are in Christ in the eye of God, and He never reverts to the flesh; but you and I do revert to it; hence we cannot say that we are free from sin but as each of us can say: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me" (Galatians 2:20). "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death" (Romans 8:2). It is by the Spirit of God and not by my faith that I am free from sin and death, and if I am not walking in the Spirit, I am in the flesh. I have been greatly helped by seeing that when you are enjoying Christ living in you, it is then the world becomes a wilderness, a dry and barren land where no water is.
As to your question 'whether the Lord comes into our midst when we are gathered to Him', my thought is, that when either a few or many saints, separated from association with evil, come together to recall the Lord in His death, that He comes to this company, makes His presence known, though not more than two or three may have faith to expect Him. Those who have come to Him, the Living Stone, can recognise Him; they know that they may see Him in His glory and have boldness to go in with Him to the holiest, and they see and seek Him there, not for their own individual state, but to be in company with Him, and they receive from Himself His present mind as to His present interests. I think the faith of two or three will draw Him into the midst.
The disciples in John 20 were waiting for Him. I look upon that scripture as describing the pattern of the assembly characteristically. All that should characterise it was there in the very beginning, and therefore it is true to the end, and for every beginning.
Mr. Darby used to say that we ought to know when the Lord comes into the room -- in our midst. I could better say, when He had left it -- one feels that the sense of power has gone.
We remember Christ in death, but we know Him in glory. We know Him not only in the Jonah aspect, but also in the Solomon aspect.
... We had a warm discussion on the difference between the Lord's Supper to us, and the remembrance of the Lord's death by the millennial saints. -------- would insist that he could combine the benefits with the Benefactor. I, on the other hand, insisted that unless we are in the benefit of His death, we are not fit to be there; but we are there, not to think of our gain from His death, but to remember Him in death, and our hearts to be drawn out in love to Him.
I am very thankful to the Lord for my time in London. I think some are beginning to see the difference between the altar and the door of the tabernacle. The former is in figure the cross the latter the presence of Christ. I spoke on this in the morning. Any one referring to his own state is no further than the altar. Christendom has not got beyond the altar. At the door of the tabernacle you are in a new sphere and you are occupied with the perfection and blessedness of Christ as the consecrated company feeding on Him.
I have been pointing out the difference between the Saviour and the Priest. The Saviour's work was on the earth, the Priest's is in heaven. If we had only the Saviour we should in our infirmities look for His help, to be like Job under them. But when we know Him as Priest we are drawn away from the pressure and the scene of the pressure, to the solace we find in Him.... It is a great point that it is not the work merely that we have before our hearts but Himself. I see all through Luke's gospel the great blessing which followed coming to Him. See chapters 7 and 17. There are three steps in Romans 3:25: you come to Him and you have forgiveness; 2nd, you believe on God who raised Him from the dead; now you are justified, you are in the favour of God, you have received the Holy Ghost (Romans 4:24, 25; 5: 1 - 5); 3rd, you are so assured that all that was contrary to God has been removed in the cross, that you can come to Christ in glory. Now you are in Christ, and the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made you free (chapter 8). Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, and the effect is, that beholding His glory you are transformed (2 Corinthians 3:18).
The first great thing to ascertain with regard to the Lord's Supper is His own mind in instituting it. It was evidently to be a remembrance of Himself in His death. He addressed Himself to the eleven, so thoroughly bound in heart to Him. It was a request which each heart then most eagerly responded to. To remember Him was the paramount feeling in their hearts; He asked to be remembered by those who were most willing to accede to His request.
A sense of His love would be engendered in us, as the remembrance of Himself in death for us was revived to our hearts. His love led Him to give up all things here that He was divinely and rightly entitled to as a man -- for us; and the more this love and the manner of it came before our hearts the more should we be attached to Him and in heart dissociated from all that He had surrendered for us. I would not call it a command -- I feel I am invited by Him to do what my heart delights to do. It is addressed to loving hearts, and hence I am -- the deeper and fuller my remembrance of Him -- where His love came out most fully, the more attached to Him. I do not say that I bind myself to think of nothing but His death. It is His death which draws my heart more to Himself in a very special way, which results in the responsibility which the Table expresses.
The Supper leads me into His great love for me, and the Table, which is fellowship with His death, is my answer to it. I quite feel that the remembrance of my Saviour in death for me so affects me, that at that time He is more than ever before my heart, in the depths of His love for me, which many waters could not quench; but I always find that where there is a real effect produced on me, that I am then not so much occupied with the work which produced it (though the effect must carry with it the sense of the nature of the work) as with the One who did the work, and hence I believe the corn of the land accompanies the Supper, or rather follows it, as in the land, and as it did in John 14, which surely is the corn of the land, or Christ in glory. Confining the mind to the mere act of Christ's death, though that is the door by which we enter into this new region, would be limiting me to that which produced an effect, and would not leave room for the range and scope into which the effect would lead me. Because when, by a fresh remembrance of His death, I enter into His love for me, I feed on Himself in death and in glory, and I am determined in purpose of heart to be identified with His death here, which is the Table side. It is the very sense of enjoying Him in glory to which I reach afresh in remembrance of His death, that prepares me in heart and desire to have fellowship
of His blood here. I walk along the Jordan the rest of my days, but on the heavenly side of it. Thus death and glory are mine; glory where He is, and death where He was. As I recall His death I am renewed in His love and I rise to Himself where He is -- the corn of the land; and I am prepared for the responsibility of being identified with His death in this place where He died for me! I feel that any one who loves the Lord will easily agree with me.
As to your question, I do not think that it would help you to institute a comparison between the worship in the assembly and the worship in heaven. The only scripture I know of, alluding to worship hereafter is the worship of the heavenly company with reference to the Lord on the earth as Redeemer and Creator, and not simply as Head of the church. If I am right as to this you would not gain anything from the comparison. I shall try and explain to you, as well as I can, the true state of heart towards Him in the assembly. You come to meet the Lord; He is Son over God's house. Properly your first thought is to remember Him as He left this earth. You are in company with Him risen from the dead (Hebrews 2:12). You are in the efficacy of His accomplished work; the more you are in the consciousness of your acceptance, the nearer you are to Him, the more deeply affecting it is to your heart that He died where you are. It is His death which engrosses your heart; it is not your gain; you are in the gain of His death, and the more you are, the more is your heart affected in recalling His death. It is not His sufferings you recall but His death; He died where you are, you live where He lives. The effect is that you are severed from the place where He died and correspondingly attached to Him where He is. The Lord's Supper and Table is brought before the Corinthians because they had lost all sense that they were in the place where Christ had died; they were reigning as kings. You shew forth the Lord's death until He come. There is no relief to your heart from the fact of His death here until He comes;
you are identified here with His death. He has borne your death, and has freed you from it, but now your heart is so attached to Him that, like Ruth, you can say, "Where thou diest, I will die". If you think of your own benefit at such a time, I am sure you will weaken your remembrance of Him. If you think of any one near and dear to you among men, it is not his acts, however great, that you think of, but of himself, and as you do, you are in heart severed from the place where he is not; his death is ever before you in that place. But with regard to the Lord, your consolation is that you see Him alive from the dead, as He is in the assembly: then you know the peculiar worship consequent thereon. "I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you" (John 16:22).
I trust I have now conveyed my mind to you. The pious in Christendom do not go beyond the Passover in Egypt: we are really over Jordan to remember Him. If we were not in the benefit of His work, we could not reach Him. We must be clear of that for which He suffered, before we can enjoy His presence as the One risen from the dead.
... As to remembering the atoning as well as the separating side of His death, His death terminates His connection with man as He was here; He is dead as to man here; we announce His death until He come. There is no change from His death here until He come; His death gives the true character to everything here: that He died here, entails on the heart true to Him, to be identified with His death; communion with His blood and with His body -- that is His death. But besides that He died here, it greatly intensifies His death that it was for us. I have tried to explain it by saying, that the place where my father died would recall his death to me, but that if he died there for me it would make his death very affecting to me. Still, it is about my father I am thinking and not the effect on me of his death. Hence I regard "for you" as rendering His death unspeakably affecting to us, and I think this will supply the lack which you have rightly felt there
would be in remembering His death without including that He died "for you". I have pressed His death for you as rendering His death more affecting to us, though generally it is used to renew to oneself the assurance of the benefit derived from it. In Christendom they recall the fact of His death in the same way that a pious Israelite would view the paschal lamb, as shelter from judgment.
The effect, blessed be God! of His death and resurrection, is our reconciliation. God has effected the reconciliation, but it is the One who has effected it that we remember.
I fear many have accepted the truth as to the unity of the body -- that all Christians are united together -- who have not laid hold in their souls of the great fact that Christ is Head of the body, and that the mystery is that the body -- the Christ, is Christ's body, His complement, and I feel that all the turning aside which betrays a low state amongst those who have tasted of peace, is traceable to this, they have not gone on to the knowledge of the mystery. It is a great favour to be allowed to stand really for Christ, not only for the gospel -- His blessed service to man, but for the mystery -- the centre-piece with the blessed God for ever. Why should it not be our centre? I believe the great lack is from not seeing the difference between where the gospel puts us and where the mystery puts us. Much that is very edifying is simply gospel. 2 Corinthians 3 and 4 are gospel, though no doubt one who was there would very easily enter into the truth of the mystery. The Lord give you grace to withstand every buffeting, and having done all, to stand.
I was speaking on tithing last evening. The Lord is not to be shorn of His dues; you come from worship to service, to render to Him His due -- the tithes. The tithes belong to the conqueror. See Abram -- the conqueror, gave them to the priest. "I have not eaten thereof in my mourning, neither have I taken away ought thereof for
any unclean use" (Deuteronomy 26:14). There are two great ways in which the Lord is deprived of His rights. You must have a heavenly state to have a heavenly practice. You must have the state first. The worm shows the colour of the leaf it feeds on. We come from wisdom's feast to walk down here. Forsake the foolish and live. For this we must have been feasting first at wisdom's feast.
I quite enjoyed hearing -------- speaking on, 'If the Lord delight in us, He will surely bring us in.' Hedoes delight; may we rejoice in His delight.
I think it is of the greatest importance to hold to the truth committed to the church, as Paul exhorts Timothy, "Thou hast fully known my teaching" -- the gospel and the church. The gospel comprises all Christ has done for us; the church or assembly all He has made us for Himself. If you do not know the first, you cannot be in the truth of the second. Even in John you get the gospel, I may say, from chapter 3 to nearly the end of chapter 10, which I call the first volume; and from chapter 13 to 17 you are taught His grace in fitting you for Himself here during His absence. I do not see that any one could enter into chapter 13 but a lover of Christ. He is going away; Do you miss Him? Do you desire to have part with Him where He is? Do you seek to be for Him here? This is the second volume.
You will derive much help from studying John's gospel. I feel that some are painfully dark as to the church or assembly -- what it is to Christ; and also as to the judgment on the sinner. You would hardly think that these two apparently different subjects could be so intimately connected. The body of Christ is His complement, derived from Himself. We are members of His body. You do not understand the mystery -- the church which is His body, if you do not see that as is the heavenly [Man], such are
they also that are heavenly. You must apprehend the second Man, but you cannot do so, unless you see that the first man has been totally removed judicially -- that is, in the cross of Christ. The present judgment on every sinner (every unconverted soul) is death; not only is there guilt as a sinner, but there is the weight of death on him, which cannot be removed but by death. So if he dies before he is relieved -- ransomed, he is eternally lost. Now our blessed Lord judicially ended the first man in the cross, and He so glorified God under the judgment that He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. In Him the first man under judgment has been historically ended, and He has risen from the dead -- the last Adam. If you do not see the old man crucified, you cannot be fully relieved of the weight that is on you, and you do not fully enjoy the gospel; you have not travelled in faith through the Red Sea to the other side; literally, through the death of Christ into the bright day of the resurrection. And if you have not come to the spot of unspeakable joy where you are in the favour of God, you are not able or ready to accept that you are a member of His body -- "all of one". That He has fully cleared you of all that lay upon you, and set you in the presence of God to His infinite satisfaction, is the gospel; and that you are a member of the body of Him who has effected all this for you is the mystery of the gospel -- the church.
I see nothing of any avail now but well-trimmed lamps -- going forth to meet the Bridegroom. It was the devotedness, not the intelligence of the earlier brethren which awakened inquiry at the first. Now the effort has been to persuade souls by much light on scripture, and this even when effectual produces a very different type of testimony from what devotedness produces. I feel that separation from system has been regarded as the testimony to which we are called, instead of the introduction in marked lines
and colours of the life and ways of the blessed One who is rejected from this scene where His body is left in order to express Him and to maintain His name. While adhering to the service and usefulness which commends us to men, we have disregarded too much the weightier matters of unworldliness and devotedness. There has been often a convulsive activity without a vigorous constitution. I feel we must be sifted. The Lord cannot continue His light to us unless we use it. The laxity must be repudiated. The more simply we accept that we are here for Christ, and to suffer for Him, the more brightly we shall get on. If we be reproached for Him, happy are we! The nearer we keep to the Lord the more encouraged we shall be. When he gives the word, who can stay it? I see everywhere that men to whom the Lord has given anything for the church are right and clear as to God's mind in matters around us. How could they be otherwise? The mixed multitude may wander, but the Lord will preserve the faithful. Nothing will stand but faith.
I am quite certain that there must be, at any rate, a moral separation everywhere, between the ten spies and the two; or the two and a half tribes and the nine and a half. But there is this immense difference with us, who are members of the body of Christ, that any advance that any member or members of the body make must now conduce to the help and encouragement of every other member. What is good and right for one member, is good and right for all the other members, and the one who takes the step in advance should take it with the sense that he is not a unit, but part of a great whole. I believe it is of immense importance to seize by faith the intention of the Lord in giving back to brethren the truth as to the church of God. Do we accept the truth with the conviction that a fresh energy of the Spirit of God is connected with it -- that it is not to be held as an abstract truth, but that every one who truly receives it is in communion with the present energy of the Spirit? The energy of the Spirit was always connected with that truth; but now, in the close of the church period, He has enlightened
souls anew respecting it, and every one so enlightened is in a very favoured and responsible position, for if he truly answers to the light of it he is enabled to be in the testimony in power. Do you feel that you are called of God to be in this new and great and, I believe, last revival? I am sure you do, and the more you feel it the more you will encourage and help others to be there also.... "Thou ... hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name" (Revelation 3:8). It is not enough to come out of Egypt; you have to come into the land, and to stand there for God. If we do not know our vocation we are not only blundering, but we cannot avail ourselves of the power and resources given of God to maintain the testimony. The captain of the Lord's host is only in the land, is only connected with the testimony, for our vocation is according to it.
The Lord keep you doing His pleasure that the light of His countenance may be so the cheer of your heart, that you will be immediately conscious whenever you have in any measure stepped aside. May you go on side by side with Him.
I believe the opposition increases at every step which we take in advance. The conflict in the Spirit is at the other side of Jordan, and when there, Christ is everything and Adam is displaced. I believe if the gospel were fully known, the truth as to the church would follow. I think that the gospel would give me the grapes of Eschol, and victory over death here, in the place where death faces me; but in union with Christ I am over Jordan and eating of the old corn of the land. I trust that souls are waking up to the deep interest which Christ has in the church. I can never act rightly towards any member of the body, but as I am in concert with the Head about him. The feet may refuse to obey the counsel of the heart; the Head alone can give impetus and enforce concerted action in
the right path. I do not believe that any one who is not on heavenly ground, and consequently not in the present power of the Spirit, can keep the unity of the Spirit. We should have before us the simple fact that our blessed Lord has an object on this earth to which His heart is devoted, and the more we desire to act for Him, the more must we seek to share in His mind touching every atom of that object which is of so great interest to Him. The more I know of the heart of Christ, the more I shall care for all His own, and as He gives me grace and opportunity I seek to lead on souls by ministering Christ to each of His own. In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves, I have to refuse the evil but I have to choose the good.
I do not look in the present ruin for a perfect church. I look for a company set on following Christ, and I seek to help on every true soul. To edify, feed and cherish souls is the great thing, and it is thus that evil is exposed. There is no way in which darkness can be removed but by light.... I am sure we may be too much occupied with the evil. First love cannot be indifferent to evil; but it is engrossed with its Object, and what suits its Object determines everything: what He likes is good, what He does not like is bad. The Lord bless you, and lead you into the heart of the bride, and thus into the gladness of full concert of heart with Him.
I could have wished that the subject of the church had been more dwelt on. Surely nothing can be more consolatory to us than that we are here the members of Christ's body. To think that in this world of evil I am here for Christ, as part of Him, reconciles me to all the trials here. No doubt we are here also for another purpose, even to fit us each one for a special place in the future temple.
Here the education, the hammering, goes on. I remember, many years ago, when I was occupied with benevolent
activities, a brother said to me, 'you are a citizen of heaven'. It came with power to me, and I felt -- 'then I am no longer responsible for the disorder and misrule here'. It was a great relief to me; and afterwards I astonished some in -------- by saying, 'You will never be truly heavenly until you feel it a relief to be so.' In the shaking of all things now I do trust the saints may rejoice that they have a kingdom that cannot be shaken. My impression is that the whole character of society will be altered by the political distractions. We have only to think of it as to how it may affect the saints. I trust it may awaken us all to a greater sense of our insulated position in this world, that though we are in it we are not of it.
The Lord Jesus is not now on earth, He has ascended up into heaven. What a very peculiar position then is mine here! Sensible of the worthlessness of the first man, and of the absence of the Second; my own life -- that of the first man -- I hate; the One I love -- the Man who has glorified God upon the earth -- I find no longer here. How can I get on? Only as united to that One in glory. He is my life. One with Him I can walk here, not to cultivate my own life, but to manifest His, which is mine in Him. Thus the Lord says, "For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth" (John 17:19). His sanctification as expressed in those words is positional. He has ascended up into glory, and is wholly apart from this scene, that we might by the Holy Ghost be associated with Him there, and this is our moral sanctification. But how am I led into this association? See Acts 7:55. Stephen, "being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God". Now there was a new and distinct action of the Holy Ghost, enabling Stephen's soul to penetrate through everything, and to find Jesus
where He is, even in the glory of God. It was a new thing brought out at that moment. It was, in a sense, contrary to Stephen's own preaching, for he had been preaching that Christ was to come down -- to return. In chapter 1 the disciples were distinctly told not to gaze up into heaven, but now Christ's rejection was completed, and there was no longer any present possibility of His return to earth to take His rights, and the Holy Ghost takes a new line of action. He finds Jesus in the glory for the saint, and links the soul of the saint with Him there, all hope for the earth being cut off. For Stephen, it was the preparation for his own dissolution, and raised him completely superior to all the tribulation of the scene here. Riveted to that scene, linked with the One whom he saw there, he has only to bear his simple testimony, and to pray for his murderers -- grand testimony to the mighty power of Christ, thus placing His disciple above all the misery here.
Now every new revelation determines the character of the action of the Holy Ghost during any given period. When everything has failed on earth, He directs me to where there is no failure, He turns my eye to heaven. He accomplishes in me the very same action that He did in Stephen.
In 2 Kings 2:11, 12 we get an illustration of the very same thing, that is to say, of the way in which the Holy Ghost leads the soul of the believer now, turning the eye upwards. Elisha asks for a double portion of Elijah's spirit. The answer he gets is, "Thou hast asked a hard thing: nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, if shall not be so". Do you not think Elisha kept his eye fixed upon his master after this intimation? Gazing on the one who went up, the one who remains gets a double portion of his spirit. And what is his first action? He rends his own clothes; he has done with himself; he has the mantle of the one who has gone up, and in the power of that he can walk through the scene here. "Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:2, 3). It is the strangest of all anomalies that we should be left here to live, where our
life is not. Tell me where your eye is, and I will tell you what your conduct is. "We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Corinthians 3:18). There we get the moral consequence. One spirit with that Lord, the glory claims me as its own. It must, for when I am in company with Christ, I am in the very same order of things as Himself. Moses had to veil his face, but now, on the contrary, I can behold the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, and be transformed thereby into the same image. I have no shrinking from the glory, my heart rests in it. I can look up into that glory as one with the blessed One who is there, and who has made for me a free entrance into it by the ministration of righteousness and of the Spirit.
John 14 gives us the normal state of the saint now, the Spirit of truth is given to comfort us during the absence of Christ. But is that all? No; the Lord says, "At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you" (John 14:20). Aye, know. How wonderful! It is "that day", the Spirit's day, that we are now in, the day of the distinct and peculiar action of the Holy Ghost.
If I am not in conscious union with One who is there, I cannot "hate" the life that is here. I must be in His life in order to turn from my own. He has ended the first man in His cross, where He met every claim of God's righteousness, and endured God's righteous and terrible judgment, and having exhausted it, having borne the whole penalty of sin, He declares the name of the One whom He glorified when bearing the judgment to the uttermost. In resurrection He declares the Father's name: "I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee" (Hebrews 2:12). We are freed from the judgment which He bore, and in the life of the blessed One who has borne it we can sing praises with Him.
The endeavour "to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Ephesians 4:3) is the right principle, but the unity of the Spirit exists, and therefore the many members are but one body. The unity of the body could never be seen by the world, for it is by and in the Spirit. The oneness, being of one accord and of one mind, ought to be seen and was seen before the truth of the unity of the body was revealed. The unity being by the Holy Ghost always exists independent of man; the oneness which would be the practical working of it has failed, because of the unfaithfulness of man. The unity of the Spirit if maintained in power would necessarily lead to oneness, which is spoken of in John 17, where it is not unity of the body, but oneness of mind as with the Father and the Son. The saints baptised by the Holy Ghost are one body; that is the unity of the body, and this I endeavour to adhere to, and according as it is owned as already existing, oneness follows, but there was oneness (Acts 2) before the unity of the body was revealed; the external unity was never visible save as there was oneness, "one mind in the Lord" (Philippians 4:2). The unity exists in and because of the Holy Ghost. The house is the visible thing on earth, the body of Christ is not visible. The truth of the body was revealed after the church was set up, and consequent on the rejection of Christ from the earth. It was then revealed that when He is personally rejected from the earth, His body is here by the Holy Ghost. We read "the church, which is his body"; but the church was the visible thing constructively set here on earth, and it was spoiled in man's hands. The body cannot be spoiled, for it never was in man's hands. The church was not always spoiled: it began well. It was and is still God's habitation on earth, but ruin came in. The body remained intact, though the oneness was indeed soon lost, but there never was a thought of 'manifesting the corporate unity of the body of Christ',
as you say. It could not be. The powers and principalities may see it now, the world will see it in the character of the bride, the heavenly city, hereafter. We must take care and not confound what is really the body of Christ -- "the Christ", with the constructive thing -- the assembly set up here on earth. I admit the assembly ought to exhibit the power and grace belonging to Christ because it is His body. If failure has disorganised the assembly, as indeed is the case, and as a whole it is no longer what it ought to be, it becomes every true heart, while its history(Revelation 2, 3) continues, to be an overcomer -- to overcome the state of things current, to purge himself from the vessels to dishonour, to ally himself openly and succouringly with those who are like-minded in this action, even they, who thus purged, "call on the Lord, out of a pure heart". It is simple enough. The unity of the body remains -- it is by the Holy Ghost; I endeavour to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. All the members ought to own the unity of the body, but they do not. I seek to do so, and one member being right helps all the rest. In seeking to own it I join with those who seek in like manner, and as we seek we succour others, we honour our Lord, and are helped and encouraged by the Spirit, who, according to the will of God and the heart of Christ, is ever working to this end. There is no schism in the body, there could not be. The church is divided and split up into different sections, but the body is not. There is but one body. To talk of bodies is inconsistent and unscriptural. The faithful member acts faithfully to Christ, and when he and one or more do the same they are in practical concord -- of one accord and one mind, and they are a voice and a witness to the rest of their brethren, who are still involved and entangled in the corruptions which have disorganised the church and made it a huge outstanding worldly system. Christians have the Spirit, but they are not alas! endeavouring to keep the unity of Spirit. If they were they would be faithful to the Head and to the members too, for you cannot be faithful to the one without being so to the other; but in Christendom there is neither the one nor the other. Souls are saved, and they are content. The ark that saved them, I may say, is little thought
of. If Christ is thought of and known as Head over all things to the church, which is His body, the members here are sought and nourished and known to be in the unity of the Spirit, and then, when known, we endeavour to keep in the bond of peace with every saint.
It is a relief to me to discover from your letter that you do not seem to understand what I understand by the unity of the Spirit. I consider it a closer bond than the nerves of the human body, and any abrasion in any part or in any way affects the whole; and this abrasion, if persisted in and justified, is more mischievous and ungodly than any moral misconduct. If you understood the unity of the Spirit as the constitutional bond of the church, the body of Christ compacted together by that which every joint supplies, you could not have spoken of 'Providence' in connection with --------'s act, nor have put any moral conduct as deeper in sinfulness than a persistent and wilful denial of the constitution of the church of God. Paul was the most moral and amiable of men, and at the very time he was the chief of sinners because he persecuted the church of God and wasted it. How much worse the one who professes to have the Spirit and at the same time persists in and justifies the grieving of the Spirit to the pain and loss of every member of Christ over the whole universe. I am only myself awakening to the gravity of the responsibility of the unity of the Spirit. I feel we have adopted the truth too lightly, and, therefore, we must have great forbearance with one another.
I consider in every relation we are to be controlled by this new bond; an undutiful child, an unloving husband might feel the immorality of his conduct, but unless he feels it with reference to the Spirit he really is unable to comprehend the uniting bond of peace.
Your friend's view is that because scripture says you have to "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12), then you cannot be sure of being saved until you get to heaven, and may be lost in the end! In reply, I begin by stating that no one can understand Christianity or the grace of God unless he sees that man is not only a sinner, but that he is lost. The judgment of death is upon every child of Adam, and it is in the Man who bore the judgment which rests on man, and who was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, that every one who believes in Christ is found. In Adam all die, in Christ shall all be made alive. If you do not see the distinction between the first and the second man you will never understand what the grace of God is in its fulness. He has cleared away the man that offended, and has brought in the Man of His pleasure. Hence we read, Every one in Christ is a new creation. This could never be lost. "All things are of God" (2 Corinthians 5:18). Peter says, "Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls" (1 Peter 1:9). God has given us salvation; we have to work it out in our daily lives. As to the passage brought forward where Paul says, "Lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway" (1 Corinthians 9:27), "Castaway" refers to his preaching -- that he would not get his reward if he was not a profitable servant. We get the same idea in John 15:2. "Every branch ... that beareth not fruit he taketh away". It has not to do with your safety for heaven, but with your service for God in this world. It is not to get salvation, but to bear the fruits of salvation.
The judgment of death on man has been borne by the Man Christ Jesus. This judgment on man must be removed before eternal life could be given; it could not be entered into or enjoyed, save by those no longer under judgment -- such have passed from death to life. Hence it is said, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:14, 15). Man is lost; the world is under judgment, and out of it Christ has been lifted up. Faith in Him lifted up is our step out of all that was under judgment. We pass out of death into life. Eternal life could not be given to the man under judgment of death; therefore it could not be conferred until the Son came, through death to destroy him that has the power of death, and it is in the Son that we have it. "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil" (Hebrews 2:14). The saints, prior to the death of Christ, were all their lifetime, through fear of death, subject to bondage. But Christ, having borne the judgment, and having bruised the serpent's head, is henceforth the life of every one believing in Him risen from the dead. Hence, the life is not in the man who was under judgment, but in Him, the second Man, who has borne the judgment and is beyond it. As with Israel, when the one bitten of the serpent looked at the brazen serpent lifted up, he lived; so now, as there is faith in Christ lifted up, and as the eye of faith rests on Him there, so is there assured possession of eternal life in Him. While there is any uncertainty or indistinctness in the soul as to life being not in the man under judgment, but in Him, who by death has. gone out of the whole scene of death and judgment, there is not an assured sense of the great gain accruing
from the gift of God. The gift of God is eternal life, but this cannot be entered into until a complete transfer has been accepted from the man under the wages of sin, to Him who is alive from the dead. Eternal life is in Him, the Son of God; it is beyond everything of sin and death. He is our life, and He is outside of everything in any way connected with man's state. He has died unto sin, and "in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God" (Romans 6:10). You must not only have faith in His blood, you must feed on His death; that is, you must appropriate His death before you can know Him as your life. "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you" (John 6:53). You must feed on the death of the One who bore the judgment of death, and removed it, before you can know that He who has done so is your life. When you are enjoying Christ in glory, you are enjoying life in its own proper sphere and fulness. The soul must pass this step before Christ can be known as He is. You are fully clear of the judgment, and of the man under judgment by faith in Him lifted up. He is the beginning of the eternal and heavenly things, which were manifested here in His Person. I must be morally out of the one before I know the other.
Hence, in the epistle of John you travel from light to love. All inconsistent with God is first removed, and then the love is entered on; and then you are assured that as Christ is at God's right hand, so are you in this world. Life in Christ can only be enjoyed and entered into in the sphere where Christ is, and the Holy Ghost ever leads to that sphere. It is not enough that one is over Jordan -- that he has died with Christ, but he must be in the sphere of life to enjoy Christ, who is his life. Such an one now seeks the things which are above, where Christ sitteth. He is dead, and his life is hid with Christ in God. Once the Spirit has been received, He always tends to, and reaches up to Christ in His own sphere; hence it is said of the Spirit in the believer, "springing up", not to heaven but "unto eternal life".
Now mark, that having died with Christ and being clear of the old man, as at Gilgal, the rolling it all off being known, circumcision, consequent on, and subsequent
to, being risen with Christ and seeking the things above, I reach that point in the history of my soul where I have been instructed in Him in "the truth as it is in Jesus", the having put off the old man, and the having put on the new Man; that is, I practically enter into it; but it is true of every believer, as in Christ before God. The first step is, that Christ having died for me, and that I having died with Him, am apart from everything connected with sin and death; and now, in the second step, I accept the practical severance from all of the old man, both as to will and habits. I am outside of the man on whom man in the world can act, while I walk in faith.
Now, as in the type, the old corn of the land was not eaten of, and the manna had not ceased until the day after the Passover. When I have accepted "the truth as it is in Jesus", of having put off the old man, and having put on the new, I reach Him where He is everything and in all. Then we eat of the old corn of the land. We enjoy Him -- the Eternal Life, where He is. In the heavenlies you do not eat manna, but the old corn of the land.
One word more. There are three witnesses that God hath given us eternal life and that life is in His Son -- the Spirit, the water, and the blood. The Spirit, who is the truth, is first in order, though last in finishing. He leads me into it, and connects me eternally with it.
The next witness is the water -- second in order, because it conveys the assurance that I am purged from every moral pollution by the death of Christ, typified by the two washings in Leviticus 14. And this really does not come out effectively and fully, until I am at Gilgal; that is, in the realisation that I am apart from the old; and that, in the putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ, I am in the new.
The third witness (the one we know first) is the blood. There is a full and complete expiation of my sins.
Unless you are in spirit where Christ is, believing on the Son of God, you are engaged with a conflict which is not heavenly; and though you may have the support of Christ here individually as the manna, yet you are not with the consecrated company feeding on the old corn of the land, because you are not in spirit where it is.
As Christ lives in me, I walk here as He walked. He did everything here consistent with eternal life, in which He ever was, but there was a great difference between His life as a Man, and as in the Father's bosom, and yet they were concurrent. You are to walk here as He walked, and concurrently, to be in communion with Him where He is; but in the one you are walking among men -- "The life that I live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God"; and in the other you are in communion with Him, who now lives unto God, and to 'nothing else', as J.N.D. says. As I am near the Lord, He enables me to conduct myself here as He did when here. He did live here, in the old order, He now lives in heaven, in the new and eternal order where everything is in perfect consonance to His mind, and you are united to Him there, and can enjoy Him there in unclouded light, and when you are with Him there, you will not need the support necessary for the wilderness.
I think all are "in the light" of the revelation of God, but I have no ground for stating that all are in communion, though I fully admit that all are called to it. I see that communion is a very great thing. It is concert with Christ in His present thoughts. I can enjoy His help and sympathy, and be much cheered by the sense that He never leaves me, but communion with Him is far beyond this, and implies that I am in present unison with Him where He is. Mary, in John 11, was in the effect of His sympathy before she was in company with Him, as in John 12. None of us have more than a measure of communion, but ever so small a measure of it is very different from the sense of His care for me down here, though the greater would include the lesser. Your child might be very happily sitting beside you, and yet not in communion with you.... It is right and proper to be exercised as to a correct apprehension of such a great subject, and surely this is the great gain of speaking often one to another.
It is miserable work detecting error, instead of feeding on the pure word of God. I feel thankful for the way that the truth is opening out to my own soul. Out of the eater comes forth meat. The very fact of the truth being assailed makes it, through grace, only the more precious to me.
I have been very much interested in seeing the way eternal life is connected with the Father. It is in eternal life that we have knowledge of the Father and the Son. It was manifested in the Son. Abraham knew God as the Almighty God. Moses knew Him as Jehovah, but in boundless blessing, we know Him as Father, which includes all that they knew, and very much more. As we read their histories we are sensibly distanced from them in the sense of their practical power, as so beyond our own; yet we must not go back to them. This is just what the systems have done. The knowledge of the Father is, I fear, but little experienced or cultivated, and yet it is the relationship to God, or at any rate the highest, that we are brought into now, and it is the privilege of babes. It is only in the life of Christ that I can have any idea of the Father, for it is as Christ is my life that I enter into this great relationship. The better son one is to a great father the better he understands his great father. It is only as I know the nature of God, that I can know anything of His dignity. "This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent" (John 17:3). It is marvellous how the care of God in a fatherly way is manifested for us in all the ordinary things of our path down here. The Old Testament saints could say, although He was not then known as Father, "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him" (Psalm 103:13); and so can we. But to know Him and His love, as the Son knew it, is another thing, and infinitely surpasses His care for us in natural things, and it is in the life of Christ that I know Him thus.
First, the question (as to eternal life) was never, as I understood, whether it was given to every believer now, but whether every believer is enjoying the gift.
Secondly, I admit that John and Paul are distinct lines, but surely the spiritual man can recognise where they coalesce, as the up line would with the down line. Paul is the up line, John the down line. J.N.D. says that the child in John is not up to the perfect in Philippians 3, that he has not learned himself. Neither the babes nor the young men are in a bad state (I never heard that said); but they are in a young or immatured state. The babe in John is not at all the same as the babe in 1 Corinthians. The babes in 1 Corinthians were carnal; but in John it is that they were not as matured as the fathers; they had to combat, step by step, the antagonism in this scene, just as a tropical plant would have to be strengthened to be proof against an ungenial climate. I do not see how any one could be a father unless he had been first a babe.
Thirdly, the main question, as I understand it, is, What is the nature and condition of the life which the fathers intelligently realise? The three classes have it as God's gift, but the fathers really are consciously in it. You say it is the basis for walk; I admit this in a way, but surely walk is not all? Walk certainly is the path here, but there is the life of communion with the Father and the Son. The great point of John's epistle is, that we might be in conscious knowledge of eternal life. See chapter 5. It was manifested by our blessed Lord. Though He humbled Himself, became a Man, and walked here in the life of flesh, in all His ways as a man He acted consistently with His own proper life in which He was all the time in the Father's bosom; so that in leaving us an example to follow His steps, we are not only to seek to live as He lived here, but as He now lives unto God....
Paul was not only set for living Christ here, but he desired to know Him in glory, and he means this when he writes to Timothy, "Lay hold on eternal life". I hold that there is a great difference between realising the blessed life of Jesus, as He was down here, and being
in communion with Him where He is now, where, as Paul says of Him, "In that he liveth, he liveth unto God" (Romans 6:10, and as J.N.D. adds, 'and to nothing else'.
The babe and the young man must be real; they must surmount the antagonistic influences here; they must verify their new position, through grace. They are in the true Christian position, but they are not in the communion in which the fathers are. The fathers would not retain their advanced position if they were not sustained by Christ's grace on the vantage ground to which He had conducted them.
I believe that we all shall learn much if we are patient one with another and really wait on the Lord, seeking to be near Him.
I am not surprised that you should be depressed by the contention which prevails amongst us. I find that the only true way is to be assured first from the Word what eternal life is, and when you are assured divinely of what it is and what it confers, then you will be proof against all perversions and misrepresentations.
It is said that a clerk in a bank first learns what a good banknote is, that he is kept in a room where the bank-notes are until he knows a good one, and then when any note which is not good is presented to him he knows it to be bad.
I do not believe that any one apprehending the greatness and blessedness of eternal life could fail to see where the truth lies at the present time. Some do not see any unsoundness in the teaching itself who do not enter into the positive side, that is, the greatness and joy of it. These latter, though they do not actually oppose, do not help. The one seeking to have a conscious knowledge of having it (which is the object of John's first epistle, as he says, "These things have I written unto you ... that ye may know that ye have eternal life" (1 John 5:13)) is sure to be a help. The very fact that eternal life is outside of my senses -- To God I am beside myself -- is enough to show me that it must be opposed or evaded because it is, as Mr. Darby says, 'an
out-of-the-world condition of things'. Every one who has a heart like Peter (Matthew 14) would leave the ship (what suits man) to join the Lord in His own life outside and apart from all that refused Him here. Christians, as a rule, do not seek it. Paul says to Timothy, "Lay hold on eternal life", though it was his all the time. Grace has given me much more than I yet enjoy or have appropriated. The Lord grant that you may appropriate and enjoy it.
Life is in Christ for every believer in Him, but it is in Him you have it, and it is as you are in Him, you are "alive unto God". Under the law it was, "This do, and thou shalt live". Under grace it is, "Whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:15). Is it the same man who is to do and live, who under grace is told to believe and have life? It is here all the darkness on the subject lies. The old man is told to do and live. It is the newly-born one who is to believe and find life in another Man, Christ Jesus. Until you come to Christ risen, declared to be the Son of God with power you do not touch life, though life is in Christ for every believer. It was in Christ for His disciples when He was on the earth, but they did not enter on it until after His resurrection.
The mistake is in thinking that it comes to you. You are brought to it by the Spirit; you live in the Spirit.
I see the design of the enemy in the present assault, to spare the man -- Adam; for if that man be not ended on the cross, then there is really no eternal life. The Son of man must be lifted up.
Have you seen a copy of an indictment against us circulated among the Swiss meetings? We are accused first of denying 'the personality of eternal life'. Secondly, that we
deny that faith accompanies new birth. As to the first, the personality of eternal life is an entirely unscriptural expression. Life is not a person, though I cannot know the Person if I am not in His life. Secondly, as to faith and new birth, who begins? If God begins, then faith comes after God's beginning. It matters not how soon after, but God must begin.
It is a great relief to turn from these discussions, and enjoy in some little measure Him who is our life. I believe the first great defect is that, while Christ's service is enjoyed, the love in which He rendered it is not known, like Joseph's brethren in Genesis 50:15, who had been for years the objects of his care and nourishing and yet had never known his heart. If intimacy with the Lord is known, His perfect love in washing our feet and restoring us to communion with Himself where He is would be deeply valued; we should then taste of His life, and Himself would be increasingly known to us.
I am glad and thankful that, though often wishing it, and thinking of it (for you know I desire you to be fully perfect), I have not written to you on this subject until your own mind was exercised about it.
Baptism is the declaration of the end of the first Adam in the death of Christ, establishing that we are all dead. The believer takes his place there by faith; he renounces, as becomes him, the first Adam, and therefore is baptised unto the death of Christ. He rises out of the death into
newness of life. This is simple. Now all belonging to the believer is properly placed in the same standing with himself. It is a principle with God from the beginning. The little ones were brought to Mount Ebal to be present at the reading of the curses. The believer's belongings are put in the same standing as the believer himself; we read of the Philippian jailor, he "was baptised, and all his straightway" (Acts 16:33). There can be no question as to the fact, and the principle everywhere through scripture authorises the fact. All belonging to the believing jailor ("believing" is in the singular) were baptised. Baptism separates me avowedly from the first Adam, which is condemned in the death of Christ. By right all men should acknowledge the fact; I do so in faith, and I place my child there as being the only place where God can deal with him, seeing, furthermore, that my child is now "holy", that is, not better in nature than other children, but now belonging to God -- God's property, just inasmuch as a lamb given to the priest by a Jew is holy to God and His property; so I cannot therefore arrange for or do with my child as I like; I must regard it as holy -- God's property.
The old Adam can never again be presented to God. We are entirely on new ground, and therefore we are instructed to bring up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and how can we do so if we fail to set them in the place that is honouring to Christ and His work, in which He ended, by bearing death, the man who brought in the judgment. I do not believe any one sees clearly and fully the end of the first Adam in God's sight who does not see his responsibility to baptise his children. Get the truth and faith in the truth before you go to any one. The tree ought to take root first before it is subjected to storms. Truth is the rail for the engine of faith to run on.
"He that believes and is baptised" (Mark 16:16) is certainly more than water baptism. It is, in fact, believing with the heart and confessing with the mouth. It is the surrender of man as man unto Christ -- putting on Christ.
First let me tell you that if you are looking for authority or ground for faith in the faith of another you will surely miss it, though you may find, and you will find, confirmation for your faith in the way the one who has like faith has acted, and has learned of God. You (every one) ought to see the divine mind first about any point, and that is faith, derived from no circumstances or example though afterwards it is often corroborated by both. Baptism is the expression of the end of the first Adam in the death of Christ. A believing parent holds this truth without limitation or qualification, and the one who enters by faith into this great fact would shrink from being the parent of the first-Adam-being, if he could not avow before God that he does not recognise its existence (morally) in Adam, but that he can place it before God as an existence gone in the death of Christ, even as through grace he has found himself to be gone there. Dreadful if a Christian should be the reviver and author of an existence judged in the cross of Christ, unless he were permitted to place it in the same standing before God and man, as he had through God's grace been placed himself. If it were not so, it would be better never to have a child to perpetuate the race which was judicially ended in the cross of Christ, and if there were no liberty or privilege granted to me -- a Christian parent -- to place my children there and to avow them as unto Christ, apart from the race judicially terminated in His death. Here then I state that no careful reader of the example of faith in the Philippian jailor can fail to see that all rests on his faith. In the latest and most correct editions it reads (as J.N.D.):--'with (it is' with 'not' and ') all his house' -- or rather literally, 'they spake the word to him with all in the house', and 'was baptised himself and all his straightway'; and he having believed in God, rejoiced householdly; (an adverb); it is simply an expression of how joy filled the house! for certainly it refers to the joy, not to the believing, nothing can be plainer. But I rest nothing for a soul without faith, nor do I indeed press this truth, because I believe daily that it involves a home faithfulness that I. for one, feel little experienced in. I
believe it is a truth which touches on the first Adam in a fatal way. If man is buried, where should he be? But adult Baptists, unintentionally I believe, go through baptism as Noah through the deluge, and rise up out of it to take a fresh start in the old Adam. If their baptism were true they ought to be buried; we do not like to see buried people; and if it be, as they say, in the baptism they are risen by faith in the operation of God, then they are not risen before baptism, which proves too much!
Your letter reached me here. There are really two great questions, the rights of Christ and the state of souls. If I only had Paul, or was a dissenter in the true meaning of the word, I should confine myself to the second -- the state. But when I see that the rights of Christ are widely extended beyond the state of souls, as Peter, John and Jude teach me, then I must not deny either, but seek to put each in its proper place. Christ has been given power over all flesh.... The clergyman who does not see Paul's truth confines himself exclusively and injuriously to Christ's rights, and says every soul in the parish belongs to him as Christ's pastor, and he would baptise every one of them. Now a Baptist, or a dissenter true and proper, would not baptise any but as the state of each warranted it. Hence he attaches to baptism not a simple renunciation of an old standing in order to be introduced into a new, but an improvement of state. I admit the clergyman thinks the standing confers state, but there he plainly errs. Now the servant of Christ claims the believer in the heathen country, or the Jew, for Christ, and requires him to be baptised, and not only him, but all his. When any of the household refuse, it indicates that they are not under his (the head of the house) authority, and where there was a decided refusal I should not like to insist on it because the right of Christ was clearly impugned; for surely the believer's children are, through the death of Christ, placed in a new position as "holy".
Baptism does not entitle to the Lord's supper. It is
the act and responsibility of another. The Lord's supper is your own act and responsibility, and not another's in any way. One is really the initiative, and is connected with the house, the other is connected with and assertive of the body, to which baptism does not at all relate.
I do not see any use in educating people in baptism merely. I might find many who would approve of household baptism who really have not the truth of which it is the leaf.
I feel that saints must be conversant with the large subject of Christ's rights as Head of every man before the truth of baptism will be of any use to them.
I am cheered with your progress in the truth. The Lord is very gracious to you, leading you not merely to see the truth, but to make it your own. There can be no real advance until the spiritual meaning of baptism is understood -- that Adam is ended in the death of Christ. Then if Christ has died (as we call to mind and "announce" at the Lord's supper), where is there any place for man's glory?
As to "holy" and "unclean" in 1 Corinthians 7:14, the offspring of Israel (see Ezra) were unclean if they were the fruit of a mixed marriage (Jew and Gentile). Now the children of a believer and unbeliever are not unclean, but holy. There is this great contrast through the death of Christ. The children of a believer are now holy, though either parent be an unbeliever. "Holy" means simply that they are God's property, acknowledged by Him. He has a title to them, like a lamb given to the priest, it was "holy to the Lord", and could not be taken back. It was handed over to the Lord. Thus the children of believers are holy, they are entitled to the place of privilege, but as it is through the death of Christ, they must in baptism, the figure of His death, submit to the claims of Christ. The believer is entitled to the house of God by faith, and thereon he submits to baptism; hence
he places his children in the death of Christ, and submits that they should take the name of Christ in baptism as the only door to it. I hope this is clear to you.
I never said or wrote that the children of believers in this dispensation were born into the house of God. Baptism introduces them into the place of privilege. The children of a believer now are in a more favoured position than with Israel. The children of a Jew and Gentile were unclean. See Haggai. The children of a believer and an unbeliever now are not unclean, but they are "holy" (see 1 Corinthians 7:14); that is, they belong to God as every devoted thing under the law was holy unto the Lord. This is my authority for baptising them, refusing for them the first man in the figure of Christ's death, the only way of salvation, and because, as I am the bondsman of Jesus Christ, everything I have belongs to Him; the children of a slave belong to his master. You must either have your children connected with Adam, or connected with Christ; and He, remember, is the Head of every man; not merely the Head of His body -- the church -- but the Head as to authority of every man.
In baptism the children are claimed for Christ. It is not in any way a question for fellowship. It relates to Christ's rights on the earth.
There is no subject more difficult to make a rule about than discipline in the assembly. No two cases are alike, and the course which it is quite of the Lord to adopt in one case would not answer at all, that is, would not be His pleasure for us to follow, in the next, or in any other
case, however similar in character and name, because, as I have said, no two are really alike. The great principle is that the leaven should be purged out, that is the end in view, because it is the holiness of God's house with the welfare of the saints which is the end desired. The assembly is defiled by unjudged leaven. I cannot sanction it until I know it. The Corinthians knew of it, but were indifferent to it. The leaven therefore worked. If I heard of a saint who had transgressed, and if on expostulation I was assured that the leaven had been judged, I should not think it necessary to name it to the assembly; but if I were not assured, I should name the case to another, and if he agreed with me that the leaven was still there, it must be brought before the assembly. I believe everything should be done to arouse the conscience and produce self-judgment before the assembly is called upon to purge out the leaven by excision. As soon as the man in Corinth was repentant, the apostle was as strong with regard to his restoration as he was before as to his excision.
As to the scandal in the world, no church discipline would satisfy their ideas of morality. The only way to silence the world, or to obtain exoneration from it, is by a strict and unremitting separation from the former manner of life.
If a transgressor desired to confess to the assembly, I do not see how any one or two could interfere.
Where there is an assembly meeting to consider a case of discipline, and the discipline has been there and then decided on before the Lord and the assembly, there is no need to mention it at the Lord's table. But in London, where there are many assemblies, the decision can only be in one, and therefore it is necessary to mention the decision there, as the assembly is there present, but it is not necessary to do so in the place where the decision was arrived at in the meeting for discipline.
There is nothing plainer in scripture than that certain brothers in an assembly consulted together with regard
to matters which eventually were or were not to be submitted to the whole assembly. What do we see in Acts 15:6? "The apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter", and in Acts 20:17, Paul "sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church", and in Galatians 6:1, "Ye which are spiritual" intimates that all are not qualified to deliberate. The Levites were not qualified for the charge of the tabernacle until fifty years of age. It is plain all are not qualified for deliberation, though the conscience of the assembly must be exercised respecting any decision arrived at affecting it. Surely many a case of failure comes before a true pastor, which being confessed and judged is no longer a grief to the Spirit of God, and remains unknown to the assembly. But supposing the case become inveterate, then the judicious pastor would confer with one or more of the spiritual elders as to it, and surely they would seek counsel respecting it from all the elders in the place, truly worthy of the name, for elders have a character (see Titus 2:5), and this council or meeting of brothers is preliminary to the executive one, where the conscience of the assembly must be exercised as to the decision as of the Lord. It is to the Lord it is done, and hence it is not so much whether every one in the assembly agrees, but that the conscience, the answer of the heart before God, is assured and clear as to the decision. It seems to me a mistake to assert that there are no brothers fit to deliberate, no spiritual ones qualified to restore, because there is no brothers' meeting. I see the value of a brothers' meeting composed of elders of the scripture type, or "spiritual", yet I am sure that a meeting where all brothers may come is much to be dreaded as a kind of republic. I can feel for the two at -------- on this ground, for if they would not gain in their deliberations and exercise by increasing their number, I can well understand their declining an addition which could not help them. But if there are brothers besides them who are "spiritual", or elders in the scriptural sense, surely they would gain by admitting and inviting them to their deliberations.
... That is a wonderful statement, brought nigh unto God. The prodigal son would like to be safe and happy. "Make me as one of thy hired servants"; he had no idea of the near place he was to occupy.
We generally measure grace by the debt. In most minds the debt cancelled, or sins forgiven, defines the grace; that is man's idea of grace. But with God, blessed be His name, where sin abounded, grace did much more abound, so that we cannot tell the measure of the grace.
Man lost by sin the paradise of man, but in grace, as in the case of the thief on the cross, he through grace is placed "with me in paradise" -- the paradise of God! Surely the grace has immeasurably abounded where sin abounded. What a wonderful place to be brought to -- with Jesus in the paradise of God, transferred from the deepest degradation to the highest position before God -- and to be there as Christ is!
But there is in the natural mind a great reluctance to accept this grace, because the nearer we are to God the farther must we be from man as man is naturally. Even in the awakened soul there is a desire to limit the grace of God. He would not like to miss grace altogether, but he wants to have only as much of it as could be held with what also suits man. There is a reluctance to come so near as to find that all things are of God; and yet once we have tasted of this nearness, and have begun to be merry in the Father's house, nothing else can fully satisfy us, as nothing short of it satisfies Him for us. May we each know it better.
It is a great thing when through His grace we are a cheer and a help to one another. The eyelash is an immense help to the eye, though apparently holding a very small place, yet it is a most necessary one; so that we all are necessary.
I quite agree that the best robe is Christ. It is Christ subjectively; but though it is ours for ever by the grace of God, and though no one can enjoy the fatted calf without it, yet many are not in their true dress. It is pure Antinomianism for a saint to say that it is his dress, though he is not walking in it, not enjoying the access to the Father's house which it secures for him. The Galatians had so departed from it that the apostle writes to them, "I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you" (Galatians 4:19). And again in Romans 13:14 we read, "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof". The robe for ever belongs to every saint, but every saint is not always walking in it, and in consequence always enjoying the Father's house. The fact is that very few do enjoy the Father's house and the feast. I have been trying to call the saints up to their privileges, and my opposers are seeking to give them a false rest.
I am glad of your remarks about state. I think the clothes that were put on the prodigal are state. Christ has accomplished everything for us according to the will of the Father, and the Holy Ghost begins with us at the most distant spot, and conducts us up to the finish. The prodigal received kisses, they never alter, they ever remain in the heart of the Father. The feast ever remains; whether he enjoys it or not, it remains. The clothes are put on him, they are for ever his, and they cannot be worn out; but if he does not walk in them he cannot be at the supper, he cannot feast with the Father without them, and this I call state, but it is a state given of God.
I was on the first eleven verses of Romans 5 last evening. This is the first spiritual state you should be in. It is
because of the work done for us. It is the state the prodigal should have been in because his father had received him with so much affection. The One we had offended is now known to us in His boundless love; nothing about our side yet. The Father loves us now for ever, though no doubt the expression of His love is checked by our perverseness, but it can never alter, and the more we are in the spiritual state proper to this great reception the more shall we seek to be free of sin and all perverseness.
There is no returning to God in the man who was driven out of Eden. Still, through grace, man is compelled to come into the Father's house, but he must come in in new clothes, not only forgiven, but in a new state. The place is so holy, that we must be holy for it. No flesh can glory in His presence. The old man must disappear; and, figuratively speaking, the feet which have crossed over are the feet to hold possession, and that is Ephesians 6. The possession can only be assured in practical holiness. The right to go over is grace, but the actuality of acquisition in possessing can only be known in holiness -- created in holiness -- created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.
None of the offerings expressed the bruising of the serpent's head.
There are two sides to the gospel -- God's side and man's side. Every believer has relief when he knows that he is safe from judgment, but that is only his own side. It is when I see from whence the grace comes that I begin to be "merry". The grace comes down to me in the lowest place from the heart of God in the highest place; and when I have truly learned grace I come to the highest from the lowest. It is not then relief from the lowest that occupies me, but an eager pressing on to know more
of the highest. It is the same grace that has saved me from the lowest place which has given me the highest place, but the more I enter into the grace the more I press on. Grace is like a rope let down to a drowning man, not only to deliver him from a watery grave, but to place him in the very spot where the rope came from.
Through grace you have as much right to be at God's end of the rope as to be out of, and free of, the misery on your own side. If you are only occupied with your own side, the most you arrive at is relief, but when you reach God's side you begin to be merry, and then God is the strength of your heart and your portion for ever.
Do not be too ready to lend yourself to the sorrows around you without seeking to enter into the joys which are yours in His presence.
God has secured through the work of Christ all that His heart desired for His children, and all of it is our property for ever. Each believer is a son in the life of the Son with a place in the Father's house for ever; and if we were with the Lord (either if He came or if we went to Him through death) we should be in the full enjoyment of our own.
The only question is -- How are we to enjoy our own now? If we be dead with him we believe that we shall also live with him. By His death all has been obtained for us, and we by faith accept death with Him. We enjoy Him who is our life. I hope you understand all this.
I came here last week. I have begun a series of readings for one hour each evening; a great many are attending. The first reading was on Luke 15 -- acceptance and the enjoyment of your acceptance. Many have peace who are not in liberty, and until they know that they are in Christ they are not free from the body of this death. Many
have the relief of knowing that the man under the judgment of God has gone in judgment in the cross, who do not see that the old man in themselves is crucified with Christ, that they are free from the law of sin and death. "For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free" (Romans 8:2). I see many who make peace stand for liberty: peace is because of what God is to me; liberty is because I am, like the prodigal, in the best robe in Christ. I see that there is no real progress until you are in liberty in the life of Christ.
The second reading was on 2 Corinthians 3:7 to end, and Galatians 4:27 to end. In these scriptures we learn how we are established in liberty. The Lord in glory so entrances you that there is no place for your own wisdom, and when Isaac has His right place in your heart Ishmael will not be tolerated.
The third reading was on the assembly, its purpose and object, the way you are a part of it, the privileges and responsibilities, and the moral effect on you from being there. This was our subject last evening....
As to --------, one very simple sentence makes all plain to me. The church is the complement of Christ. It is the complement of Him as Man. There could be no complement of God. God was manifest in the flesh, and the church is the complement of that manifestation.
We had a reading on the gospel, which was very good. The preaching of the resurrection was pressed. You cannot speak of a man risen without including that he died. Many have found relief on believing that Christ died for them who have not seen that our old man is crucified with Christ in the eye of God. Christ's death (figuratively the Red Sea) is our way out of the death which is on us; thus we are clear before God of the man under His judgment, and we are received by Him on the ground of Him who was raised from the dead by the glory
of the Father. In the gospel we know that God has removed the man under His judgment in the cross, and now He can be just and the justifier of every believer in Jesus.
Many a one would be quite satisfied to know that his sins were pardoned and to live as a forgiven one here in the life of the flesh. They do not see that where sin abounded grace did much more abound. In fact, the gospel which would be most acceptable is the one which would reinstate man in favour with God on the earth, as typified by the two goats (Leviticus 16). There is an immense difference between the acceptance set forth in the antitype of the two goats without the bullock, and the one with the bullock.
I think it is too much lost sight of that the child of Adam was the responsible man, and the more he sought to act up to his responsibility the more practically incapable he was found to be. Now, freed from the responsible man we are responsible to be practically up to our new calling, and the more we are set for it the more capable we are in the power of the Holy Ghost. Responsibility under law only exposed man's incapability. Responsibility under grace discloses our capability. The body has been set free from the judgment of God to glorify God here, for it is His, and is the temple of the Holy Ghost. I do not think that the difference between being a member of Christ and a member of the body of Christ is generally apprehended.
As to your question about service and testimony, I understand from John 15 that service refers to man and testimony to the Lord. Stephen was a servant, and he was also a witness; the latter is more what you are in the race (Hebrews 12).
In Romans two things are complete. You are freed from all on your own evil side, and you are in the life of Christ, and in the power of the Holy Ghost your body is a living sacrifice. You are on God's side, with the armour of light in a world of darkness. In Hebrews the question of sins is settled (chapter 1: 3). Then you are better off in approach to God than the Jew was; you have entrance into the holiest. Jesus is in the midst of the assembly. He is the Apostle and High Priest of our profession. He first helps us out of our infirmities -- not sins; sins are settled in chapter 1. Now we are helped by Him, and that is not mere relief. We are so relieved that we are in company with Him -- able, as freed from every blemish, to enter with Him into the holiest, where we not only hear His present mind, but we taste of heaven and heavenly power, and hence, as to our walk, we are occupied, not with our infirmities (as living on the earth), but with the obstructions between us and heaven. We are now in the race, by faith scaling the heights until we reach Him where He is (chapter 11 and 12). "Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Hebrews 12:2). Romans is more college learning to a saint. Hebrews more the harvest time -- ingathering -- packing in the fruits.
You do not get new creation properly in Romans, though you get newness of life.
The life is new, and it is Christ's life, and this in connection with the lost state. Every one likes to have an easy conscience, but to be consciously in an entirely new order of life is very rare indeed.... We have "the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" in the wilderness, and you
do not go further than this in Romans.
(Colossians 1:11; Ephesians 3:16)
---------- asked me last evening the difference between Colossians 1:11 and Ephesians 3:16. The former is in reference to things here, it is to effect "patience"; the latter is for the greatest things in heaven. The energy of the Spirit is greater for the first than for the second. Empowered with power according to the might of his glory (for patience) is Colossians. According to the riches of his glory, strengthened with power, etc., is Ephesians. I do not attempt to explain the difference, though I see there is a difference; but it is significant that there is a greater energy of the Spirit to enable us to endure here than to raise us up to the things in heaven. I might illustrate it by Rebecca's journey to Isaac; it requires a greater energy to maintain her in continuance in the journey than to present her to Isaac.
... Patience or endurance is a wonderful quality. I am convinced that the sense of the Lord's support under a pressure not only attaches us to Him in a peculiar way, but nothing so weans us from this place.
Relief makes this place more agreeable, but support detaches us from everything here, and He is increasingly endeared to us.
I have been dwelling much on the mystery -- the church. As far as I see, no one is ever sure of his position who has not conscious knowledge of the church as it is in God's mind. See Ephesians 4:14, 15. I have not seen any one who has really been divinely taught on the subject (I do not mean head knowledge of it) turned aside.
... As to the Lord presenting the church to Himself, it refers, I conclude, to the type in Genesis 2, where we read of Eve, He brought her to the man.... I believe that in one sense you are right in saying that she is as much united to Him now as she can ever be, still there are great additions connected with the presentation and marriage. First, you will have a glorious body, you will be like Him, an immense addition: you will have uninterrupted intercourse in the Father's house, and finally, you will have passed in review before His own eye, that you and every one may receive the things done in the body. Thus the wife is made ready to accompany her Lord to the earth; the white linen is the righteousnesses of the saints. Our place in heaven is in pure grace, but our place on the earth is determined by our righteous acts here. I do not think the presentation is the same as the public display at the marriage, but I need not say that it is subsequent to the present time, and will embrace the public display.
My thought about the passage in Ephesians 5 is, that there you have the true order: the past -- He gave Himself; the present -- He sanctifies; the future -- He will present; and, as I gather, He will do so as soon as He can....
I believe that the real lack in souls in general is that the resurrection, and all involved in it, is not truly seen: the first man dead, and the second Man risen from the dead; the first man judicially terminated in the cross, and the Man who bore the judgment raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, for He had glorified God in bearing the judgment on man. Unless all this which the resurrection of Christ embraced is seen and accepted, the real import of the resurrection is not apprehended.
As to your fear that brethren might now relax into indifference, there is this danger with some but though I feel that in a marvellous way we have been delivered out of a rut in which some are still stuck fast, yet I am weighed down under the sense of the small and imperfect measure in which we have realised union with Christ. The lamentable part to me is that men who have spoken so much on church truth have, as far as I see, never touched the reality of union with Christ, and therefore have not the consequences of it. The sovereign power of God in raising us together with Christ is regarded more as confirmatory of the gospel, than of the great fact that while the gospel confers untold blessings on us on the earth as heirs of heaven, we cannot enter on, or realise union with Christ unless we are at the other side of Jordan in the sphere where He is. In the gospel you cross over Jordan when you leave this earth; in the church you must cross over Jordan before you can realise union. Do you understand this? I do not find it easy to explain where the ministry of the gospel ends and where the ministry of the church begins. Of course, if you have not the first fully you cannot enter into the other.
I have lately been struck with seeing how much more the gospel is used by the generality of preachers as a passport to heaven than as the power of God to set us in a new character here for Him on the earth, and it is remarkable that those who dwell exclusively on the passport, least enjoy it when they need it; whereas the one living Christ here would have the conscious enjoyment of life out of death before death supervened.
The sword of the Spirit is the word of God. The word of God is the only instrument for the Spirit. He, blessed be His name, stands to what He has said. I find in this day that there is a readiness to contend for anything in which the natural feelings will get some place, but where it is simply for the truth of God and the calling of the saints there is remissness. I believe the only way to arouse any one in this day is to be like the wise virgins going forth to meet the bridegroom. This cannot be done without power. Those whose lamps are going out may well say that all is over -- that there is no hope, and so on, no more corporate testimony and the like. But "God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" (2 Timothy 1:7). The Holy Ghost is here, and in Him is all the power that there ever was, and all the love that Christ ever had for the church He has still; going forth to meet Him is what is defective. Who is the man for this day? A Timothy who has fully known Paul's doctrine, manner of life....
There is no real advantage in making a person the battle-ground. The mischief he has done is that which claims our undivided attention, and sure I am that if any one really enjoyed the Lord's presence for one moment in the sense of the freedom he has there from everything of self, he would not only recoil from a teaching that belies it, but he would challenge all comers whether they were on the Lord's side with respect to it. If this were done the lukewarm would be soon exposed, and I believe that if brethren would be further used of God to testify of the exalted Man in heaven, that it must come to this. The man who fights under this banner must make great sacrifices, or he would be nowhere.
I hope you may return to this country very much invigorated. There is only one thing worth living for; Christ's chief interest must be ours if we would be bright, vigorous and useful.
As far as I know, there is not a clear apprehension of Christ as the dependent Man. In the form of a bondman He always pleased the Father. He was ever in His bosom; but He set forth to God's pleasure what a man should be. Man is God's purpose. The first man failed, but God has now a Man fully to His pleasure. He was a "man of sorrows and acquainted with grief", and He declared the Father. He was in the weakest place and He set forth the greatest, but always as the Servant. If He were not a Man, we could not be saved; if He were not a Man, there would be no mystery, no body for Him -- no complement on earth. If He were not a Man, there could be no manna, no grace for us now in our life in the flesh here on earth. In my judgment, there cannot be any true apprehension of the humanity of Christ until you apprehend, in some degree, God's secret. I quite admit that if the full gospel were known you would get it, because if you believe that man has gone from the eye of God in the cross, you see that a Man was there. Many look at Christ and His work as nothing more than the Paschal lamb -- a perfect sacrifice, and they do not in their souls apprehend that the man of the first order was judicially terminated in the cross before God. Christ was put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the Spirit.
I cannot see that there is anything wrong in the page of the paper which you refer to, when the writer expressly states: 'As Man He entered on the path where He learned obedience by the things He suffered.' I think it is essential and of all importance to maintain that our blessed Lord was in Himself the origin and source of every moral quality.
He never learned anything from man. From the moment of His birth to the close (His death) He introduced and maintained an order entirely His own. As a Man He had to learn obedience by the things which He suffered; but He came to do the will of God; He could have no will but God's. I dislike this kind of discussion, but there is a side of it which is of all-importance, namely, that He was cast upon God from the womb! He was unique, or, as J.N.D. said, sui generis of His own order. He took part of flesh and blood, the life under judgment must go in judgment. He bore the judgment, He dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over Him. "Henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more" (2 Corinthians 5:16). There was an entirely new man in the mind of God, and He is that new Man, He is not the perfection of the first man, He is "out of heaven", and no one else can ascend to heaven. This surely is nothing new, as men speak.
There is really no difference between the nature of man and the old man. The word old nature I do not think occurs. The effort is to spare in some way the first man. Let us begin by insisting that such as the heavenly one, such also are the heavenly ones, and then it is easy to see that there is an entire change of race.
That is the truth to be contended for, and the truth that in every heterodoxy is undermined. There is a total change of race -- "As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly" (1 Corinthians 15:49). Nothing but personal identity will remain of the first man. I shall know that I am a new man, but all the ideas and feelings of the old man will have passed away.
The idea with those who seek to spare the first man is, that if the evil nature were eliminated, that then the old man would be free of all that is objectionable and would be continued. Not so at all.
I am of the order of the great heavenly One -- and hence the old order has terminated in judgment on the cross.
The mass of Christians do not see that a Man has come from God, the Son of man which is in heaven. Many a Christian would be glad that his bad qualities were replaced with good ones; but that all must be crucified, as said to the young man in Mark Hymn 10
I disapprove of analysing the Lord Jesus Christ, but I see every day clearer and clearer that the mystery of God is unknown to you if you do not know Him as He was here. In writing to -------- I finished with, 'Until you have learned that you have changed your man, that now, not I, but Christ, liveth in me, you are not ready for manna, and you will not be able to comprehend Christ's humanity until you are ready for manna.'
If you are in communion you are looking at the blessed One here as God was looking at Him. God was not looking at His Deity, but He was looking at Him as a Man in whom was all His delight. I am not afraid that His Deity will be compromised. My fear is, that the mystery, the reality of His body, is morally unknown. The church as His complement is the display of the magnificence of His grace here on the earth. If you have not the manna you do not express Him as He was here, you are not in the "life of Jesus". Then conscience is not up to your faith.
... I said to -------- about the humanity of Christ, 'You are not up to it; as soon as you are really set for manna, then you will understand the humanity of our blessed Lord.' John 6 is the contrast to manna. You
must know Christ as the bread of life; that is, you must appropriate His death to get out of the death which is on you before you can have life in Him; and when you have, then you receive grace from Him to be as He was here in unqualified dependence on God, and that when He had everything in Himself. We speak of dependence when we are in a strait, but manna is simple dependence on God when I am, as to things here, quite independent -- a very rare experience you may be sure.
I have been studying the difference in my soul between the manna and the old corn of the land. The manna is Christ's life as He was here in the days of His humiliation. He gilded everything here in His perfectness. As you walk in the Spirit He feeds you with this grace in every detail of your history here. His life as manna ceased when He died, but it does not cease for us, it is stored up for us in Him. Christ glorified is the old corn of the land. As we feed on Him there, we are in communion with Him as He is at this moment. The manna is as He was, you are to be here as He was here, but He is not here now, He is in heaven, and your heart is not satisfied to know Him as He was; according as you are occupied with Him, you want to be in concert with Him as He is, and that is the old corn of the land. Tell me if you understand this, and if you see the difference between the two. I do not mean see it only, I mean do you know it?
There is a great difference between knowing Christ as Lord and as Head. No man can say that Jesus is Lord
but by the Holy Ghost. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, etc. When you believe in Christ risen you own Him as Lord, and as you walk in this faith, whatsoever you do, you do in the name of the Lord Jesus (Colossians 3:7). Your body is the Lord's. Your bodies are members of Christ. He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit. Every Christian is joined to the Lord -- is a member of Christ. This is not union, it is responsibility. See Romans 12. In everything you should be under the rule of the Lord all the day -- in temporal things as well as in spiritual things.
Now as to the Head. You do not know Christ as Head until you are dead with Him from the rudiments of the world. You must be over Jordan, you must be insensible, as if dead, to every influence here before you are in the sphere of Christ's life. You are when dead with Him, outside and apart from the influence of everything in the world. You might be a young man, as in 1 John 2, strong and the word of God abiding in you, and yet not know Him as Head. It is when you are risen with Him that you enter on the sphere of His life; and thus you practically appropriate the circumcision effected for you in the cross. All has to be removed which God has removed in the cross. As with Elisha when he took hold of his own clothes, and rent them in two pieces, he rendered them useless, so you practically put off the old man and put on the new. You now so come to Christ that you are in the new man where there is neither Greek nor Jew, &c., no man of any kind, but Christ is everything and in all. Now you know the Head. He is your life, and He directs you as to His pleasure in His own circle. The direction of the Head is confined, as far as I see, to His own circle. As an individual, He is my Lord in everything, I am properly the servant or slave of the Lord Jesus Christ. When I know Him as Head His own life in me is directed by Him. I derive from Him, and in His own circle I am under His dictation.
The Lord has been very gracious to us in the meetings. I believe the true measure of His favour is the measure in which He confides His mind as to His own interests to us. I spoke from 2 Timothy 3:10 to end. Paul's doctrine and the scriptures the remedial measures in the "difficult days". I attempted to explain the two ministries (Colossians 1:23, etc.), the gospel and the church -- how in the first everything against us has been removed, and that we are not only brought to God, but supported by Him who did the work and who is made higher than the heavens; all for us is perfectly secured. Secondly, our Saviour is the Head of His body and of each believer; we are members of His body, and by the Spirit's power we are seated in the heavenlies in Him. This is our dignity, while He, dwelling in our hearts by faith, is our endowment, and we are here for Him. The scriptures corroborate all this. In Hebrews 11 you begin with Abel, and you finish up with Rahab in the land.
Mr. ---------- spoke from the end of Luke 18 and the beginning of 19, how the Lord indicated when here the nature of the blessing. He would confer this grace, first opening eyes, then becoming the guest in the sinner's house or heart, and then opening out the affections of the Father.
I was speaking a little on John 16 this morning. I have thought I might recall some of it for you. The subject of the chapter is the action of the Holy Ghost here on earth. He convicts the world -- exposes it, as we might say -- of sin because they do not believe, of righteousness because the One they do not believe in has gone to the Father;
the Holy Ghost being here is evidence of it, as He is also evidence or demonstration that the power of the prince of this world has been overcome. Therefore He is judged; another power is here for Him who overcame him. This is one action of the Holy Ghost on earth, the next is that He glorifies Christ -- He glorifies Him who is no longer seen by men. See how this is fulfilled with Stephen; his difficulties are stupendous but in the midst of them, and in the very hand of his murderers, he thinks not of how he might escape, or of what he will do; but he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looks up stedfastly into heaven, and sees the glory of God and Jesus.
What a relief! What a victory over all his trials down here; he found that the glory of God could be surveyed and entered by him, and that Jesus was his link to it. Never had any one been able to see and dwell on the glory of God before without tumult of heart. Now the man full of the Holy Ghost, surrounded and besieged by the most ruthless and wicked men (his own nation), exposed to the bitterest trial and shame on earth, enters into and finds his home in the glory of God, where his Saviour is -- he rises from the depths of misery and the sin which is all around him to the heights where Jesus is in glory. If the greatest trial can be thus overcome, of course so can the smaller ones. The action of the Holy Ghost is to fix the eye stedfastly on heaven. This is the mode and manner by which He relieves us; we naturally look around us for relief, but the Holy Ghost glorifies Jesus, and seeing Him in glory is the fullest relief to the heart. The Lord says: "In me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33).
The third action of the Holy Ghost is, In that day (in His day), whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it unto you. Ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. The nearer we are to Christ the more shall we seek only what suits Him. Who could be near a friend much loved and like things which would not suit him? Whatever we ask in Christ's name we shall receive, and thus even in this sorrowful scene our joy is full.
I should feel it a personal favour from the Lord (and I look for it) were you so far relieved in spirit from your sufferings that you might be unhindered in communion with the Lord. I believe the Lord often vouchsafes this in a very peculiar way -- very much as Shimei's life was safe while he abode in Jerusalem, or as the manslayer was safe in the city of refuge, or as a diver is safe and happy when preserved and kept within a very narrow enclosure, but exposed to danger, and a return to trial and suffering when outside, as the dove in the ark; and this discipline we often need. What I ask for you is the consciousness of an assured retreat, where you will be distinctly and absolutely free from every disturbance, and that if you wander like the dove, you may immediately feel that this is not your rest -- it is polluted!
How gracious our Noah is! When you fly to the window of heaven, as the dove to the ark, He will put forth His hand and pull you unto Himself into the ark. May this be the blessing and favour richly known to your soul.
We had a very interesting talk together (five of us) as to when we are "in Christ". Some of them thought that I did not make it a matter of experience enough. I, on the other hand, wanted them to accept that there is a great difference between the way the blessed God approaches the converted soul, and the way the convert approaches Him. God can come to the repentant sinner, as the father to the prodigal, with open arms, in the boundlessness of His love, and in the full virtue of Christ's work. He, blessed be His name, never improves in His approach. This is the gospel of the glory of Christ. But, on the other hand, the prodigal, or Saul of Tarsus, has really to part company from himself in the cross before he can enjoy the nature of the acceptance in which God can have him; and this was the side they were contending for, and which
I fully accept, but not by it to measure how God can come to me.... It is remarkable the way the Lord is exercising hearts and consciences as to the very foundations of the faith.
I believe deliverance from the "body of death" -- from "the law of sin and death" -- has not been enough before souls; they have put up with the flesh as an appendage which they submit to, rather than to be free of it in the Spirit, and in the Spirit only.
As to our readings at -------- we read Hebrews for two hours every evening, and Ephesians for two hours every morning. In the former the truth of our present position as God's people on the earth came out well. As were the sons of Aaron, so are we the consecrated companions of our High Priest who is greater than Moses and greater than Aaron, the great Priest over the house of God. Through Him we have entrance into the holiest. The Lord in the midst of the assembly leads our hearts into His things, in moral correspondence with Himself. Hence we are running the race on to Him in heaven, while our testimony is outside the camp, bearing His reproach.
As in Hebrews we are true to a heavenly calling, and are moving on to heaven, so in Ephesians, as belonging to heaven, united to Christ there, we are in heart there, and descriptive here of the heavenly Man in all the details of daily life, in such spiritual power that we withstand all the wiles of the devil, that is, we are in moral armour, and also in unceasing dependence on God, praying for the proclamation of the mystery of the gospel.
In the one, through the effect of being in Christ's company we are running on to heaven, and here outside the camp bearing His reproach; while in the other, being united to Christ in heaven, we are descriptive of Him here in every detail and able through His power to maintain our heavenly portion in moral superiority to all the wiles of the devil.
As to the Songs of Degrees, I do not remember saying that there were seven steps. I think "degrees" should be translated 'steps'. There are fifteen steps, and they describe the exercise of soul which the captives of Israel had before they reached the house of God. I think there is a voice to us in this day from them. The house of God is in ruin now, but every heart true to the Lord is set for reaching the place where His honour dwelleth. In the time of the captives there was the house in Jerusalem, and for us there is the house of God still on the earth.
But mark! In the time of the captives they were estranged from the house; they had to be extricated. The house was to be formed, but they had to pass through much exercise before they reached it. Now, in this day, the house has not to be formed, but we have to be extricated from the moral distance from it into which we have lapsed, and when we are thus extricated we are sure to find it. The assembly, which is the house, began with Christ's rejection. It is the only spot on the earth where He is at home. He has been rejected, and He has taken His seat at God's right hand, but He comes to His own -- His own building, and there He teaches His own as to His interests here, while He -- a greater than Moses, declares the Father, so that we are made acquainted with His things, and the holiness which becometh thine house, O Lord, for ever. It is not heaven, but we are in the presence of Him who is supreme, above all the evil here, and the true Peter (or stone) passes from the natural side of things here to the other side of death to join Him in the assembly where He is in our midst. We do not join Him merely as our Saviour; that He was here, but as the Son of God -- Son over God's house; otherwise we reduce the assembly to a believer's meeting.
I do not think it helpful to occupy minds with the church's state on earth, that is -- its invalid state. It is quite clear to me that in Revelation 2, 3 there are four churches, or four aspects of the church on earth which run on to the close; and I apprehend that one of these predominates at any given time, but where is the great profit from having a correct diagnosis of the professing body? I believe that if we were more imbued with John 17 -- the Lord's heart opened out to His Father about His own to the end -- that we should not only have the clearest diagnosis, but we should be ministering the suited food to help on His own in accordance with His desires. There are seven phases of the church there, and I cannot accept that one should be cast off. I believe that Laodicea is the exaltation of Adam through Christianity -- Christ as the new creation left out, and this I see going on far and wide every day. I should be very sorry to take the ground which your correspondent does, that Christ is outside of us. Through grace, I know that this is not true, and I must not deny His grace to us; and as a remnant in the truth of the assembly, we study to retain Him, instead of being content to go on without Him as the systems have done.
The arrogant ignorance of your correspondent is that because brethren have failed there can be no more hope. It is nothing to him that the church as a whole has failed and is in ruins, but that the brethren, the recovery before the end has failed, and therefore that there is no more hope, as if God could not revive His testimony where He had given most light through those who were faithful to it; the Lord could raise up witnesses for Himself, however great the failure. Has there not been failure from the days of Paul and Barnabas? Has not every failure only left the field more open for the Lord's special acting when there was simple grace to follow Him? Thus it was with Paul. Thus it was at Plymouth over forty years ago. Thus it was at --------'s defection, and thus
it will be now. I believe there is a most earnest ear now, not only in the meetings which I go to, but generally. I believe the great thing in the present day is setting forth the new creation, our completeness in Christ, and this always in connection with the destruction of the body of sin. This necessarily leads to the heavenly man with his new manners, like a uniform, the manners of heaven set forth on the earth. Look at Ephesians 4, 5; you will find there a range from the church down to the servants that you will not find in the Romans.
... Be assured you will find the snare of the day amongst us is to exalt the standing or status of the Old Testament saint in order to bring him so near to the New Testament saint that the heavenly character of the latter may be ignored, and that thus the great difference between them -- one earthly, the other heavenly -- is effaced. And thus Christendom has done effectually. What the church did at the earliest date when decline set in is the snare now to us to whom the Lord has committed the recovered truth. No Old Testament saint will be of the heavenly city though he will be in it; and this is an immense difference. The Old Testament saint could use anything on the earth for God's service; we are precluded from using anything of man for God. We are confined absolutely and entirely to the one Man in heaven for motive, for joy, for life, for dictation, for direction in every detail of daily life.
I enjoyed seeing that while at Marah the Egyptian -- all that which was condemned in the cross-is refused; I have the manna -- the life of Jesus -- in its place. What an
exchange! The greater I am in Egypt, the more difficult it is to deny myself, because I have the ability to indulge myself. I must put a knife to my throat, but I am richly compensated, I have the life of Jesus here. Marah is death in the world to one who has given up the world, and who is not of it -- who has to live in it, and yet not live from it; therefore he must be dependent on God for everything while in it. At Gilgal it is far more serious. Nothing of the flesh in any form is to be admitted. It has been cut off (Colossians 3). The nearer I am to Christ the less can I retain what necessitated His death. It is absolute putting off of the old man. In the wilderness the great lesson is dependence; and the cross -- the tree in the bitter waters -- sets me free from the self-seeking which refuses dependence; but in the circumcision in the land there is, as it were, an extermination of the motives and habits of the old man, to make way for the new man only. To be divested of the old man and to be invested with Christ is an interesting process, and I believe they go on together. It is not the badness of myself that I see by itself, but while I see it, I see at the same time the beauty of Christ, so that I surrender the one for the other, and I get the benefit of the exchange. This is self-judgment, and there is no growth when this is not going on. How blessed to get near the Lord, to enjoy Him more, as we find Him in Corinthians and in Hebrews. He never leaves or forsakes us in our wilderness path, and in the sense of His love we ascend to the scene where He is, and where all is in perfect concert with His mind. May your heart be much enriched in the effects of His company.
We are not only of Christ's nature, but we are united to Him by the Spirit. This is the great mystery. I can understand a believer who is going on in the world being afraid to accept the truth that he is verily a part of Christ.
Thus the church, the body of Christ, is His complement. The bride is relationship, and the figure of marriage defines the relationship; but the body is participation. Thus we have -- "Holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God" (Colossians 2:19).
You are quite right in what you say about the Spirit. I receive Him consequent upon believing; the blood has done its work to my faith; and then comes the oil. Once I receive the Spirit, I have all that the Spirit imparts -- sonship, earnest of the inheritance, and union with Christ and with one another. Then His formative work in me begins to bring me into the reality of these things, to make what is true of me true to me. But there is but the one giving of the Spirit, and now He does not visit, but He abides, and where He abides (as every one does ordinarily) He has a home and furniture, so to speak, suited to Himself.
You ask about Christ overcoming the world. When He was here He was in moral superiority to it. It did not sway Him, He overcame it. Now, as risen, He is supreme, not only morally but positionally. We suffer in it, but He says, "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33); and then He connects us with His own scene -- with heaven. Many an ardent Christian, though very devoted, has not overcome the world, even though he may have overcome the "wicked one", but he may still be susceptible of the attractions and influences of the world. Such an one requires to believe in the Son of God. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God. The dignity of Christ's Person, when laid hold of by faith, enables him to overcome the world. The queen of Sheba forgot all her own honours when she was occupied with Solomon's things. So with us. When we see Christ in glory, the world is eclipsed. I suppose no one is really out of the world until he is over Jordan; I mean in spirit; and no one enjoys Christ where He is unless at the other side of Jordan. To overcome the world is a great thing; it is not by effort, but by faith in the One who is outside of it all, and who is the object of our hearts.
The readings at -------- will I trust bear fruit. We had the parallels between Paul and John. Paul leads the sinner to know that he is not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. John starts with "the Son of man must be lifted up". The first man must go in judgment. The man out of heaven can only go to heaven. Once we learn this by the Spirit even that we have changed our man, that it is no longer Adam, but Christ, our path shineth more and more to the perfect day. It came out clearly the difference between the Holy Ghost in us individually, and His acting in us collectively as builded together, or as members of the body of Christ.
Romans 8 is individual -- you could not properly make it collective. 1 Corinthians 12 is collective. This is of much importance because so many cannot think of the Lord but in relation to themselves; they cannot be so free and happy as to themselves that they can give themselves to Him for His pleasure and service.
If asked to describe John's gospel in one sentence, I should say that it presents a Man who comes altogether from God, who derives nothing from man, save that He was born of a woman and for this purpose -- that He might bring to an end judicially the first man, in order that every one who believeth on Him should be of His order -- the second Man -- the last Adam.
There are four forms of evil against us. The first -- Pharaoh -- has been destroyed. He has destroyed him that had the power of death. He has abolished death. Satan in that form is gone, but Amalek, Balaam, and the seven nations remain. Amalek is the power of Satan to
hinder you in the wilderness, to turn you back; with us, literally, it is the effort of Satan to prevent us from taking the pilgrim's place as in the wilderness dependent on God. Then there is Balaam. Balaam is the power against us when we have, in a sense, left the wilderness. In another sense, we never leave it while we remain here, but it is when we are marching to heaven as the children of Israel were marching to Canaan, after Numbers 21, that Satan, in the Balaam form, seeks to hinder us, and this power is very subtle. The attempt is to draw you into social intimacy with the world, and then you are defiled by their false worship. The Thessalonians suffered more from Amalek, and the Corinthians from Balaam.
The seven nations are the wicked spirits in the heavenly places, and we suffer from them when we take our place here as heavenly men, and for them we require the whole armour of God.
... I have been struck with the two wave loaves being the type or shadow of the company of 120 in Acts 2. In the type there are the two loaves together, in presentation to the Lord, and we get the antitype or substance in the 120 persons who one and all at the same moment receive the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, so that they are in church function (if you understand me) before they had time to apprehend the greatness of the gift which they each personally had received. The two wave loaves have been presented -- the day of Pentecost had fully come.
I think you must distinguish between the action of the Holy Ghost in the house and in the body. The latter is properly the organisation, and there the gifts are. The house is God's habitation by the Spirit; but further, as we are with the Lord we enter the holiest -- the oracle, and there His present mind is declared for every ear thus present to hear it.
I said a little on Leviticus 8:22, etc. The consecration came after all the offerings necessary for approach to God were offered up. In announcing the Lord's death, we recall what He went through here, and with His death fresh before our hearts, we, as the consecrated company, are in the holiest of all, His companions. As we recall Him in death here, He in the assembly makes Himself known to us in glory. He was here in the lowest place for us, we remember Him there, but we are with Him even now in the assembly, in the highest place, in the presence of God.
I have seen it stated that we are companions of Christ in the wilderness. That is not correct. He is not in the wilderness. He would not be a priest if He were on earth. We are called to be companions with Him in the holiest, the consecrated company, as Aaron's sons with their father. If it be meant that we are to walk here in the wilderness as He walked, I agree, but that is not companionship; and if we are companions with Him it must be on the other side of death, and unless we are, we cannot walk here as He walked.
So many do not see that until you have been purged from your sins, you cannot understand the priesthood of Christ. It is as the consecrated company we are introduced into the holiest where communion and the deep things of God are enjoyed.
Jesus is in the holiest as High Priest, and we are with Him there. In Him we stand a heavenly band; and as to Himself He is also there as Moses -- king of glory -- to carry out in person all God's purposes on earth. I feel I enjoy a gleam of the wondrous place in which God has set me. Love likes to have my company, and shares with me its own greatest joys. This is the church's place, and no other company has this place and portion.
I have been deeply interested in seeing that if "the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death", I can enjoy my acceptance with God. I think many believe in Christ risen, and know that every shade of distance between God and them has been removed in the cross from the eye of God, who do not enjoy it. Like the prodigal before he was clothed, who, though assured of his father's love, could not enjoy it because he was not fit in himself. The first voice of the Holy Ghost when He is given to you is of the love of God, how God feels about you, but if you are not in Christ, if the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has not set you free from your old condition, you cannot enjoy your acceptance. You are not enjoying the supper (see Luke 14) when you are engrossed with any natural favour. Land, oxen, or wife are natural favours -- favours to the natural man, and when the favour is made an object, you are not enjoying your acceptance with God, however well you may know the perfectness of it, because you are not free from the man under the law of sin and death. The Holy Ghost who assures you of the love of God, who begins His indwelling in you by assuring your heart of the heart of God towards you, is the same Holy Ghost who in the life of Christ Jesus makes you free from your old condition. When we are drawn away by any earthly favour, when the natural man resumes his place, we are drinking of the old wine, and there is no taste for the new. I hope you will understand me. It has explained so much to me, even that if you are not in the Spirit you do not enjoy the great supper, and if you are in the Spirit you are not only assured of God's heart, but you are also assured that you yourself are free of the old condition of sin and death. This accounts for the sad and frequent loss of liberty in saints; a very little old wine diverts from the new -- you do not lose your acceptance, but you do not enjoy it when you are drawn away by any earthly favour, anything
outside of the Father's house. Your body is the Lord's, and he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. The privilege of grace is that we should be in the enjoyment of the great supper; it is the best and greatest favour which could be given us here, and it is very sad how soon one is diverted from it by an earthly gain. It is as we enjoy the supper that we taste of heavenly things, and assuredly if we do not enjoy our acceptance we cannot be ready for the revelation of the Father's things by the Spirit (see John 16:14, 15), and we are not witnesses of Christ. The servant as we see in John 15 reproduces Christ as He was here. The witness describes Him in His exaltation. Do you see many witnesses? Be assured when the servants are not witnesses they are hindered by some earthly gain, something which ministers to them naturally.
I had to reiterate that everything was accomplished for us, up to the measure of the Father's heart, and that if we were dead, we should be in it all. But God has given us the Holy Ghost that we may enjoy now what has been accomplished for us. My enjoyment is the result of the Spirit's work in me; He attracts my heart to Christ, and then God, by discipline, removes everything that hinders or checks the leading of His Spirit, so that we who live are always delivered unto death.
The ascetic tries to do this, but God only can do it. He attracts my heart to Christ, and He severs me by His hand from that in me which hinders. So it is all His work.
Christ's work is one great whole. It translates His own (Aaron's house) from Egypt to Canaan at one and the same moment. From the deepest darkness of distance to the brightest nearness. We take time to learn it, and we only learn it in parts. First, sheltered by the blood from judgment; then the Red Sea; then practically the brazen serpent and the Jordan; but these parts formed one whole in Christ's work, and He carried us from dead in sins to heavenly places. His work in its finish determines our place before God. How you could have
read --------'s pamphlet and not have protested against it with indignation is a wonder to me. Surely at one time you would. May God grant that you may still come "to the help of the Lord against the mighty" (Judges 5:23).
I have been much occupied with "my assembly" and the characteristics of those "who call on the Lord out of a pure heart". You may remember my contention with -------- long ago; he was for getting people in, in any way. I wanted that they should be made acquainted with the nature of the step. It never helps a soul to assume a place, however good in itself, without faith for it. It is on the contrary very hurtful. Many can accept mentally the doctrine of the one body, and deduce from it that all Christians should be together, who have no idea nor liking for the arduous path which a Timothy must adopt in this evil day -- a day of ruin and confusion.
I think "the dying of Jesus" is that you by faith reckon yourself to be dead with Christ. Your own will is in such total abeyance that the life of Jesus is manifested in your body. He was in man's life here, but never under man's will. He did everything as a real man, but ever in perfect consistency with the life proper to Himself, and hence always in communion with the Father. To feed on Christ as in John 6 is in contrast to the manna. The latter was eaten as it was seen or given. In order to feed on Christ, you must feed on Him through His death. Hence all the confusion in Christendom springs from a misapplication of John 6. The Romanist and the ritualist reduce this eating to a complete similarity to the manna, the former calling the wafer the body, soul and spirit of the Lord; the latter asserting that as you partake of the sacrament, you appropriate the nature of Christ. The Lutherans are not clear of this leaven. The truth is I appropriate His death to escape from myself, and thus I know I live by
Him; He is my life. If I am dead with Him, it is plain that I live with Him, and thus, as down here, I am under an entirely new government, and I need always to bear about in my body the dying of Jesus. The one thought which comes before me constantly is -- Do we really know that we belong to Him? Have we realised what it is to be nearer to Him than John was at the supper? (John 13:23). I might say to myself that if I were once where John was, my cup would be full, but that is looking for sight and not faith. Truly a greater blessing is mine. Oh to enjoy it more in the Spirit! And this I truly desire for you.
It is very encouraging to me the way scripture opens to one when the heart is set upon it; I mean that when near the Lord one gets the mind of the Lord of which the words are the exponents. One values the words and studies them in proportion as the mind which uses them is valued. Even naturally it is the mind of one in whom we are interested that we like to reach, and how much more do we when in the Spirit seek the mind of God from the words used, for in scripture no other words would do, our Lord uses the very words which would alone convey His mind. We often use words which do not truly convey our minds.... What a homily I have written you as a note on the blessed fact of verbal inspiration. It is so assuring to feel and know that no other word used but the one used by the Spirit could fully or truly convey to us the mind of God, and yet the mind behind the word is what we reach through the word.... It is a great comfort to me to feel that the path of faith is not explained to the natural mind however one may be assured of it, but there is in us a constant tendency to try and prove to the natural mind that the path which faith leads us into, and ably keeps us in, is the wisest, in order to get nature's approval of it.
In reply to your letter as to 'the mental faculties of man' -- Man's mental faculties, as far as I see, do not help him in receiving the truth. If a man does not understand the truth which he is attempting to present he cannot bring it home to the conscience. The plainer you speak and the more you address the conscience the more you leave your hearers without excuse, but very often the plainer you make it the more incomprehensible it is to the natural understanding. Take for example John 4:14: He that "drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst". The more you expound "never thirst" the more incomprehensible it is to the natural mind, because it is contrary to all human experience. Some will say it is splendid, but impossible. I do not see that your natural mind is any help to you in acquiring the things of God. The natural man understandeth not the things of the Spirit of God. The Corinthian snare is man's wisdom. The Galatian snare is perfection in the flesh. When you acquire the meaning of scripture by the human mind you reduce it to the human level. This is the great mischief of the human mind. As far as I know there is not a doctrine in the Bible which is known according to scripture in any of the systems of men. I admit there is a measure of truth. Man's side is in a way accepted, but God's side is left out. Try any of the doctrines and you will see that I am right. The Lord's supper according to scripture is, "In remembrance of me". In Christendom it is -- 'Take and eat this bread in remembrance that Christ died for thee', and so on. Even among ourselves it has been said that the resurrection of Christ was the receipt that all our sins were atoned for. It is true that it is so, but it is very much more. The Man who glorified God, while bearing the judgment due to us, has been raised from the dead -- the Man of God's pleasure. It is by the word of the kingdom being received in the human mind
that the "mustard tree" has been constructed. See Matthew 13.
I admit that man's mind as a human instrument in voice or language is used to convey the words of God to man; no doubt Paul was an accomplished man; but the moment you try to establish the truth by mental ability, or by working on a man's mind or feelings, you are denying, however unintentionally, the great truth of the gospel -- that our old man has been crucified with Christ. If you address man's mind you acknowledge him, instead of pressing on his conscience that he is lost.
I have been much interested in studying the havoc the human mind has made of the truth by attempting to interpret the word of God. I remark that the human interpretation always omits God's side in the gospel, and in everything. The resurrection is regarded as only a receipt, the gospel as only a clearance before the throne, and so on.
As to your question about Hebrews 6, it does not refer to a believer, but to one who, though professedly in the church, has not the wedding garment. There is not an allusion to his conversion, but all the privileges of the house of God are enumerated. Just as Noah might have recounted to his sons all the advantages they had in the ark, and yet how they would be lost if they despised them, as apostates, which is the force of the word "falling away".
Indifference or worldliness is not apostasy. Apostasy is the deliberate abandonment of the Christian doctrine for Judaism or paganism. A man cannot be converted if he deliberately refuses or abandons the doctrine of grace. He may not listen to it, or he may have been a backslider; but he has not "fallen away", he has not apostatised, if he has not renounced the Christian doctrine of grace
for the law or infidelity. A man may have been at one time under the impression of the truth, and have imagined that there was a work in his soul, but the impression may have died away like the seed on the rock. Yet all the time he is not an apostate, and his very desire to avoid being one, proves that he is not one in the scriptural sense of the word.
I trust the Lord will lead your soul, now possibly only sensible of the serpent's bite, to see the Son of man lifted up. Do not dwell on what you are. Do as the prodigal did. He thought only of his father. Think only how God can receive you; not how you can get to Him, but how He can receive you. Think of the love that is in His heart, how He delights to receive you, and when you are received it will be time enough for you to bewail your unfitness and condemn yourself as entirely unworthy of His grace.
The Lord vouchsafe to you full deliverance.
As to your question about 1 Peter 4:1, I think you must read from verse 18 of chapter 3 to understand chapter 4: 1. Christ has suffered for sins. He was put to death in flesh. We should not suffer for sins. We should be here (as the ark typified) always under cover of the death of Christ, of which baptism is the figure. Christ then having suffered for sins, do you "arm yourselves likewise with the same mind; for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin". Here it is actual sins, in Romans 6 it is sin -- the principle of sin. In the latter you by the Spirit reckon yourself to be dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God in Jesus Christ. Here it is that you do not commit sins. Christ has suffered for them. If you by the Spirit arm yourself with the same mind, that is, that Christ having suffered, being put to death in flesh, you suffer in the flesh, and you cease from sin. If you see anything that is not yours, and if you wish for it, you commit sin; but if
you refuse the wish and do not take it you suffer in the flesh, and the sin is done with. If you were walking in the Spirit you would mortify the deeds of the body, and you would not desire anything which did not belong to you, but if you do desire it, if sin works, if you suffer in the flesh in not gratifying it, you are done with the sin.
I hope I have made 1 Peter 4:1 plain to you. I always connect it with Marah (Exodus 15), the tree that was put into the bitter water -- the cross, really Christ's death, makes it sweet to me. The fact that Christ died for my self-gratification makes suffering in the flesh (refusing to gratify myself) sweet to me.
We cannot 'cut off', but we can refuse to have any fellowship; the latter we have done; we have placed -------- on the same footing as Bethesda. We cannot put any one out of the house, we cannot unchurch any assembly; but when an assembly has professed to be on the ground of the church of God, and has departed from it, we do not receive from it or commend to it. We receive from all Christian denominations, Church of England, Baptists, etc., but never from Bethesda, or any who are on that ground.
The misrepresentation given to my words springs from a mind determined to obtain authority for its own laxity. I believe that where the heart is simply set to vindicate the honour of the Lord, and preserve the truth of the gospel to His own, there is increase of vigour in word and conversation. When self-vindication in any form engages the attention, there is a lack in heart and walk. -------- tells me that -------- says that I overlook the cross, and that he spoke on Moses and Elias on the mount of glory speaking of His decease as a proof that the cross is the subject of the glory. This is quite misapplying scripture. There the saints are speaking of a thing not yet accomplished in connection with the glory manifested to the
earth. I speak of glory being my place with Christ because of the cross, and what it has accomplished, and hence in glory the slain Lamb will ever be the witness of it and the subject of praise to the redeemed for ever in the glory. Before the cross saints on the mount of glory could speak of His decease anticipatively as the greatest event in the history of the world and of man, and so it will always be; but as yet saints had no title to the glory because the cross had not removed the hindrance on God's side....
The burnt offering is a great relief to the heart in all the din and dust of human strife. Christ in glory is necessarily the centre of everything to the heart. He was in the glory and He came down to us to bring us to a place that He knew, but which was quite unknown to us. Aaron only knew the holiest as he went in. Moses knew more, he knew it better, because he came out from it. Our blessed Lord is both Moses and Aaron. He knew what was within before He came out, and He came out to bring us in; and where He is there shall we be also. But down here He was the meat offering: 1, in private life; 2, in serving suffering man; 3, as He was to the sinner (see John 4 and Luke 7); 4, as He was to His own (see Matthew 8; John 11) and at the cross committing His mother to John -- how He counted on them! 5, to Israel; 6, to God.
In a day of difficulty what can we be but exclusive? What has preserved the great truths which you and I lately enjoyed so much together but exclusiveness? If we are true to the body of Christ as God's purpose now, we must separate from all the looseness which self-will argues for. Feebleness or ignorance is no ground for exclusion. The principle for exclusion is not only that a person holds the wrong doctrine, but that he gives any acknowledgment to one who does. Saying "fare-well" marks, we find in 2 John 10, 11, the character of the indifference. It is from this indifference that we
desire to separate, and this indifference we charge on Bethesda....
Indifference is not of the Holy Ghost, who baptises us into one body; on the contrary, the unity of the Spirit is exclusiveness, and I rejoice before my Lord in acknowledgment of His mercy to me in that He allows me, so conscious of my personal nothingness, to be exclusive for Him in this loose, indifferent day. I want nothing from -------- but to renounce his indifference ... he seemed to desire to know the truth of God, but I must admit he seemed more afraid of it than eager to adopt whatever it would inculcate. I see every day that when the leaven of indifference creeps in the Lord ceases to instruct and to unfold His mind. I challenge you to point out to me one who is in His thoughts about the church now who is involved in this leaven of indifference. I think brethren, like --------, are the more responsible, because they know more, and are not acting up to their knowledge, and therefore should be treated accordingly.
No doubt many are feeble and ignorant. These I should receive, if not self-willed in the maintenance of indifference. If you were faithful to -------- perhaps the Lord would use you to arouse him as to his true place for Christ in this world. For myself I must seek to maintain the truth for you, though, if it must be so -- separated from you.
Christian fellowship without discipline just suits the mass. When will the true-hearted be content to have an exclusive path for Christ on earth?
I have been much interested in seeing that in John's gospel, though the Lord's grace is made known to me on the earth (that is to the man on the earth), every part of His grace is outside the man on the earth, and outside the earth where the man is. It is all from Himself, and
heavenly. Take the new position of the sheep in chapter 10. Every supply comes from Himself, although the sheep are on the earth. Take John 14, the ministry begins with our place in the Father's house and concludes with Christ's peace.
It is marvellous to see a man on the earth receiving everything from a Man in heaven. "As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly" (1 Corinthians 15:48). He was ever while here, the Son of man which is in heaven. John brings everything from heaven to us on the earth. Paul conducts us from earth to heaven. Which is the most heavenly?
May you have great festivity in things that eye has not seen. Everything by the Spirit of God is from Christ and leads to Him. He does not merely come down to me from Christ, but He leads me up to Him. In the Spirit I am over Jordan, even though I may not have accepted that my only place is at the other side and not at this side. Like Stephen, we are led over first, and then we learn death here. We may enjoy a truth a long time before it masters us. Surely Paul was not mastered by the truth of 2 Corinthians 13, until he was cut off from everything earthly in the prison at Rome, where he wrote the Epistle to the Ephesians.
... If you read the note on John 16 in the New Translation it will convey my meaning. The Holy Ghost is sent to us. His very presence demonstrates that sin is in the world. If sin be in the world because of the rejection of Christ, and He has gone to the Father, righteousness must be there. The Spirit here by His presence demonstrates this; and lastly, that the power which governs this world is judged, so that as you are in the Spirit here you are apart from the world where the sin is, you are with the Father where the righteousness is, and you know that the power of Satan is broken here where you are. Thus you are a witness.
I do not think that John 17 is the same as Ephesians 3. I think in John "I in you" is different from "the Christ dwelling in your heart by faith" (Ephesians 3). In John it is more what you find in John's epistle. It is Himself -- the eternal life; I quote from John 14:20. There it is Himself, their present acquaintance with Himself. He was leaving them, and He comforts them by saying that in "that day" (when the Spirit came) they should know Him as He was at that moment, though absent, whereas in Ephesians (though you would, of course, not lose what you have in John) you are in union with Him, and your individuality is merged, because He is now everything to you, His heart doth safely trust in you, and all that He is interested in personally, and as He is interested, is your interest -- the Christ, dwells in your heart by faith.
All His interests as "the Christ" dwell in your heart by faith. In John you are consoled for His absence in knowing Him as He is this moment in you. In Ephesians you are swayed and directed by Him dwelling in your heart as to His interests personally.
I hope that I have in some measure explained the difference to you.
I have been much interested in John 17 -- the Lord's desires for us -- and in the thought of its having been given to the church since the break up of 2 Timothy: for John's gospel is considered to be the latest scripture that was written. His desire that we all should be one remains as true to His heart as if it were an accomplished fact; and hence we never can lose sight of it or overlook it. But His other desires for us -- to be kept in the Father's name and to be sanctified -- precede the expression of His desire for our oneness, and therefore this latter cannot be without the preceding ones. The more we are answering to His first two desires, the more we are helping towards the third.
As to the expression, "Christ in you" -- in Colossians 1:27 we find it definitely stated, and in Galatians 2:20, "Christ liveth in me". It is evident from Colossians that the great point there is, that Christ may altogether supersede the Adam man, for we find the result of the teaching in Colossians 3:11 -- there is no other man of any kind, but "Christ is everything, and in all". This, to my mind, is the meaning of Christ in you. He gives you the hope of glory. Now accepting this, which cannot be denied, let us see the effects. It is plain that in Colossians we have not left the earth, and hence all the practice there refers to this present time, whether in the home circle, or in the assembly. This is important, because it determines the measure which Christ works in me. It is never said that eternal life lives in me, but that Christ, who is the eternal life, lives in me; He is my life -- a life not independent like my natural life. The life I have is in Christ, and He lives in me for heaven as well as for earth; but in the one I know Him as the old corn of the land, and in the other as the manna. The church (Jew and Gentile) is the one new man in Himself, and the Holy Ghost is given that we may express Him in the place where He is not, but in which we are. As you walk in the Spirit He enables you to walk here as Christ walked, and this many call eternal life, which is not true, though it is quite true that it was the walk of His Son (who is the Eternal life) while down here on this earth in the days of His humiliation. That is the manna, but it has ceased, though it is stored up in Christ for us, and supplied by Him to us now; but as we are in communion with Christ in glory, where He is, and where we are united to Him, we know Him there, and in company we feed on Him as the old corn of the land, where (laying aside the type) the eternal life is in its own sphere, and where we have communion with the Father and the Son. The difficulty in apprehending this great truth lies in not distinguishing the two. He lives in me for heaven as well as for earth; but He is the corn of the land in the one and the manna in the other.
Evidently the meaning here is to know Him as He is. We cannot properly speak of knowing a person as he was at some former time; you do not know him if you are not intimate with him at the present time. It is necessary to say this because many think that they know Christ from the gospels. It is quite true that in the gospels, as you are spiritual, you see His manner of life in the days of his flesh, leaving us an example that we should follow His steps. But though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. This is a very definite statement and of the deepest importance: He does not return to the order of man to which He died....
Often it is a long time before we are severed from the man after the flesh. Even after your heart has owned that the man after the flesh has gone from the eye of God in the cross, you still cling to it in the life of Jesus on the earth where it was in perfection; but though it was in perfection there, and though He left us an example that we should follow His steps, we know Him no more after the flesh. Nor is it possible for any one to follow His steps here on earth but by the Spirit in the life of the risen Christ....
I had a very happy day at -------- through the Lord's mercy. I said a little in the morning on the difference between Psalm 73 and 2 Corinthians 3:18. In the former the saint's judgment was changed, while in the latter the saint
himself is transformed. The word for transformed is used only four times in the New Testament and twice it is translated "transfigured". This is very interesting.
In the evening I spoke from Acts 9. The very beginning of the gospel is, the light comes out from heaven and the seal of the blessing is the Holy Ghost who had come down from heaven. Does not that make the gospel heavenly, though some say it is not. I fear that there is a tendency abroad to exaggerate the standing and state of the Old Testament saints in order to make little difference between the church and them, and thus the heavenly exclusiveness is weakened or lost. The aim of the enemy from a very early date was to draw the saints from their heavenly calling. See the Hebrews. Once heaven as a present portion is surrendered, all the great privileges and position of the church are frittered away. The Old Testament saints were wrought on by God, and they may put us to shame by their fidelity and devotedness and cleaving to God, but if we descend to them we lose sight of our own calling. It is quite true the heir should embrace all that the infant has, but not this only, but a great deal more!
"Go in and out, and find pasture" (John 10:9). I illustrate or explain this by John 14, which is in and John 16, which is out. We are fed in each place, and the food is different according to the nature of the place. In chapter 14 you have a new place where He is. In chapter 16 you are in the place of His rejection. Keep to this thesis, and much will come out of it to you. Chapter 16 is testimony to a glorified Christ. Now mark what this leads to! There is really nothing about a Christ crucified in John 16 except that for a "little while" they would not see Him, but they would have "joy that a man is born into the world". Chapter 14 is comfort inside, and all that He was on earth is reproduced, as well as union in life. "At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and
I in you". In the one case you have everything from Him who was on the earth, or as He was on the earth; and also as He is now in heaven -- "In that day"; but in the other case you have Him altogether in glory, and of Him there -- the testimony is. Chapter 14 is the barracks, you are made a soldier there. Chapter 16 you are in the battlefield doing duty as a soldier; you are a soldier. John is intensely divine; he never alludes to our human position either in the family or as subject to the powers that be. Stephen is the soldier and witness of John 16, he gets all from the Man in glory.
It is remarkable that in John's gospel the Lord never alludes to ruin or separation. His own are ever His own, and from heaven; everything is divine -- Life, words (intelligence), word (counsel), unity, sanctification, glory, love. Such we are, ever in His heart.
The parallel between John and Paul is very interesting. John 4 with Paul would be joying in God or the fatted calf. John presents what it is in God's mind; Paul, what it is as apprehended by us.
I am trying to describe the new creation, or rather the creation of God; man's new relationship to God -- Luke 15 and John 4; the new position of the sheep, the saint on the earth -- John 10 and Hebrews. The new ministry -- John 13, 14. The new power -- the Holy Ghost. The new centre, or metropolis -- Acts 7:55. The new testimony -- John 15:26. The new prospect -- All things new. You will find great interest in this subject.
I said a little yesterday morning (having read about the consecration of the priests from Leviticus 8) as to the difference between the altar and the door of the tabernacle. The former is a type of the cross, the latter of Christ's presence. Christendom has not got beyond the altar -- all that Christ has done for us. At the door of the tabernacle we are not occupied with our side, but we are appropriating the perfection and blessedness of Christ. There is a very great difference between the two places. When any one refers to himself and the work done for him, he is at the altar; when he is delighting and feeding on the preciousness of Christ he is at the door, he has entered on an entirely new sphere....
Surely, as we were saying together after breakfast, how much better and fuller the Lord has answered the desires of our hearts after Him than we had ever contemplated.
The priests accompanied Aaron into the holy places (not the holiest), fresh from the offerings (see Leviticus 8) on the altar of burnt offering, as it were entitling them to go in, and they entered only the figures of the true with Aaron. Now we begin with the Lord's supper. We are remembering His love in His perfect work for us. We are full of Him who did the work, not as Aaron's sons, full of the need of the work to be done. We are full of Him who finished the work, and who told out His own heart in doing it, and thus full of Him, we accompany Him in the holiest, the august scene where He is.
The meeting did not begin brightly. There was a weight, but afterwards, I think and trust many were cheered. I had the sense of His presence much at the breaking of bread. Afterwards I spoke from Matthew 18:20. I
gave three marks of His presence. 1. That I am absorbed in Him -- beside myself; no spirit left in me. 2. Worship, my cup full, my tongue blesses Him, the Father, who has blessed me. 3. I am so controlled by His presence that I do His pleasure. I read about the two going to Emmaus, and in John 20:21, "As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you". Also of the three mighty men who were made acquainted with David's desire for a drink of water after they had come to him. The heart, answering to His pleasure, is therefore a very great and distinct mark of being in His presence. To see thy beauty and thy glory as I have seen it in the sanctuary.
We had a very happy time last evening; the subject was Stephen, with which you are very familiar. The point which came so freshly before me was the new action of the Spirit of God. He had come down (Acts 2), but now He conducts up. In John 14 He was promised to come down, because Christ was going away. How He 'opens the heavenly door' and brings Stephen to the favoured hour. We must regard this as an inauguration of the new order. Saints amongst us generally are quite satisfied to be assured that the Holy Ghost has come down, there is seldom a desire to be led up. I was much pleased to hear -------- say, 'I should like to know the Lord where He is.' He is nowhere else now! He made the path of life through this dreary scene, but He is not here as He was then, and never will be again.
I read the latter verses of Acts 7, dwelling first on Stephen's realisation of his own portion, shewing that the Lord prepared His servant for his work by feeding and nourishing his soul with Himself in glory, illustrating it by the case of Elijah in 1 Kings 19 when he was given two breakfasts before the journey to Horeb, the mount of God.
I shewed how the work of Christ had secured this new place for Stephen, and now he must set forth the new centre, the new testimony, which is a Man at the right hand of God -- how He was there because He was rejected here, and the testimony is that He is in heaven. Thirdly, how the witness has to confront everything which opposed our Lord here, but in His power, and therefore triumphant as Stephen was. The Man in heaven is now the centre of all God's ways.
I have been much interested while writing on 'What is a Christian?' in seeing that besides deliverance, which Jordan expresses fully, there is circumcision (Colossians 3:1 - 11). Everything of man as he was must be relinquished; all the temptations of Satan which act on my flesh are now left behind and I encounter the direct opposition of the enemy against my dwelling in assured possession of the land.
In the type, and morally, we are called to possess after we have entered the land, yet I have no doubt that as united to Christ we are in possession, and in Ephesians 6 we have to keep possession. I have long seen the difference between the type and. the antitype. I have possession, but I have to keep it, and here the energy of the Spirit is known, and here your faithfulness is proved.
The rending of ties here and there is very harassing, but the heart-sorrow part to me is the ignorance of the Christian position which is betrayed at every point. Many, though converted, are not much beyond Exodus 12 in their souls though well versed in word as to the truths generally held by brethren. I do not believe that many (hitherto among us) apprehend in living faith that they are sons of God and that they belong to the divine circle. A natural man would understand what it is to belong to the royal circle, but
the natural mind could not take in the vastness of the divine circle outside and beyond all human conception. I feel as if we should have to begin again from conversion up. The impression left on me by the way some speak of new birth is that they do not know what it is. Surely it is God's work and entirely independent of man. The first work is creation. He said, "Let there be light: and there was light" (Genesis 1:3). So it is as to His work in the soul.
We had, thank the Lord, a good time at Q--------. I trust that there is an awakening up to the fact that there is more than the gospel. That while the gospel embraces all that we as sinners need; nay, so abounds that we are placed in divine festivity in the Father's house -- everything done for us that could be done; yet there is more. We are not only children of the Father (this we have in the gospel), but we are brought to share in the position of the Son. We are united to Christ; we are members of His body -- the exalted Man. I do hope saints and servants are awakening to this the first circle of interest in the heart of Christ. If our hearts were with Him in heaven we should soon know that His heart is on the earth in His assembly, in the saints "in whom is all my delight". No one could realise union with Christ except over Jordan, and no one could be over Jordan in man's life. The fact is, if the true calling were in any degree known, Christ as our life would be known.
I spoke on life and light -- If we be dead with him, we shall also live with him. Himself is the light, and if you do not keep to the source of light, though you may have seen many things, you are not in the power of the light. The Morning Star is the light, not merely a prophecy. It is Himself, as the light, and your soul knows it.
I was this moment (before I began to write) thinking that we can hardly be in full company with the Lord's mind as to His present interests unless we have a sense of the state of captivity in which His people as a whole are in. I mean that however happy we are in Him, there must be a deep fringe of sadness encircling us because the carved work of His house is so broken down with axes and hammers, and hence ostensibly we hang our harps on the willows. It is ignorance of how He regards things if I can enjoy Him personally without a sense of what His mind is in walking amid the seven golden candlesticks. It is quite possible to enjoy Him and delight in Him in relation to myself, and yet to have little or no idea of how He feels about the state of the church. See an infant, and often even an older child, rejoicing in the love and company of its widowed mother, and it never yet has been awakened to the deepest, most prominent thought in the heart of the mother whom it loves and delights in so much. This world must in a sense be a blank to our blessed Lord, and though He has a home in His assembly, and His heart can delight in those who open to Him and with whom He can come in and sup, yet the one in real nearness to His heart, while deeply and fully enjoying His love, must feel this a strange land, and that we must remember Jerusalem above our chief joy. I think there is a double cause for estrangement and strangership now; we are here where our Lord is not; the people of God before never had any idea of this save when they were in captivity, then they were conscious that they were strangers in a strange land. This is our true position here, because of the rejection of Christ; but besides this we (the church) have gone down into the world; in unfaithfulness we have made friendship with the world, and hence we are not only (when our divine affections are revived) strangers here because Christ is absent, but we are also returning captives because of our own unfaithfulness.
I see, to my sorrow, that there is a growing tendency to make what is called 'standing' everything. Light is put for faith. The babe in Corinthians is in perfect acceptance, but surely not in acceptability. Moral correspondence to the glory is produced by beholding the Lord's glory.
Because Christ is written on the fleshy tables of my heart, and the Holy Spirit is given to me, I am bound to live Christ. I am not called to try to be anything, I am called to be what I am, and in this I am opposed by the rival man -- the old man -- backed up by Satan; but the Spirit lusteth against the flesh. In Philippians 3 this Christian life is, as J.N.D. says, 'On the road to Canaan.'
The sad part to me is that with the increase of knowledge there is less conformity to Christ, and well I know that no one's power, no matter how clear and beautiful he may be as to interpretation, is beyond the effect of the word in himself. The sure indication of declension in every age has been the acceptance of the word of God without moral correspondence to it, and this is working at this present time.
It is not the knowledge of Christ that is paramount, but the knowledge of scripture. Objective knowledge is not everything, you must not leave out conscious knowledge.
In my judgment brethren are better acquainted with the interpretation of scripture than they are with the mind of the Lord. In nine cases out of ten the ideas of saints among us are more in correspondence with the saint of the kingdom than with the Christian in the height of his calling now.
The Psalms are the utterances of the remnant, not written after experienced, but to help them in the experience.
Those who wrote them had the experience before they wrote them, but they are the word to comfort the remnant in the latter day, so that they may be assured in heart of being able to surmount the trials through which they are passing. The Lord Jesus Christ has passed through these self-same trials on their account, but He takes up the trials as from God, and hence His part in the Psalms is generally only occasional, like a great singer lending his note and voice to particular parts of the song. The Lord is bearing them company in sympathy; He does not generally use all the psalm Himself, but He aids them by His sympathy when He can, and then speaks. Thus I understand them. Even to us the Lord does not lend us His sympathy unless when we are in His own path.
As a rule I think the scriptures should be read with the thought that God is making Himself known to me -- communicating to me how He views everything and how He determines with respect of everything. I ought, in fact, as I read the scriptures to be so in the spirit of scripture, not in the mere letter of it, as to imbibe His mind and so to learn Himself, and this in a variety of ways.
In the Old Testament He is dealing with man as man is, feeble and hindered by the intervention of any difficulty or power stopping his way, at one time no water to drink, at another time too much of it. Satan is not so much seen, but it is more all creation and man ostensibly hindering and balking any one who is faithful to God on the earth, and God shewing His people that He is above circumstances for their support; the way in which He does this is most interesting, and not only that, but it also discloses to us His own nature, so that as we apprehend the record by the Spirit we grow in the knowledge and understanding of Him.
Now in the New Testament His heart is declared to me by the Son of His love, and I am taught, not so much
that He is above circumstances for His own, but that He places His own in the Son of His love above all the circumstances here. Christ walked here above everything in full rest of heart in the Father's love; as I read the record of Him I comprehend not merely the goodness and the ways of God in His goodness as I find it in the Old Testament, but more, I am in company with the heart of God fulfilling its own unspeakable will, and in and according to that will which I see accomplished, I find myself included and set by Him in the majesty of His purpose, above every power and hindrance, in the cloudless and unfading blessedness of His presence and home, in that nearness and glory which satisfies His love. There is no fear of your getting 'too full of scripture' (as you say) if there is real apprehension of the spirit of scripture; and if with this there is conscience and faithfulness, God will place you in circumstances where you will learn practically the truth of Himself, which verbally He has committed to you; so that it will become not only His own saying of Himself to you, but it will come to be your own saying of Him from yourself in your own experience. The study and apprehension of God's ways as a whole impart a breadth and strength to the mind, enabling it to view all things before God in their order and subjection to Him. It enlarges the new mind and gives a quickness in adaptation of truth which is so necessary for us here and which can only be acquired by the study of God's mind. You may cheer your spirit with detached portions of scripture, but you do not acquire that breadth and volume in the power of which you can reduce everything into its place before God, unless you in some degree apprehend His mind in the greatness and variety in which it is revealed as a whole.
... My impression is that the objection arises from viewing Christ as He is (in a way) to us, instead of looking
at Him as God was looking at Him when He was here glorifying God as a man. I see that from the beginning man was before the eye of God. The first man utterly failed, but God had a Man in reserve. His Son would become a Man, and through Him the church, the complement of Christ as a man, would be unto God's glory by Christ Jesus throughout all ages (Ephesians 3:21). There can be no question as to His divinity. Old commentators held that His miracles were recorded to prove His divinity, but we see that they are recorded to set forth how God was revealing Himself in grace to man. If I am in communion with God, I see Christ as He was here to God, and however fully I may see His personal greatness ("In him all the fulness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell" Colossians 1:19), I am not diverted from seeing the greatness of His work and ways as a Man on the earth. I think that the mystery in its magnitude is very little apprehended. How necessary it is that we should have the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him in order to conceive what the church is as the complement of Christ. The world could not contain the books which could be written of Him, but the church -- millions upon millions of saints will be His complement, each one of us a bit of the wondrous Man who glorified God here.
The blessings peculiar to Christians cease as soon as Christ moves off the Father's throne. If you apprehend their special peculiarity you will see this must be the case, and therefore there cannot be anything of the order of the church here after the rapture. Why do saints enjoy hearing of all that Christ is to us and at the same time are, apparently at least, uninterested in all that He is in His own circle of things? Because they like Him to come to our side, but are not drawn to His side.
I want to send you the enclosed paper. In it I confine my remarks altogether to the bride elect before union is known. Dear -------- in his letter travels to both sides -- the Bridegroom's side and the bride's, and it is evident that the subject has furnished him with much interesting meditation. But I am in this paper confining my remarks to the time before union is known, and I have done so on purpose to discover the nature of the affection that one is advocating or seeking. The affection after I have conscious union must be of a very different order or nature to what it is before union is known. When union is known you can say, at any rate -- I am His, and all His is mine, and His interests must be mine. Now the union of the church with Christ can never be typified according to its nature, though it is illustrated in Ephesians 5 by the relationship of man and wife. But no man and wife ever had the same spirit, and that is what the church has with Christ, and the Spirit is the Holy Ghost. It is not merely like nature or like life with Him, but I have the same Spirit. "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his" (Romans 8:9).
The Lord bless you abundantly and keep you in the sense that He makes us to lie down in green pastures before He asks us to walk.
We need to know what the church is to Christ, and you cannot know that until you understand union with Christ. You may look at it from God's side and see that in His purpose you are united to Christ, but there is also our side. You may see where the Epistle to the Ephesians puts the believer, and yet fail in the practice which God would produce in us by the knowledge of its teaching. The apostle prayed (chapter 1: 18), "that ye may know what is the hope of his calling". He would not have prayed that they might know, if the Ephesians had known these things; and you may know the epistle well, and yet you may not have grasped the reality of
what the church is to Christ. You cannot have suitability to the position if you do not understand it. The church is the fulness of Christ. The holy city, New Jerusalem, gives us an idea of the magnitude and magnificence of the church.
Paul's gospel and the church came out together. If you do not know Paul's gospel you do not know the mystery. Christ in heaven is Head to His body, the church. In order to reach Christ as Head you must get completely outside the present order of things, and come to a spot where Christ is all and in all. It is outside of man. You know union by the Holy Spirit; it is not the subject of Colossians, there it is more life; the prayer in Ephesians 1 is that you may know union. The Lord has brought me so close to Himself that I am part of Him; and He leaves His mark on each of those who know Him thus.
John does not speak of union, but he describes the holy city. It is descriptive of Christ. You must have divine power in order to be descriptive of the heavenly Man upon earth. The thought of a true wife is how she can make much of her husband, and as united to Christ you are descriptive of Him; His interests are yours. I am not now speaking of service, but of the wonderful nature of our union with Christ. Some of us know what we passed through before having peace. I do not think any soul ever got peace until he wanted it, and no one realises union until they are set for it; but you must first know that you are "accepted in the Beloved", that you are of the same stock, "all of one". We are made partakers of the divine nature.
Eve is the first type or illustration of the church which is given in scripture. God brought Eve to Adam. This will be fulfilled at the coronation day in Revelation 19. The marriage of the Lamb takes place when Babylon, the rival, has been set aside. God calls out the church apart from man's city -- Babylon, and He will shew her to the world as God's city -- New Jerusalem. There is no such joy as we find in chapter 19 when Babylon is judged, and the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready; that is, she has passed the judgment seat, and comes forth arrayed in fine linen, clean and
white; "the fine linen is the righteousnesses of the saints". Abraham and other Old Testament saints will be there as guests. They are children of the bridechamber, but they are not united to Christ as the church is. The Spirit of God now brings us into the things which are set forth in the heavenly Jerusalem. We sometimes sing:
If you know that you belong to the blessed Lord up there in heaven, and have never been there in Spirit, you cannot be a happy man, nor can you act as a heavenly man down here. The Spirit of God conducts us to heaven. The same power that wrought in Christ works towards us. It is not merely that God has a purpose as to us, but He has quickened us together with Christ, and has raised us up together, and made us sit down together in the heavenly places in Christ.
The first thing that you learn when you know union is that you have a new interest. Christ is your interest. You know Christ first as your Saviour, then as your Priest, and in the assembly you learn what suits Him. His interests become paramount with you, and you come to understand what will further those interests. In Ephesians 3 we get the great and present endowments that belong to union. First, Christ dwells in your heart by faith. Secondly, You are able to survey the greatness of your property; you may not be able to take it all in, but you do know something of the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. Then in the last verse you have the result, "Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end". It goes on through the millennium to the eternal state.
The one unmistakable mark of being in conscious union with Christ is identity of interest with Him, simply because it is the consequence of relationship. Union, however, may be known and yet not enjoyed because there is not communion. This is what I so desire for the Lord's people and what I seek to retain undisturbed myself. This it is that makes us suitable to Him down here. To
be suitable to His immediate interest in our immediate circumstances is very blessed.
May each of us know the blessedness of conscious union with Christ so that we may be suitable to Him here. It is a great thing to get clearly before one's soul that I am here for Christ.
EXTRACTS OF LETTERS From J. B. STONEY
From October 1895 to May 1897
The entries in the following collection were written, dictated, or spoken, by the Lord's beloved and honoured servant -- J. B. S., during the time of extreme bodily prostration which elapsed between the beginning of his illness in October 1895 and May 1897, when he entered into rest. A few of the earliest extracts of the letters were written by himself, until he became too weak to hold a pen, after which he dictated letters as well as papers; the latter are printed elsewhere. It will be observed that some of the entries are marked with a dagger †, which is intended to distinguish them from the dictated pieces, as they were uttered at different times (sometimes in the night) and jotted down, without his knowledge, and with no thought of publication, but for the comfort of those who loved him. Both the letters and utterances are interesting as giving a little insight into the blessed way in which the Lord led him from the beginning to the end of a period of such constant weariness, and often suffering of body, keeping his heart and mind free from its pressure for heavenly things, by so graciously ministering to him His support and sympathy, and giving him such deep enjoyment in Himself, in 'the scene of His glory and power, outside of everything here', as he himself expressed it. How he was sustained by the Lord up to the last moment, in vigour of mind, and unclouded joy in Himself above, as well as in unfailing devotion of heart to His interests on earth, may be gathered in a measure from the extracts. They are sent forth with the simple desire of encouragement to the Lord's people in shewing how His gracious ministry can be known in nature's extremity, by one whose heart is set on Christ in glory; and as an illustration of the word: "Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day" (2 Corinthians 4:16).
From October 1895 to May 1897
October 1895
In the lonely hours of the night I get a sense of what Jordan is. In complete helplessness as to myself, and apart from everybody, there is wonderful solace and satisfaction in being so drawn to the Lord that one's heart is absorbed with Himself. The great loss to souls is their not being absorbed with Him. They will gladly speak, read, hear of Christ, but are not absorbed with Him. No one understands Him but as they are in company with Him.
I had a nice word with -------- as to the difference between acceptance and deliverance. It is impossible for any one not knowing deliverance, and what coming to the living Stone is, to have any idea of God manifest in the flesh beyond human speculation.
November
I have been meditating much on faith and the Spirit, and have been thinking of the way in which Christians put faith in the place of grace and of the Spirit. Faith apprehends God's grace in giving, but grace is the power of God. By the grace of God I am what I am. I see how souls are deceived by putting faith in the place of the Spirit, who is the power.... Faith is the gift of God. Faith sees God, and counts on God, and there is the work of faith with power; but it is the Spirit who leads me into God's counsel for me.
I feel my weakness more as my energy increases. It is a great lesson to learn that you have no one to turn to but the Lord Himself, and that He is sufficient for you. Death must be learned. How much I require my own teaching now! People think they can enjoy Christ's life without learning death on themselves, but they cannot.
I have to learn in this protracted helplessness that there is no resource but in the Lord; no friends nor letters nor anything but Him. It is a happy lesson to learn in any degree.
I wish I could convey to you the way the Lord's supper opened out to me last night in connection with John 6. You appropriate His death which you remember, and you enter into His life. In a sense you cross the Jordan. I am learning that with even one step in Jordan, things here assume their true colour -- a dry and barren land where no water is, but the sphere of His life gleams before me on the other side, where His presence is perennial joy.
I feel the body is the Lord's. I look to Him to keep me from being occupied in bodily weakness with myself, and that I may be free from myself to think of Him.
I have been meditating on the dispensations. This is the Spirit's day on the earth. Anything that is not of the Spirit is not acceptable to God.
I believe there is the greatest gain from being in the Lord's company -- it is the "manifold more". I have been meditating on "I ... will sup with him, and he with me" (Revelation 3:20). In the one, He is my guest, He comes to me. In the other I am His guest, I go to His place. You prepare yourself to receive a great guest, and you prepare in another way to be His guest -- to be with Him in His own home or place.
As far as I see Laodicea boasts of all that grace confers, without any of the grace, or "little power", that marks Philadelphia. It is very interesting to see that it is closest association with Christ that corrects that state. "I ... will sup with him, and he with me". I do not think gold is the righteousness conferred but practical.
... Many suppose that they know union with Christ, because in God's grace they are united to Him.
... Nothing understands divine love, but the love that is of God.
The history of a soul taught of God is very interesting; there is a divine order of teaching which the Spirit of God does not depart from.
First, we learn acceptance with God, everything of the old man removed from the eye of God in the cross, so that you are in Christ before Him.
Secondly, you are delivered from the body of this death through the death of Christ, and you by the Spirit are in Christ free from the law of sin and death.
Thirdly, the more you enjoy your deliverance in the life of Christ, the more you realise that He is not here; and that to reach Him here (in the assembly) you have to cross the water (see Matthew 14), to the other side of death, and come to Him, the living Stone, and thus you are built up a spiritual house.
Fourthly, in your infirmities down here you find that He is touched with feeling for you, and as a Great Priest He draws you to His own side, not only to relieve you, but to conduct you into the circle of the consecrated company, associated with Himself in the holiest of all.
Fifthly, the more you are with Him in the Holiest, the more you are in the race, drawn away from the world to where He is, and eventually you find that Jordan is privilege -- that in His death you have died, and are clear of everything in this scene, to enter upon the sphere of His life where you know Him as Head.
Sixthly, when you know Him as Head you soon realise that you are united to Him.
Seventhly, united to Him you are not only in His
heavenly power but His interests absorb your heart, and you are able to stand for Him here, against all the power of the enemy. See Ephesians 6.
December
I was very glad to hear from you and of your exercise about faith and the work of the Spirit.
To begin simply at the beginning; the first thing for the soul is faith in God; that is, what God in His grace has wrought for you. Of course, faith is the gift of God, seeing what He has done. In Hebrews 11 they died without having received the promise, but we have received it, and now we come to the Spirit's work -- a work in us. Not I, but Christ liveth in me. So that faith is seeing how God sees me. The Spirit of God enables me to be what God sees me to be -- not in Adam but in Christ. The Spirit of God sets me in Christ according to Romans. God sees me in Christ and not in Adam, because of the work of Christ. The old man is crucified, and by the Spirit I am delivered from the body of this death through the death of Christ; in Christ old things are passed away, all things are become new. By faith I see how God sees me in Christ, not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, and by the Spirit I am in Christ.
I have been thinking that I have known Christ's sympathy as to circumstances, and in bereavement, but very little until now as to illness.
I have been dwelling on the greatness of His love, that He would like to have us with Himself, and then I turned to the greatness of His grace in allowing us to be here for Him.
†My world is now very circumscribed. It circles round Himself.
†I paid a visit to the heavenly regions. To see what I have seen is quite enough to keep one from sleeping. Corruption shall put on incorruption; but I got such a view of it -- of His own glorious body!
†Oh, if every one could see the world as I have seen it these last few weeks they would be afraid to touch it in any shape or form. If we had each accepted the cross all through our lives, how different our lives would be!
January 1896
†You will find the Lord's sympathy better than any human support. Do you know what it is in weakness to find support outside this world? Remember the new ground you are on.
†I am learning a new road in dependence upon Christ all along the road. He has fought the battle, and we get the good of it. Thank Thee, glorious Lord!
†The more you follow one Person alone the more simple your path will be. The reason people find their path so difficult is that they have not a single eye for a single Person.
†I have learned to do without any thing or any one but the Lord. He is enough without letters or friends or anything else.
†The hindrance in every soul, from the eldest to the youngest, is not being set for the glory. You cannot reach the purpose of God any other way.
Does your heart rejoice in the love that would draw you away from your own darkness into its own light?
†Reading 2 Corinthians 4. Do we belong to the scene where the brightness is, or to the scene where the blindness is? It is not only that the scene is bright, but the Person in it. He belongs to it. It is a great thing for us to belong to it. Wonderful way to open heaven ... by a Person!
†If man would only dwell on the divine reality of God's world, he would see that this is only man's world. In God's world all is divinely beautiful. This is a beautiful world, but it is only like a flower. In God's world all is according to God. I am roaming in beautiful worlds, and I rouse up and find myself in this world.
†Everything is getting so small in contrast to eternal things. I always begin with God; the difficulty is to go on, and not let other things come in.
†There is a great gap between God's things and man's things.... I began with, "I will delight in the Lord", and it brought me to the end of all things here.
A man may get a place in the church, but unless he walks in the Spirit he is not thoroughly for God. "Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord" (Zechariah 4:6). That is my text.
It is hard to explain my present experience. The great thing before me is that all things are of God. The great
text before me is, "Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit saith the Lord". I feel I am only at the infancy of Christianity. How small everything is in contrast to eternal things!
†I see an open door -- fulness of blessing, and power to carry one through this world in devotedness to the Lord, but when I look at anything of man it is all confusion and failure. But all is bright up there!
†There is a great contrast between things outside this scene and the things here; but no matter what they are, you must look up to the Lord for small matters as well as for great. My rest is, that I am not conscious of anything here until I open my eyes; I am above the things here in the sense of His power; that is rest even in the night. Outside of everything with the Lord, that is communion; that is what I call rest -- the great thing is to stay in it. Make the Lord your delight and not any circumstance; when lost in Him, that is rest.
†The first thing that made me love the Lord was finding that He loved me. I found that the Lord loved me, and that I could go to Him; I think that is what Peter felt; it was not Peter's love that made him go to the Lord so much as finding that the Lord loved him.
A day's experience in bed. I began with grace and I came to praise. Then I came to see what service is. I see that the great lack in the servant is that it is not the purpose of God that is his ideal. If it is not, if he does not know the purpose of God, he cannot lead souls to glory. You must begin with grace in order to end with
glory. Your knowledge of the glory is according to the measure of your knowledge of the grace.
I had a thought in the night. Glory is the goal and climax of everything -- the glory righteously displaying itself. We see good and evil together; good overcame the evil in such a way that the glory is displayed righteously and the glory is the climax. God's purpose in the saints necessarily runs along that line, and if they are set for the glory they must be in the purpose, and if they are set for the purpose they are sure to be in the glory, which is the righteous display, or the display righteously of all God's attributes, so that the good has obtained the victory. If this were truly known it would work wonderful advancement in souls, and in the testimony down here.
I have been thinking much of the early chapters of Revelation. Christ among the candlesticks. He has an establishment on earth, and now He is in heaven ready to come for us. Then in chapter 4 He is acknowledged in heaven.
How beautifully John's gospel opens up the new man, new order, new line of things, and starting us with new power.
It is a great favour to be allowed to keep up our acquaintance with one another about heavenly things.
†I should like to make a sketch of the history of the first man and the second. The first man who brought in all the ruin coming to an end in the cross; and the Second Man starting, not from the cross, but from the glory, bringing in everything according to God. Think of a Man in glory! That is a Man according to all God's attributes. Think of knowing Him there! And He is your Saviour, and you are united to Him. What a wonderful picture
it would be if I could portray it as I see it. It is constantly before me as I lie here musing, so that I am never lonely.
February
†I had a wonderful night. The whole sky seemed lighted up, the light circling round, and the Lord in the midst, immensely great, surveying the earth. I was there too. It seemed as if He were shewing it to me, or at least there it was for me to see at a distance, and I was but a speck looking at it.
I wish I could convey to you the whole scheme as I have seen it from the first man to the reign of Christ -- the whole sky seemed to be lighted up, and the Lord filling the whole space.
In connection with Antichrist the Latin kingdom is transformed into Babylon -- man's greatness. To make Antichrist a magnificent man is the aim; everything on earth used for this purpose.
Next, Babylon is destroyed, and then the power all comes from heaven. The king comes from heaven. The Lord of glory comes. Then you have the New Jerusalem down here. It comes with the glory of God.
†What a difference it makes in any one to be set for the glorified Man! If you give up for the Lord you get on. If the glorified Man is your object you cannot make anything of yourself. It is such a great thing to colour your whole life, to know that you belong to a Man in glory. Seeing Christ in glory takes you out of everything here.
If you know that you are accepted you want deliverance to enjoy it. Then you find that Christ, who is your life,
is not here. He is rejected from and by everything in this world. You look about to find Him, and you discover that He has a company -- an assembly, to whom He comes, and where you can meet Him. This separates the heart to Him, not only from system, but from everything here. You find that He is the living Stone, and that you are of Him, as the stone in the quarry was a part of Solomon's temple.
†I have been in the courts of glory. What do you think is the first thing you learn when you get there? You find that glory is your destination.
Read Colossians 3:1 - 4. Wonderful! but if you understand the glorified Man you know how He brings it all in. He has overcome in righteousness. He is glorified in the setting aside of every man.
There is a voice from heaven -- one man is cleared away in judgment, another Man has been introduced, something perfectly new; that is salvation, you cannot make it too simple.
†If you lost a person who was dear to you in one place and found him in another place, it would alter the place to you. You could not be with a person without being in a place. If you leave the place, you lose the power.... It is a great thing to be travelling to the spot where your affections are.
Is it the work of the Lord you are set on, or your own gratification?
The subject before me is the impossibility of diverting a soul from the smallest touch of divine grace. If a soul is saved it cannot be lost. How much time is lost in seeking to establish the fact of election instead of enjoying
the bloom and freshness of it, seeking excuses for unbelief instead of walking in the power of our calling. If ye do these things ye shall never fall.... If the same time and anxiety wasted in seeking corroboration of salvation had been spent in seeking instead that there should be no soil or shade upon it, how different the walk would have been. When we walk worthy of the calling we have the corroboration of it.
†If you have failed and are looking for restoration where would you begin?
Answer. -- The Nazarite began over again.
That will not do; it is improving the old thing. You must begin at the other side of the failure; you must get on another line -- the line of the glorified Man. When Peter was fully restored he had got hold of the Man in glory, and was occupied with Him; and he could say, "Ye denied the Holy One and the Just". See Acts 3:14. Just what he had done himself. You begin with the good, and go on with the good. That is where I am now. It is a different thing to see a thing and to go the road. You begin on the new line, and the new line leads you to Christ where Christ is. Then you have two things -- power and place. The power of the glorified Man takes you to the place of the glorified Man.
It is a good thing to be in that solitude where nothing can be any light to you but the word of God; you see everything and every one there.
I had a very helpful meditation upon the resource the Lord is when all around is darkness and weariness.
†(Question asked -- 'Why are you not sleeping?') I was thinking of the church, and what the effect would be of a true servant; how it would tell on the saints.
How many make everything of preaching, instead of seeking to be a pattern man, one standing here for God.
I am trying to study what the course of a servant, a witness, in the true sense, would be -- one really coming from God. I was reading John 17. If a servant came that way into the midst of His people here, altogether from God, what an effect it would have on the saints. I was tracing it through Ephesians. What a blessed thing to come out here as a heavenly man expressive of Him, apart from all connection with the old man!
I am glad that my little meditation on Revelation is put in the Voice as a whole. It is a great thing to present things as a whole. I never remember getting such a sense of God's ways as when I saw it portrayed before me in that book in the dead of night.
... I am trying to write on the true servant. There is nothing very new in it, except one thought which has cheered me greatly, that it is as Christ is endeared to us, and as we really know Him, that we value union with Him, and this is the servant's great business, to make Him attractive to souls.
March
I had a wonderful night, contesting in my sleep with a man on spiritual subjects. I hope I have got good by it in seeing more clearly that the side I was contending for was Christ only. I had great joy in seeing that Christ alone fills the whole scene.
... I am very much interested in the subject of communion. When do you know communion first?
... I am writing on Laodicea. It is difficult to believe how any can assume to be the church who do not know
the gospel. The deficiency is really in gospel truth; without that church truth cannot be known. I reproach myself constantly as to how very little I have helped the church when I see what darkness there is on what is really the gospel.
I was thinking this morning that there are two great processes always going on in a Christian, the object being to get morally clear of the old man and to bring in the new man, Christ Jesus. One process is "Beholding the glory of the Lord", bringing you into moral correspondence with Him. The second is a very different action -- "always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus", the life of Jesus manifest in our mortal body. You might have the first in private contemplation, but the second -- the bearing about the dying of Jesus -- would transpire in every movement of your life; on the one hand you receive of Christ, and on the other you part with what is not of Him.
I think you and -------- would like to hear of my experience last night. I awoke in the night with great fervour, occupied with a verse, saved by the mighty power of God. I had been contending for it in my sleep, but the people were making such a rant of it, and I was panting like a hunted hare. I tried to explain to them that salvation was effected on the cross, and that the believer is given the power of God to enjoy it. My great text for myself was, I sat under his shadow with great delight; but that only in the Spirit of God I could enjoy it. The moment I went to sleep the rant began again, and I awoke in excitement. I looked to the Lord to establish the fact to myself, that it is only in the Spirit of God that we can get clear of excitement in the flesh, and the Lord in a marked way made me know that I was free from the flesh, and could enjoy it all in the Spirit.
When I awoke this morning I felt like a man after a race; and in reviewing it, my meditation was, that the first great thing is to overcome the man that was removed in
the cross, and the next great thing is to walk in the power of God -- to walk in the Spirit.
Those I was contending with were all imaginary people whom I did not know, but you can imagine the sort of night I had.
The Holy Ghost demonstrates to us the character of the world -- no righteousness here, all power broken; this world is an awful place, a great desert without any power for the heavenly man; he can take no position here if he takes the ground of the Holy Ghost; with Christ rejected here he cannot take a place of rule. A man with earthly position might be in John 14:26, but he could not be in John 15:26.
I do not think you understand what I mean by three orders of communion. I mean by individual, having Christ the centre of everything; His own individual connection with us gives this. When I say personal, I mean it is all about Himself -- John 13:14, and general. Any one who is in communion with Him, has the two former. The Son is always in communion with the Father, but as we get into communion with Christ we then share in the communion with the Father. You make communion too much a work instead of the happy outflow of nearness, and this is the beginning of the mistakes about communion so often made.
If I were near you and we had a subject of common interest, I should soon know if we had communion one with another; but in divine communion Christ is the centre. Christ is already in communion with the Father, and as we get into communion with Him we advance into communion with the Father. It is not so much the greatness of the things we know in communion, as the fact that we are in concert with Him. It is the concert with Him and not the knowledge that is prominent with us.
We do not begin with communion on the same line. I begin from Him down, and I think you are occupied with us. You must find His side. If you had the individual it would not be where we are, but where He is. You would see what it was to Him to place a man in Eden, and so as to all His works. Next will grow what I call personal, how He is displayed in it. Communion is different to every other blessing. We are entirely outside of it; we never are the objects of it, though we are the subjects of it. When before the Lord we are allowed to see what He sees in order to give us an idea of the magnitude of what He is connected with, and as we are near Him we grow connected with it.
Moses had a very different idea of communion to what Paul had. Moses was seeing a new order of things in order to alter the existing ones. Paul was caught up in order more thoroughly to establish him in what he had received. Communion really culminates in eternal life....
The Lord blesses me in order that I should be blessed, and I know that the blessing is from Him. "The blessing of the Lord maketh rich"; but in communion it is more to bring me on familiar level with Himself.
It is a comfort to me that you begin to apprehend the great subject of communion. I am sending a paper on the necessary place feet-washing holds for fellowship with the Lord. I hope you and -------- will read it carefully and understand it. I cannot tell you how it weighs on me that there is an attempt to be in communion with the Lord without being clear of that which caused the distance and judgment. If one truly realises what it is to be cleared, what a joy to Him and what unspeakable gain to us! In society people prepare themselves before they come into company, and this is really what is required to enjoy the Lord's company. The feet must be washed. We must be clear of the flesh, and in the Spirit.
I have been very much helped lately, though through much conflict, in judging myself as to whether it was that I had faith in the Lord's love for me, or faith in His power (Philippians 4:13 -- "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me"). Naturally speaking, you could have more reliance on a friend that has means than on the friend that has no means; but the friend that has no means, if he has love, is a better friend. Therefore if I know that the Lord loves me personally, the more I study that love the more I see, not what He could give, but what He could be to me; and when His love to you begins to be attractive, you are surprised to find where it will lead you, and what it will open out to you.
Every Christian has learned Him as a Saviour, but the first real beginning in the soul of this attachment is your discovery that He loves you. As He said to Peter (Luke 5:10), "Fear not", I will advance you from a mere fisherman to be a fisher of men; for Peter had said, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord". It is not only that He is the object of my heart, but I find that the One I love has made me an object to His heart! A great day for the soul! People are ready to say how they love Him, but how far can they say that they are conscious of His love to them? that they so prize it, that it is the greatest secret of their heart? When the Lord's love is before you, you find this love is drawing you from darkness to light. He begins by shewing His desire for your spiritual advancement, and not by advancing you in earthly position. It is beautiful to see that the work of true love is to set aside darkness, or whatever would interfere with association; and therefore it is not esteemed as it ought to be, because we are looking for something on the earth, and the tendency is to judge of His love by earthly gifts or favours down here.
The bride in the Canticles 1:4 began rightly when she said, "Draw me, and we will run after thee". The unfailing mark of true affection, if I know He loves me, is that I seek His company, and therefore plainly, if you keep your first love, you will seek to have company with Him. The Ephesians had given up their heavenly position when they lost their first love. If you are thus
true in heart to Him, you can follow out what you get in chapter 2:3 "I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste". It is very plain that company is dearer to the heart than any gift, and in the end you find -- "He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love" (verse 4).
But alas! like the bride, though one knows the peculiar sweetness of sitting under His shadow with great delight, yet the tendency is to think of oneself and one's own interests here, to drop down into selfish engrossment, and sleep like the bride in Canticles 5. Sleeping is not doing anything actually wrong, but it is making oneself happy without the Lord, and a state of inactivity with regard to Him. It often follows a very happy time; but then you feel you have had an irreparable loss, and you want to return to your first love. This we see in chapter 5 brings out great exercise, and the peculiar exercise connected with it, is that which is always fruitful in occupying you with Himself personally, so that when you reach Him again you are nearer to Him: "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine". I would not dwell so long on this point, only that I see it is where the weakness of Christians lies: they do not expect the Lord to draw them out of this place, to make it an unrestful place; on the contrary, they are looking to find rest here.
Surely Mary Magdalene, when in the agony of her heart she could not find the Lord, was indifferent about everything here; but He, true to His love for her, and not merely seeking to relieve her present distress, tells her not to touch Him, but to tell His disciples that He is going away -- a great practical lesson, a deep dark disappointment it must have been to her, but it was the Lord's love which would not conceal from her that the only way henceforth of reaching Him was outside of everything here, which, in the long run, the true heart gladly accepts -- that we can be where He is fully accepted, and be clear of the place where He is refused: as she found before the close of that day, when she met Him again on resurrection ground -- an unequalled moment to her soul! This prepared her for the great history of those who belong to the rejected Christ, set free from everything
in the purity and perfection of His work, so that she could say: "As he is, so are we in this world" (1 John 4:17), and that, consequently, she is part of the consecrated company; and relieved of every human pressure she can enter the holiest to share before God in all the fragrance and acceptance of Christ, of which we have no type; the fulness and magnitude of it are only made known by the Spirit of God; it is not detailed in scripture. She is united to Him, made a member of His body, and therefore shares in all His interests and all His power, and can come forth to act here unhinderedly according to His own pleasure; and it is then only that the greatness of worship on God's side is fully known.
Now we see how the love of Christ conducts one all along to His own company to be in unclouded communion with the Father and with Himself. "Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ" (1 John 1:3): we cannot get any higher than that -- a most amazing height; and yet it is from that height, where all things are of God, that we must look down if anything tries us here, instead of trying to scramble out of the trouble by one palliation or another.
I trust you will see very fully, how blessedly one is conducted by His love to a scene where everything is solved, and where your heart is assured that the love that has brought you to the top will order for you all along the road below. But, if you understand it, you look at it, not as being in the trouble, but as living with Him out of it, while marking His gracious way of freeing you from it.
April
I have had happy times turning to my great resort -- the shadow of His wing, where His fruit is sweet to my taste.
I am writing a paper on the walk and service of the saints. I am especially pleased with two thoughts: 1.-- There is nothing for God here but the Man who came out of heaven, and the more our hearts are drawn to that
Man the more we part with everything that is not of Him; and 2.-- When we are severed from everything not of Christ, then we are ready for union with Him.
†I have been so happy sitting under His shadow with great delight; so cheered to know that I have a right to be there; and that I may stay there. But I have been learning also the practical side of it -- that the way to keep there is "I am crucified with Christ" -- and therefore no consideration for myself has any place. If I allow any consideration for myself, I am not saying, "Not I, but Christ liveth in me".
Every one has to learn the relief by going through the circumcision. Do not forget that! I say to myself when the panting comes on -- "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me"! -- or else some senseless consideration of myself comes in my way.
... As I ponder here it seems to me that if we had faith all would be simple and grand to us. The Man who died for us to clear us in the sight of God from the offender -- now raised to glory, living in us by the power of His Spirit. If we were clear about the first, we should soon be in the full joy of the second.
†I have had great experience of everything being gone, not by myself but by Another -- that I am set free from everything. I have had such a sense of being carried above everything by the Spirit of God. It is a great thing to go back to your beginning with the Lord -- to find that as He is the only One before God, so He is your only One.
It is very cheering to me to see that the more we realise the true character of the wilderness, the more we feel it aPRIESTS AND LEVITES
THE LIFEBOAT AND THE SHORE
TWO PARTS IN OUR CHRISTIAN HISTORY
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE PLACE OF SAINTS NOW AND BEFORE THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST
OUR RELATION TO CHRIST AND SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD
INFIDELITY AND EVOLUTION
LETTERS ON HEBREWS NO. 1
LETTERS ON HEBREWS NO. 2
LETTERS ON HEBREWS NO. 3
THE SPIRIT'S WORK
THE TRAITS OF THE NEW COMPANY
BEGINNING OF THE NEW ORDER
COMING TO THE LIVING STONE, LIBERTY.
'Tis the treasure I've found in His love
(Hymn 139)
that has made me a pilgrim below.'THE LORD COMING INTO OUR MIDST
THE ALTAR AND THE DOOR OF THE TABERNACLE
THE SAVIOUR AND THE PRIEST
THE LORD'S SUPPER NO. 1
THE LORD'S SUPPER NO. 2
THE LORD'S SUPPER NO. 3
THE GOSPEL AND THE MYSTERY
THE GOSPEL AND THE MYSTERY OF THE GOSPEL
THE TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCH
THE HEART OF CHRIST FOR HIS CHURCH
MEMBERS OF CHRIST'S BODY
ASSOCIATION WITH CHRIST IN HEAVEN
THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT NO. 1
THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT NO. 2
CAN SALVATION BE LOST?
'Returning sons He kisses,
And with His robe invests;
Eternal love dismisses
All terror from their breasts.' (Hymn 184)THE SPHERE OF LIFE NO. 1
THE SPHERE OF LIFE NO. 2
THE SPHERE OF LIFE NO. 3
THE SPHERE OF LIFE NO. 4
THE SPHERE OF LIFE NO. 5
THE SPHERE OF LIFE NO. 6
THE SPHERE OF LIFE NO. 7
'And thus Thy deep perfections
Much better should I know;
And with adoring fervour,
In this Thy nature grow.' (Hymn 51)BAPTISM NO. 1
BAPTISM NO. 2
BAPTISM NO. 3
BAPTISM NO. 4
BAPTISM NO. 5
ASSEMBLY DISCIPLINE NO. 1
ASSEMBLY DISCIPLINE NO. 2
BROUGHT NIGH UNTO GOD
THE BEST ROBE
THE NEW CLOTHES
THE BEGINNING AND FINISH OF GRACE]
PEACE AND LIBERTY
THE GOSPEL OF THE RESURRECTION
RESPONSIBILITY UNDER LAW AND UNDER GRACE
ROMANS AND HEBREWS
THE MIGHT OF HIS GLORY AND THE RICHES OF HIS GLORY
PRESENTATION OF THE CHURCH TO CHRIST
UNION WITH CHRIST SO LITTLE REALISED
TRUE WARFARE
CHRIST, THE MAN OF GOD'S PLEASURE
CHRIST, THE ORIGIN AND SOURCE OF EVERY MORAL QUALITY ACCORDING TO GOD
THE NEW ORDER OF MAN
THE MANNA
THE MANNA AND THE CORN OF THE LAND
CHRIST AS LORD AND AS HEAD
THE TWO MINISTRIES
THE THREE ACTIONS OF THE HOLY GHOST IN JOHN 16
GOD'S MEASURE OF APPROACH AND MY MEASURE
HEBREWS AND EPHESIANS
THE SONGS OF DEGREES -- STEPS TO THE HOUSE OF GOD
FAILURE IS NO PLEA FOR DISCOURAGEMENT
THE EARTHLY AND THE HEAVENLY
MARAH AND GILGAL
PART OF CHRIST. THE SPIRIT OVERCOMING THE WORLD
PAUL AND JOHN
FOUR FORMS OF EVIL
THE TWO WAVE LOAVES
COMPANIONS OF CHRIST IN THE HOLIEST
HOW CAN I ENJOY ACCEPTANCE WITH GOD
FAITH - FEEDING ON CHRIST
VERBAL INSPIRATION
MAN'S MENTAL FACULTIES NO HELP IN THE TRUTH
APOSTASY
SUFFERING IN THE FLESH
QUESTION AS TO FELLOWSHIP, THE CROSS AND THE GLORY
EXCLUSIVENESS
JOHN'S MINISTRY
JOHN 16:8 - 11
JOHN 17 AND EPHESIANS 3
CHRIST IN US
"THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST JESUS MY LORD"
PSALM 73 AND 2 CORINTHIANS 3:18 - THE OLD TESTAMENT SAINTS AND THE CHURCH
PLACE AND PASTURE
THE ALTAR AND THE DOOR OF THE TABERNACLE
INAUGURATION OF THE NEW WAY
IGNORANCE OF CHRISTIAN POSITION
OUR CALLING
RETURNING CAPTIVES
THE KNOWLEDGE OF SCRIPTURE WITHOUT CONFORMITY TO CHRIST
THE PSALMS
THE SPIRIT OF SCRIPTURE
GOD'S MAN IN RESERVE
UNION WITH CHRIST
'And see the Spirit's power
Has ope'd the heavenly door.' (Hymn 74)PREFACE