2 Corinthians 3:7 - 18
The apostle is contrasting the christian position with that of being under law. The law was given in connection with glory; we read that the children of Israel could not look at the face of Moses, because his face shone, "for the glory of his countenance;" but this glory is done away, because of "the glory that excelleth". Now there is a ministration of righteousness from the glory. This is brought in to correct the Corinthians, who were trusting in their own wisdom. Presenting Christ is the only true way of restoration, whatever the character of the departure may be. The great point here is that the flesh is displaced in the form in which it had worked in the Corinthians, they were boasting in their own wisdom. God's way of correcting is not merely to point out the error; that is man's way: the way of His grace is to set forth the right way, and then you see where you are wrong. If you learn how you yourself are displaced, you will never forget it - the true correction is that self is disallowed, and in abeyance. If you try to correct yourself, you are still there. There is no place for flesh in the glory of God. In verse 18 we read, "But we all ... beholding ... the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord;" but you will never really understand this until you try it, and so prove the truth of it. To illustrate what I mean, if a man suffers from headache, and is told that electricity would cure it, he cannot know the good of it unless he tries it. Beholding the glory of the Lord, you have come to a spot where flesh cannot be, for self is in abeyance. As the queen of Sheba was in the presence of Solomon,
there was "no more spirit in her", 2 Chronicles 9. Have you ever been there? Would you like to taste the blessedness of it? The flesh must be in abeyance when you are beholding the Lord's glory, but you must behold it. You might hear about it continually, and you might admire it, and yet never know it for yourself. A person shut up in his own room may know more of it than one who has heard of it again and again. Scripture tells you what you are to get, the Spirit of God gives it to you. You never get anything without seeking it. The queen of Sheba went a long journey to see Solomon, and the effect of her coming was that she could say, "One half of the greatness of thy wisdom was not told me". Looking on the glory of the Lord with unveiled face - we behold Him without a veil, as we see Him in the holiest; the antitype of the ark of the covenant greets us, and the result is, we are transformed into the same image "as by the Spirit of the Lord".
The two disciples going to Emmaus heard the Lord's exposition of the word, and their hearts burned within them, but they were not changed in their course till they knew Him, and then they rose up and went to Jerusalem. His interests were paramount to them, they were now so under His control that they went the same road that He went. If we were in the holiest, the presence of the Lord, how clear our judgment would be as to everything for Him; there you see things as they relate to His interests, and then you get guidance. The great thing is to behold the glory of the Lord. The nearer the prodigal got to the father, the better off he was; all fear was gone when he was in his house. You will be so entranced with the things there that, like the queen of Sheba, there will be no more spirit in you, you yourself will be in abeyance.
An old divine was helped by a dream; he thought he came to the palace of a king, and was graciously received at the entrance, but the more he advanced,
the more cordially he was received, and when he reached the presence of the sovereign, he was received with acclamation. The apostle was so set for it, it had such a hold on him, that he was "always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus" (2 Corinthians 4:10) lest he should lose it, for he had tasted the blessedness of it. The nearer you are to the Lord, the more assured you will be of your acceptance. Every blessing is centred there, and comes from Him, but you must taste of it in order to know it.
Christians in general do not know the Solomon aspect of Christ. The Corinthians had not known Christ as Wisdom of God; they were boasting in their own wisdom. The queen of Sheba came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon.
We often try to get rid of self, but this is only effected by displacement. Beholding the Lord's glory, we are transformed. If you had tasted the effect of it, you would long to enjoy it more; it would not then be the fear of losing things here, you would be filled with your gain. Solomon and all his glory entranced the queen of Sheba. I can imagine how, when she returned to her own country, she would want to have everything up to Solomon!
Do you know what it is to go in and behold the Lord's glory without a veil? What it is to sit before Him and contemplate Him, His glories, His beauties, His excellencies?
See Psalm 73. The psalmist's judgment was changed when he went into the sanctuary, but here it is a far greater thing, the man himself is changed, he is transformed. It is one thing to have returned like the prodigal from the far country, but quite another thing to have gone into the father's house. Christ is in glory: many a one looks to Christ on the cross, others as to their souls know that He is risen, but He is in glory. When the prodigal was in the father's
house, he thought no more of the far country; he as in a new scene altogether in untold blessing.
How blessed to know that now, instead of God's claiming from you according to the law, righteousness is ministered to you from the glorified Man in heaven, and it is to this spot the Spirit of God would lead you. He comes from heaven to conduct you to the things there.
It is a great thing to get a sense of the blessedness of "beholding ... the glory of the Lord". Oh, the blessedness of having boldness to enter into the place where He is! The line is open for each one of us. Stephen was the first who travelled that line; it is opened by the Spirit of God.
The way I know I am walking "in the Spirit" is that Christ is before me, and the effect of having Christ only before me is marvellous; all is simple then. "Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her, "Proverbs 4:8.
The mariner says he does not fear the storm if he can only see the sun; he does not look for a star, but the sun. We may well be thankful for such a scripture as this, but let us each see to it that we try it.
Matthew 12:38 - 42
Any reader can see in this scripture that there are two aspects of our Lord perfectly distinct the one from the other: the Jonah aspect, and the Solomon aspect. The Lord Jesus Christ is greater than either. Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly - that sets forth the death of Christ; while Solomon sets forth His glory - He was the "greater than Solomon". We have to learn Christ in both these aspects. If you have not learnt Him in the first, you cannot learn Him in the second. I press that you must learn the first completely before you can reach the second. Christ once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God. The judgment of God on man must be first removed in judgment. Many are in comparative darkness, because they do not see that the man under judgment has been terminated judicially in the cross for the believer. God never revives that man. That which was under judgment has been removed in judgment. The resurrection of Christ is not merely a receipt that your sins are atoned for, but that a Man after a new order has come up out of death, no more according to the flesh, so that for the believer, not only is the mortgage on the house paid off (speaking figuratively), but every stone of the house has come down, and a new one is built on the same spot, but with none of the old material. "We have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens", 2 Corinthians 5:1. Many are trying to beautify the old. It is in Christ's resurrection that the clearance was effected, "Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification", Romans 4:25. We are no
longer of Adam but of Christ. You are transferred from Adam to Christ; Romans 5.
The prodigal was surprised at his father's reception of him; he could say, 'My father is on the best of terms with me!' If the shepherd had not gone out, the father could not have come out. God was the first relieved of the distance which sin had caused. Christ bore the judgment and glorified God in the most distant spot. "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him" (John 13:31). The man under judgment has gone, for every believer, from the eye of God in judgment, and hence that man could not righteously be revived. The apostle says of himself, "I am crucified with Christ" (Galatians 2:20). The youngest believer should be able to say, The man under judgment has gone from the eye of God. In the early verses of Romans 5 we read how God is toward us. In chapter 8 it is how we are in Christ before Him. In Romans 6:6 we read, "Knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with him". Do you believe it? Do you believe that the body of sin has been destroyed? It is by the Spirit of God that you are free from the law of sin and death. You will not progress until you are free in the liberty of the Spirit.
There are three classes of christians. The first do not know how to be dead to sin. The second class do know, but they do not walk in it. The third are always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus. "If, by the Spirit, ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live" (Romans 8:13). Are you occupied with the Spirit instead of with the flesh? I am dwelling much on this, because there is no progress until you are free. The Spirit of God first sets you free from yourself before God. The Corinthians and Galatians both had the Spirit, but neither were in the liberty of the Spirit, and therefore they could not enjoy the Lord.
First, then, you are clear of the old man altogether by the death of Christ. He has risen out from among
the dead. Now where is He? Would you like to see Him who saved you? Where is He? In John 1 the two disciples heard John speak, and following Jesus, they asked, "Where dwellest thou?" Jesus said, "Come and see".
I cannot tell you what an effect it had on me when I learned that there was a power in me greater than the flesh.
The queen of Sheba travelled through the desert to see Solomon, and she communed with him of all that was in her heart. When the apostle would restore the Corinthians he writes "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). As soon as you are clear through the work of Christ of all that lay upon you, you look up as Stephen did. When the Spirit is ruling, your eye is on Christ, and then an entirely new class of interests will claim you. The queen of Sheba is not occupied with the great buildings at Jerusalem, but with Solomon's things. She was made acquainted with the interior of his house. Then "there was no more spirit in her". You are transformed by beholding the Lord's glory. Make Him in His glory paramount, and He will influence you for Himself. When you are beholding the glory of the Lord, there is no place for the flesh. It is not merely by reading and praying, it is by beholding the Lord's glory.
I do not know how we could get on without our Solomon. Whatever the difficulty, whatever the question, He is the resource. To know Christ as your Head, where there is no human voice, is much more than to know the Saviour in glory; but you must know Him first as the Saviour in glory. You cannot know the effect of beholding Him until you try it. One effect you read of in 2 Corinthians 4:10 is, "always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the
life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body".
There is a moment in the soul's history when you can say, God is so absolutely for me that I must be absolutely for Him. You have to do with Christ in glory who has removed the judgment on man.
Isaiah was repelled by the glory. He said, "Woe is me ... mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts" (Isaiah 6:5). Then came the live coal. There is no live coal now. The nearer you are to Him the better off you are. I often think when I see a man in darkness, I wish I could push that man into the glory. I feel nothing but the Spirit of God - (language fails) - can show you that the nearer you come the better off you are.
In conclusion, the apostle says, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world" (Galatians 6:14).
Jonathan rejoiced that Goliath was gone. May each one of you rejoice that the man under judgment has gone, and that Christ - the glorified Man, the "greater than Solomon" - is the only source of your life and your every blessing, for His name's sake.
THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT IN US (Four readings)
Romans 5:1 - 11; 8: 1 - 13
J.B.S. The subject before us is the work of the Spirit in us. Everything is done for us but no one is really beyond the measure of the Spirit's work in him, and that is where many lack. I have read those two scriptures because, in the words of another, the first gives us how God is toward you as revealed in Christ, and the second how you are before God in Christ.
The first eleven verses of Romans 5 give us the state of one who is justified: "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us". You cannot get higher than those eleven verses. In chapter 8 where we come to our side it winds up by returning to the fifth: nothing "shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord".
Until you have learnt these two things you really can make no advance though you may know a great deal of Scripture and be greatly interested in it, too. Let us take them in their order. The first, a most beautiful and interesting thing, is the terms on which God can be with a believer through the death and resurrection of Christ. That is the subject of these eleven verses, and if you do not enjoy them it is because you do not really believe on Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. The gospel that is generally accepted is that Christ's blood was shed as a sacrifice, and this is true enough as far as it goes. It is preservation from judgment, but you do not see how you are brought to God. It is merely that God passes you by, and further than that you do not get in the common doctrine of christendom. You are sheltered, but you are not in peace: every disturbing element between you and
God has not been removed, and there is no possibility of a person getting on till he has learnt that. You must learn the truth in divine order: if one turns to the epistle to the Ephesians before he has learnt the truth of the epistle to the Romans he cannot take it in.
A.G. Has a man got Romans who can say, "If God be for us?"
J.B.S. That is chapter 8. He has not got it till he has the love of God shed abroad in his heart. That is chapter 5: how God is towards him. There is a very good illustration of it in the prodigal: he found that the father could not be on better terms with him.
J.G. At what stage in the prodigal's history was it that he found the father could not be on better terms with him?
J.B.S. The first impression he got of how the father was towards him was the kiss of affection. That answers to Romans 5:11. But then he says, "I am no longer worthy". He had not on the best robe yet: he was not in chapter 8. I think the way the gospel is continually presented and apprehended, is to find some substitute for you, to bear your sins, for the relief of your own conscience, instead of seeing how the One you have offended is towards you.
W.K. That is how He feels towards you?
J.B.S. Exactly. The prodigal says, "I have sinned against heaven and before thee; I am no longer worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants". He counts on the father's goodness but at the same time he expects to be degraded, to be made a hired servant.
T.M.G. The blood of propitiation in Romans 3 enables God to act according to His own heart?
J.B.S. Yes, and it gives relief to your conscience, too. Suppose you find a child in punishment and you ask, Why? 'Because I have offended against my father.' Very well, the point is, Have you had the
matter settled with your father? You do not ask the child, Are you much troubled about the state you are in, are you greatly distressed because of your punishment? No, the question is, Is it settled with your father?
W.K. The point is that the offended one, the father, is the one to be considered?
J.B.S. Exactly, and that is not sufficiently remembered.
W.K. I think what you convey to us is that it is our side we are generally occupied with, and the sense of relief through the work of the Lord Jesus?
J.B.S. Exactly. A great many are occupied with Romans 8 before they have got Romans 5. They are trying to be fit for God before they have got the sense of how He feels towards them. Supposing a child has broken a clock and is put under punishment till it is mended. Well, the father says, 'I see you cannot mend it, but I will mend it myself.' Now if the father mends it, it shows two things: not only his love to the offending child, but that the mischief he did has been repaired to his entire satisfaction. And if the child had any sense he would say to his father, 'You are not only very good, but as you have yourself repaired the damage you never can find fault with the way it has been done.' God has "laid help upon one that is mighty" (Psalm 89:19). It is a very different thing whether you are occupied with your feelings because you are a sinner or with the feelings of the One whom you have offended. If the former then even your sense of sin is not right, because the point is that it is God you have offended.
W.A.W. But the other is necessary?
J.B.S. I quite admit it is necessary and I say it is the way you begin. But then you have not found out really what has been done if you stop there and do not touch the question, how does the One who has been offended feel?
W.A.W. Do you find fault with the teachers or with the people?
J.B.S. I am not finding fault with anyone: I am only trying to show the common defect of dwelling too much upon our sense of our state and of Christ's work, and forgetting how God feels about it. That is only what we might call the gospel of the Old Testament. In the Old Testament there was no resurrection, no victim ever raised. And they were never clear of their sins, they came upon them again. If there is resurrection then I am apart from man, and there is no justification except in connection with resurrection: "Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification".
W.K. You said that if there is resurrection I am apart from the man: that is the man who sinned?
W.K. And it is that which gives the perfect sense of true relief?
J.B.S. Yes. I see that God has been fully relieved and first relieved. The man that offended Him has been removed and He has another Man in the place of him. Now I am not looking at the man who sinned, but at the Man risen up from among the dead. I believe in God who raised Him from the dead. Therefore the word is, "if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised him from among the dead, thou shalt be saved", Romans 10:9. In my acquaintance I do not know anything souls are so feeble in as simply to believe that they have to do with a risen Man, the Lord Jesus Christ. They are quite clear as to having to do with a dying Saviour, the Saviour who died, but to know that I have to do with a Man risen out of all the ruin of man carries one outside of all that he is.
-.H. Do you make that difference between the forgiveness of sins and justification?
J.B.S. I do. I often tell an anecdote that happened
in my experience in a company of officers who met to talk about the Lord's coming. One of them said, I used to go down on my knees to pray to Christ on the cross, but one day a lady said to me, He is not there, and it had a great effect upon me.
Ques. Most believers are simply forgiven sinners?
J.B.S. Yes, and they want to be forgiven again. But when you get to resurrection there is no more offering for sins, there is no more conscience of sins. Oh, but I know I do sin, says someone? Yes, but that is consciousness. If you have conscience of sins then they must be upon you. But they are not upon me, I am clear, and I have to do with another Man altogether, not only with the sacrifice but with One risen from the dead, "marked out Son of God in power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by resurrection of the dead", Romans 1:4. I may not be able to convey it but I have the sense that the moment I look at the Lord risen from the dead I am on new ground.
W.K. In the resurrection it is not only the offence that is gone but the offender too?
J.B.S. Yes, and the offence is removed entirely to the satisfaction of God Himself. Therefore you find in Matthew 27 that the very moment Christ died God rent the veil. God says, I have found a man, I have found the answer to the holiest of all: there is no more any veil.
W.K. Do you mean by that, that one can be in God's immediate presence?
J.B.S. Yes, and God had in a Man that which was in the holiest which shut out man.
T.M.G. God has got man in His presence suitable to Himself according to His own mind?
J.B.S. Yes, and that is what the prodigal found afterwards. When he was kissed he might have said to the father 'Well, it is an immense comfort to me that you are so happy about it:' but then he looks at himself and says, I am not fit to be in there. Then
said the father, I will make you fit. So we ought to be thankful for the first at any rate (how God feels towards us) and then go on to the second (how we are before God in Christ).
W.K. Do you think it is possible for a person to rest comfortably in the first without having the second?
J.B.S. No, I do not think it is, but it is very important for one to have hold of the first because then he finds he cannot be happy without the second. For myself I know that for years everything was gone from before God and I was perfectly happy in looking up to God but I was not happy about myself. And why? Because I found no improvement; I had not taken the ground that I had parted with the man; I was trying to improve him.
W.K. You were trying to make yourself suitable. I think most people have tried it.
T.M.G. Instead of seeing that God had got rid of you and had got a Man in His presence according to His own mind?
J.B.S. I was quite sure He had but what I wanted really to know was that the Spirit made that true to me which was true to God.
J.G. That is the first you have said as to that yet.
J.B.S. Yes, but it is very important. In the synopsis originally it was made absolute - something done for you - but in the next edition it is corrected and made experimental. Many call it the reckoning of faith, but no, it is a fact. You are saved by the death of Christ from the man that brought all the trouble upon you.
T.M.G. Do you mean that the Spirit of God has made it good to your soul as a practical, experimental thing?
J.B.S. Yes, and therefore the apostle says, "I am crucified with Christ", Galatians 2:20. It is not enough to say our old man is crucified with Christ, but I am crucified
with Him. What does the apostle say to the Romans in chapter 6? Ye "have obeyed from the heart the form of teaching into which ye were instructed". That is, you have accepted that you are dead men. That is the meaning of that expression.
T.M.G. Had Paul himself the experience of that?
J.B.S. Yes, and you cannot have that experience without the work of the Spirit of God.
W.K. You say it is not merely the reckoning of faith as commonly thought but a positive work wrought in you by the Holy Spirit?
J.B.S. Yes, if you take the end of Romans 5 - the two men - you will see it. And no one has deliverance unless he changes his man. The end of Romans 5 is to me an immense help. The question is, are you in Adam or in Christ? I am out of Adam and in Christ: but how? By Christ's death. And that is the force of Romans 6:11: "So also ye, reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in (not 'through') Christ Jesus". You are gone in that Man, you are freed from Adam by the death of Christ, but you have touched life in Christ for the first time. I am associated with Christ as the Person in whom is the life.
W.K. That is not sufficiently clear. Every believer - everyone with any intelligence - accepts the fact that there are the two men and that you are connected with the one or the other, but the point of difficulty is how do you change your man?
J.B.S. I am saved by death from Adam and I have found life in Christ. That is Romans 6, which is only a treatise on the subject, but the effect is practical and when you come to chapter 8 it is the "law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death". But then the argument is commenced in chapter 5, that one man has brought all the trouble upon you ("by one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death"), and the other brings life. "Death reigned by the one, much rather
shall those who receive the abundance of grace, and of the free gift of righteousness, reign in life by the one Jesus Christ".
W.K. But you say it is not simply accepting this presentation of the truth as a matter of faith.
J.B.S. No, it is a work of God's Spirit.
J.G. Of course it must be accepted in faith.
J.B.S. The statement is accepted but it is a real work of God's Spirit.
W.K. You say that is a positive state in which one is put?
J.B.S. Yes, and though you may not always be walking in it you can never be behind it.
T.M.G. It is true that every believer is crucified with Christ, but every believer cannot say so experimentally?
J.B.S. It is quite true to say of all believers that our old man is crucified with Christ, but it is not everyone who can say, I am crucified with Christ. Most people are trying to improve themselves.
T.M.G. How is the experimental thing to be arrived at?
J.B.S. If you take it in the divine order, the first thing the prodigal found was that everything was gone on the father's part. "We are making our boast in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom now we have received the reconciliation". I see first that everything that was offensive is gone from the eye of God and He will never revive it.
W.K. What do you mean by everything?
J.B.S. Everything unsuited to Him: not only my sins but the man who did the sins.
W.K. All connected with the sinful state?
J.B.S. Reconciliation could not be effected till God Himself removed everything that caused disturbance. God Himself has removed it and I am not the judge but He is the judge of what is removed. It is very important to see that it is not my conscience but God
Himself who is the judge of what has been removed.
W.K. Of what requires to be removed, what has been removed and how it has been done - He has done it Himself.
J.B.S. The next step is that the prodigal finds, I am not fit for you or for your presence. The father answers, 'I will make you fit. Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him.' In christendom they make the best robe righteousness. But it really is what we have in Romans 8 - what the believer is in Christ before God.
T.M.G. Then the best robe must really be Christ?
J.B.S. Yes, of course. Therefore it is the "law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death". I think it is very plain, but it is in the Spirit you have it. I said to a young man who was being drawn away by the 'Holiness by Faith' doctrine, 'Do you believe the old man is gone in the eye of God?' 'Yes, I do.'. 'And if you were walking in the Spirit would you not see him gone, too?' He was put in a corner. If he had said, No, he would have put the Spirit of God in contradiction to God. To see what God sees is faith.
Our brother has asked the question, How do you get it? By walking in the Spirit. Everybody who knows anything realises how little we are positively in it. We can test ourselves by asking what is the upper-most thing in our minds, often. Therefore in Romans 8 it is, "If, by the Spirit, ye put to death the deeds of the body (not, mortify the body, which is the monastic principle) ye shall live". I have another Person now to serve and not my own pleasure. "In that I now live in flesh, I live by faith, the faith of the Son of God", Galatians 2:20. Even going about your business day by day you have a different Man to please: you consult Christ. You consider not whether you like this thing or not but whether Christ would like it. How
often this would pull one up in the course of the day!
W.K. If you try it you will find it out very soon.
J.B.S. No one is right who does not. I believe the fact is you so enjoy the love of Christ that you prefer Christ to Adam and that is Romans 8. Until you have learnt that you will never grow or make progress. Why? Because you are not at home with the Lord. See the end of Romans 8: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" What is it you have found? That I prefer Christ to the most excellent man that ever I saw or to the most beautiful traits that ever I saw in a man. It is Christ as an object. And that is practically what we get if we walk in the Spirit. Christ is preferred before everything. I think you will get what I say confirmed by the Corinthians and the Galatians. The Corinthians had received the Holy Spirit, the Galatians had, too, but neither of them were walking in the Spirit: they were, not dead to sin. And that is where people practically stop short - they are not dead to sin.
J.G. They have the theory but are not walking in the power of it?
J.B.S. Either they do not know it, or they are not living up to it.
W.K. Do you suppose it possible for a person to have accepted that doctrine by faith and not be in it?
J.B.S. There are three classes: first, those who do not know it: second, those who know it but do not carry it out: third, those who know it and do carry it out. The Corinthians thought they had very good wisdom of their own and though they had Christ, yet they would keep and use their own wisdom, and the apostle in the long run brings them in the second epistle to Christ glorified. He presents them with the Lord's glory which is properly the holiest of all and there you will be so transformed that you will be
like Him. The practical effect of thus being in the presence of Christ is that you would not like anything that would disturb or interrupt it and therefore you have in the next chapter, "Always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body", 2 Corinthians 4: 10. As enjoying the presence of the Lord I am glad not to allow the slightest thing that would cause any disturbance between myself and Him. It is not simply by setting forth the doctrine, but by setting forth the gain of the presence of the Lord, that the Corinthians are brought into it.
Then as to the Galatians, they were trying to be righteous, to keep the law, and they had to learn that Isaac - the one born after the Spirit - was to get his place; and that Ishmael - the one born after the flesh - was to be cast out. It is a great thing when Christ gets His rightful place in your heart. He has got the right to everything there. Ishmael has no place. He represents the polished, well brought up, well educated, religious man. And therefore this is a more painful experience than Romans 7.
W.K. More painful than Romans 7?
J.B.S. Much more. In Romans 7 I find that I am incompetent to keep the law, but here I find that all that is amiable and polished and educated and cultivated in me does not like Christ.
W.K. It is not the discovery of my own feebleness but of the true character of the first man?
J.B.S. Yes, and therefore you can understand what the apostle says: "What things were -gain to me these I counted, on account of Christ, loss", Philippians 3:7. What a relief! Ishmael is turned out. You may say, He will come back. But no, you have got the truth and the truth makes you free. You may be tried ten times a day or a hundred times a day with what is not Christ, but you refuse it. On the other hand the Spirit of God is the power for life.
W.K. When something comes up, you say, 'That is not Christ?'
J.B.S. Yes. My own conscience is not the standard, Christ is the standard. We have all got a certain standard in our own consciences, but we have a new standard and that is Christ.
A.G. Would you say conscience is the standard in Romans 7?
J.B.S. Well, you might. But here I am no longer doing something to satisfy my conscience but I am trying to do what would please Christ.
W.A.W. But it is really what we do that troubles us.
J.B.S. But why are you troubled? That is the point. Is it because you are not nice enough for your own sense of what you should be, or because you have lost your reputation with other people?
W.A.W. But if I am really troubled because what I have done is not like Christ?
J.B.S. Then you will get plenty of comfort. I used to long, when I failed, to have the thing over again that I might go through it without failure. I was disappointed with myself.
Rem. I thought if you failed in a thing you did not get the opportunity again.
J.B.S. If I fail in a place now I avoid it: "Pass not by it". What I say is that if I had been walking in the Spirit I would not have gone that way. It is not merely at the moment of failure that you are wrong, you grieved the Spirit before. You might be reading your Bible at the moment, but you grieved the Spirit earlier and the Spirit would not help you when the occasion came. If you wish to find out where a man is, ask him to do something. As sure as life if he is not walking in the Spirit he will blunder. I should be afraid to do a thing if I was not with the Lord. Saul wist not that the Lord was departed from him.
W.A.W. Do you mean preaching the gospel, for instance?
J.B.S. I mean everything. Everything you do is for Him. The body is the Lord's. We have not gone into heavenly things at all yet; we are speaking of what is down here on earth. Everything is done either in the flesh or in the Spirit. "I myself with the mind serve God's law; but with the flesh sin's law", Romans 7:25. But then you are not in the flesh; if you were you would serve the law of sin. You may talk for ever and pray for ever, but you will never have deliverance until you change your man, until you say, "Not I, but Christ".
W.K. You said that asking a person to do something would discover where he is. That is, I suppose, because every action requires power and the power is the Spirit of God?
J.B.S. Yes, and if you grieve the Spirit He will make you find it out, perhaps by public failure. You ought to have found it out before you went into public. I think we do not read our own histories sufficiently. I find that I go into one house perhaps and I am quite happy there, but I am too well pleased with myself, and the next house I go into I am quite flat. What has happened? I have grieved the Spirit.
W.K. If that is the case the Spirit of God will let you down?
W.A.W. What would you advise then to be done?
J.B.S. Well, the first step is the acknowledgment of failure.
W.A.W. Suppose you find yourself as you have said, quite flat; would you just leave then and go home?
J.B.S. I cease. That, alas, is a very common transaction.
W.K. That supposes another thing: that you are so walking in the Spirit ordinarily as to discover when you are not.
J.B.S. I am, of course, supposing that. I think it is a wonderful thing that the Lord allows us to teach one another what each learns for himself, that it is not angels He sends to teach us. I used to say that the flesh is stronger than grace; I dare not say that now; I say the Spirit is stronger than the flesh. I do not think this is sufficiently understood, that we have got a new power. Romans 7 is looked at as normal christian experience, but there is no power there; there is the new nature but not the new power. I think a great many people suppose they have received the Spirit of God when they have not. I do not believe you have received the Spirit of God until you believe in the glorified Christ; therefore it is connected with justification; then after believing you are sealed. Now I can refer back to myself and I can see the moment when power came, power for Christ, power to be for God.
W.K. Do you suppose it possible for a believer to have the Spirit and yet be devoid of power?
J.B.S. Yes, I do. He may have the Spirit and not be in the power of the Spirit.
W.K. Do you mean by habitually grieving the Spirit?
J.B.S. Well, a believer may drop out of the line. The Corinthians were full of their own wisdom and had dropped out of the line of the Spirit. So had the Galatians; they were trying to correct the flesh by the law.
W.K. Such a person is not in divine power?
J.B.S. No. Therefore the apostle says of the Galatians: "My children, of whom I again travail in birth until Christ shall have been formed in you", Galatians 4:19.
W.A.W. The proof that I am walking in the Spirit is that Christ is my object?
J.B.S. Yes. I often illustrate it by a sailor in rough weather. He says, 'I do not mind the weather much so long as I can see the sun.' If you can see Christ then you are safe. But then you must remember that He is outside of everything of man; and that is a wonderful step.
Ques. Do you say I must have Christ in resurrection before I can have the Spirit?
Rem. I was thinking of the scene in Acts 10 where the Spirit was given immediately on the reception of the truth of the forgiveness of sins.
J.B.S. But read the passage and you will find that the testimony was to Christ risen: "This man God raised up the third day and gave him to be openly seen", Acts 10:40. It is your first link with Christ.
W.A.W. But it is all in connection with the risen One?
J.B.S. Quite so. "The Spirit was not yet because Jesus had not yet been glorified", John 7:39. And so in Ephesians: "In whom also, having believed, ye have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise", Ephesians 1:13. And if you refer back to Acts 19 you find that these Ephesians were converted by the preaching of Apollos, but, knowing only the baptism of John, they had not so much as heard of the Holy Spirit being given; but when they were baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus and Paul had laid his hands on them they received the Holy Spirit. That is what, is referred to in Ephesians 1: 13 "in whom" - the Person, not the work.
W.A.W. In reading the first eleven verses of Romans 5 did you want us to understand that a person could have that and yet not be sealed with the Spirit?
W.A.W. Then why did you bring in chapter 8?
J.B.S. Chapter 8 is your side as chapter 5 is God's side towards you. The prodigal found first that it was all right on his father's side, but then he found that he was not all right with the father and the best robe was the answer to that.
Hebrews 4:11 - 16; 10: 19 - 22
J.B.S. We are tracing the work of the Spirit in us, and last evening we got so far as to find that we are not only in the favour of God and able to joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have received the reconciliation but that we are freed from sin. "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death", Romans 8:2. We are not in flesh but in Spirit - that is the great change - so that not only am I in the favour of God and joying in God, but if I am walking in the Spirit I am free from sin - not sins but sin. Therefore "if, by the Spirit, ye put to death the deeds of the body" - not mortify the body which is monkery - "ye shall live". We are in the Spirit but we have to walk in the Spirit.
Having taken this ground that we are in the Spirit, the Spirit is our link with Christ (for "if any one has not the Spirit of Christ, he is not of him", Romans 8:9) we now come to another step. We have tasted the love of Christ; the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given to us; but now we have a further thing, not only the love of Christ but company with Him, not company with Him here on earth, the day for that is over, but where He now is. And if you do not get freed from sin you cannot have company with Him, that is the order of the Spirit. It is a beautiful order in itself, because if you know His love, which is the first step, you would like to have company with Him and to be freed from everything that would hinder that. You find in the gospels that those who loved the Lord followed Him; nothing satisfies love but company. But then remember it is not here.
J. G. What do you mean by freed from sin?
J.B.S. I am freed from sin through the Spirit: I am free from the man that produced the sin. The Spirit enables you to do the commonest thing not as you would do it naturally but as Christ would do it. Therefore the apostle says, "The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me", Galatians 2:20. It is a great thing to know that if I am in the Spirit I am master of the flesh. If the flesh rules me I am not in the Spirit, that is clear. And the test that I am walking in the Spirit is that Christ is paramount. Therefore the whole bearing of a man is indicative of the Spirit's work in him. I do not ask a man to change his appearance or bearing, but as walking in the Spirit his whole bearing would be changed. If you want to grow, to make progress it must be by the work of the Spirit in you. Knowledge of Scripture alone will not do it. Knowledge of Scripture is not necessarily knowledge of the Lord. Many know a great deal of Scripture who know very little of the Lord Himself. It is a remarkable statement of the Lord's concerning the Spirit: "He shall ... bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you", John 14:26. It is not only the things He said brought to mind, but they knew the Person who said them.
Now in the book of Hebrews we have a very important thing. We have learnt already in Romans that you prefer Christ to Adam. You have to do with Him who is risen from among the dead, you have learnt what His love is, you can say He loved me and gave Himself for me; and now you get another thing. You are going through the wilderness, a trying place, you find what He can be to you, you not only learn that He comes down to the lowest point where you are, to conduct you to the highest point where He is, but your heart is drawn away to Him where He is. It is not the place that is before you, but your heart is drawn away from this place by One who is not in it.
W.K. The statement I think is clear enough; what we want is the effect.
J.B.S. We must see the thing first. The first step is light, then exercise of soul, then follows prayer and then the work of the Spirit.
W.K. First light, that is the revelation; then exercise, that is, I am nothing?
J.B.S. Yes. The difference between what I call an intellectual discourse and a spiritual discourse is this: by an intellectual discourse you are exhilarated. You say, 'What a beautiful lecture', when very likely you have not really got a bit of it. When it is spiritual the effect is you are subdued and want to be alone. Then there is exercise and according to the exercise you make progress. You never get what you do not value. Everyone in this room has got what he values. You may not think so but it is always true, according to the principle, "He that seeketh findeth", Matthew 7:8.
The point we reach here in Hebrews is that we value Christ for His company. He is not here but in heaven, and He is a great Priest over the house of God, and a great Priest for us.
Ques. What is the difference between a priest and a Saviour?
J.B.S. A priest has nothing to do with saving us. You must know the Saviour first: if you do not know the Saviour you will never know the Priest. He is the Saviour but He is not saving you now; it is a Priest I want now. And the Priest has nothing to do with sin, but to maintain you with God. In christendom they have brought the Priest down to earth; the Priest is between the congregation and God.
W.K. That is not the idea of the Priest?
J.B.S. That is the idea of a priest on earth but not of a Priest in heaven, because in heaven we are in company with Him. Thus in Leviticus 16 Aaron went into the holiest and offered a bullock for himself
and for his house. Christ has gone into heaven itself and we go in with Him.
But first you must learn that you are freed from sin. You have learnt to prefer Christ before everyone and everything; you have learnt His love to you; and now comes the question, Where is He? This is the point in the Hebrews. The actual purpose of the book was to correct the tendency of the Jewish believers to settle on the earth, and the apostle shows how much you are dependent on the company of Christ where He is. The effect of that company is to draw your heart away from this place where He is not, to the place where He is. There is not a word about going to heaven, but you are so attracted by the company of Christ and the benefit you derive from His company that your heart is drawn away from this place to Christ where He is, and that is the race.
W.K. The race then is to get there?
J.B.S. Yes, but you are not out of the wilderness in Hebrews. You are running but you are not out of it.
W.A.W. I do not quite understand what you said about light and exercise. What is the light?
J.B.S. The light of the Word shows you what is yours. You say, 'I see it,' but you have not got it yet. Then follows exercise in order that you may get it.
W.K. The light sets forth what is obtainable?
W.A.W. Then the exercise is a second thing, a desire and longing for it.
W.A.W. And the prayer is that I am found alone seeking it?
W.K. The exercise is the discovery that you have not got it?
A.G. Would Peter be an instance of the light falling upon one?
J.B.S. The light that fell upon Peter was that he was in the presence of the Lord and it terrified him. What reassured him was that Christ cared for him. I must know this first, that Christ cares for me. Then I find He is not here, He is gone to heaven, and I am to be in company with Him there - but how? This is the great point in Hebrews; not only as in Romans that I know Him, I have learnt His love, and prefer Him to Adam, but that I have His company. We are His companions, His brethren. His company is so necessary to me, and the effect of it is so great, that I am attached to Himself personally where He is. It is not that I am driven to Him by what is disagreeable in this place, but my heart is so drawn to Him who is not here that I run to Him where He is.
T.M.G. Where your treasure is there will your heart be also.
T.M.G. Of course, we must know that we are fitted to be His companions?
J.B.S. Quite so. You must know Romans first; that comes out even in Hebrews.
W.A.W. Do you think we must learn first what Peter learnt in the light?
J.B.S. Yes. He realised that he was in the presence of God and the effect was that instead of being delighted with the great draught of fishes which he had, he was in fear and distress, and then he obtained relief by learning that the Lord cared for him. If you have not learnt that, you have not touched Christ's love. Many a one knows His service who does not know His love and if you do not know His love you cannot go on to know Him as Priest.
W.A.W. You said it was not finding things disagreeable here; that it is not troubles that drive us away from the earth?
J.B.S. I never yet saw a person driven out by troubles; he will only try to make things smoother. It is the knowledge of the love of Christ and attraction to Him where He is that draws the heart away from this earth. If a husband goes to Australia his wife says, 'I will go, too,' and if she cannot go her heart is there. The book of Hebrews does not tell the saints they must not be earthly, but they find so much in the company of the One who is not here that their hearts are drawn away from this place. Like a man going to his business; if he is intent on it he may see the most attractive thing on his way but he is not detained by it as his thoughts are on another thing. The most attractive thing here does not touch the saint who knows what it is to have a greater attraction elsewhere. It is the attraction of the Person, not the place.
A great many people want to go on to the Priest before they have done with the question of sins, but you cannot. The book of Hebrews opens with this: "Who ... when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down". You must come altogether upon new ground and in Hebrews 2:11 you see what it is: "For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren". Now you see you are altogether of a new stock. It is not merely as in Romans that I prefer Christ to Adam, but I am of His stock - not that He is of mine. There is where all the late blundering about eternal life has been. Eternal life does not come to the man here but you have to go to another Man to get it. You have death in Adam and life in Christ, and you have to leave the one man to get to the Other.
W.A.W. Of course a person has to desire it. Do you not think that if a person is going on right these things will drop in in their turn?
J.B.S. I do. I believe that a man who has learnt Romans 8 will get on to Hebrews, but a man who has
never learnt Romans will never be in Hebrews. A man must be able to spell before he can read, but he does not cease to be able to spell when he can read.
W.A.W. It is God's great desire that we should go on to that.
J.B.S. Not only so but I am sure the Spirit of God is working in every one of us to that end, but we resist Him more or less. It is all ours, He wants to give us possession of what is ours.
W.K. That is why you can speak of the light presenting things to us because all is accomplished for us?
J.B.S. Yes, the Spirit only effects that in me which is already true for me. There is progress, but what we are going on with is done. If you are not dead to sin you cannot go on. That is where the Corinthians and the Galatians both stuck fast.
W.K. You mean by a person not being dead to sin that he has not got that truth formed in his soul?
J.B.S. No, not even that, he is not walking in it. There must be the bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus.
W.K. So that a person might have a certain presentation of the truth made to him, might have accepted it and been conformed to it but through carelessness he might not be walking in it, and thus there would be no progress?
J.B.S. Quite so. The Corinthians and the Galatians had known the truth but they were not walking in it, and hence the apostle says, "I ... could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ", 1 Corinthians 3:1.
Now let us go on with Hebrews. In the second chapter we get a very important point: that we are of His nature or stock. I believe there is a great lack in souls in not understanding that not only am I clear of Adam and have come to Christ but I am of His order: we are His brethren. You could not talk of sin in connection with Christ's brethren; he that is born of
God does not sin. You will never understand the assembly till you understand this, that we are of Christ's stock. To take the figure: the only one thing that Abraham's steward was sworn to was the lineage of the bride for Isaac, that she should be of the right stock. Believe me, it is the great hindrance to souls not to see this; they are converted but they do not realise the fact that we are of the same stock and lineage as Christ, and therefore they are not fit to be brought on to union.
T.M.G. If we were not in chapter 2, verse 11, we could not be His companions?
J.B.S. No, and it is a very important thing. You could not be a companion to Him unless you were suited to Him. Therefore the word is used in the third chapter, companions, or partakers, of Christ.
W.A.W. "Both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one" - is that companionship?
J.B.S. It is the basis of companionship. We are made partakers of Christ. We are His brethren. The charge given to Abraham's servant is the type of it.
T.M.G. There would not be suitability for union without this companionship or oneness?
W.K. When it is said, "All of one", that is not union?
J.B.S. No, that means of one nature, stock, or lineage. It is very hard to put into a noun as the English requires, because if you express one thought you exclude another. One stock is the nearest to it that I can think of.
W.A.W. Does Romans necessarily precede this?
J.B.S. Certainly. How could you be of His stock if you were not clear of the old thing?
A.G. Would you not say that the book of Hebrews is inclusive of itself of what is necessary to be learnt in order to reach this point?
J.B.S. You will not learn Hebrews until you have learnt Romans. It has often been said that Romans is
escape and Hebrews is approach. Romans answers to Exodus - no new remark - and Hebrews to Leviticus.
Now the practical effect is that all along the wilderness journey instead of looking for something in the wilderness you are so attracted to Christ that you are running away from the wilderness to get to where He is. In Hebrews you do not get to where He is, as in Ephesians, you are still running on to Him. In Hebrews you are always in the wilderness and there-fore always in the race.
W.A.W. That word 'attraction' is of immense importance?
J.B.S. Yes, but you must not lose the thought of the Person. He attracts you.
W. K. It is in Romans that you learn Him?
J.B.S. Yes, I learn that He is to be preferred to Adam, and I know His love and that nothing can separate me from it. That is where the attraction begins. It is in the company of a person that I enjoy his love. You begin like Peter, but what you find practically is that you are here in the world where naturally you would like to settle down - we are all more or less touched with this - and you feel the difficulty of surmounting everything here and going on to heaven where He is. Therefore what we have here next is our infirmities. Infirmities are not sins, but weaknesses. There are two things in the fourth chapter: the word of God which finds you out, which discovers whether you are really set on following the call of God or not; then the infirmities that oppress me - sickness, or difficult circumstances, or bereavement, which is the worst of all. I find out that I am indeed in the wilderness, while He is in heaven. But He answers, 'I have been where you are, though I am not there now.' Observe the language: "Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession". Mark the ground you are upon. Here
I am under pressure of circumstances, ill-health, or bereavement and I know the love of Him who has gone on high. He says to me, I know the pressure, I have been down there and I can enter into it all. He comes to me not merely to relieve me of the pressure but to give me His company that I may be above the pressure by being drawn to Himself.
Ques. Do you mean that the pressure is taken away?
J.B.S. No, I mean that He makes me know that He sympathises with me.
T.M.G. He enables me to go through the pressure well instead of removing it?
J.B.S. He gives you to know His company; He lifts you to Himself. The effect of His sympathy is to draw you to Himself. Most people in passing through suffering will tell you, the Lord has been very good to me, He has given me relief; but that is not sympathy.
W.K. Take a person in bad circumstances as an illustration.
J.B.S. Well, take a person in bereavement. The Lord comes to that person, as He did to Mary of Bethany, and He Himself fills up the blank. It is not merely to give you relief but to have you in company with Himself.
W.K. Is it that He takes the place of the one that has been taken away?
J.B.S. He fills up the void, so that you are lifted above the pressure of the bereavement. You can go to a throne of grace. You can go on with God instead of being overwhelmed by the trial, and simply because you are in His company.
W.K. That is what gives you His sustainment?
J.B.S. Yes, and if you lost His company you would lose the sustainment.
W.K. It is not that you get something from Him; His company itself is the thing?
J.B.S. Yes, while you are in His company you are
borne above the pressure of the trial. As Paul could say, "The Lord stood with me, and strengthened me", 2 Timothy 4:17. It is not merely that you get the help of God, but you are sustained. Very often you get the sustainment before the relief comes. Were I to preach for ever I could not explain it to a person who did not try it.
W.A.W. Do you mean that the sustainment is His company?
J.B.S. It is in His company I have it. Supposing you had a very great pressure upon you, and He gave you His hand and said, 'Come with Me,' you would be so drawn to Himself that you would forget your trouble and be above all the disturbance and pressure of it. You will never understand it till you try it.
W.A.W. I am sure we all desire it.
J.B.S. Well, you must begin with desire but desire alone will not do.
J.F.H. I am not sure that all do desire it; I think what most people desire is relief.
J.B.S. The sluggard desireth and hath nothing.
W.A.W. "One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after", Psalm 27:4.
J.B.S. Ah, now you have made a great addition.
W.A.W. Do you think the sustainment is conferred at the moment?
J.B.S. If you are in the Lord's company you will find such wonderful sustainment that you can go to God about the pressure that is on you.
W.K. But is it not the Spirit that brings you into that?
J.B.S. That is what I started with. If you are not on the ground of the Spirit you cannot touch Hebrews.
W.K. And is not the sustainment actually ministered to you by the Spirit?
J.B.S. No question of it. You could not have any link with Him without the Spirit. Now we have learnt we are of His own stock, we are His brethren and we know His company. But here I am encompassed
with all the variety of infirmities - of health, of circumstances, of bereavement. The Lord says, I have been down there, I know all about it, and I can come down to you as your great High Priest, Jesus the Son of God. We forget often whom we have to do with. Most people speak of the High Priest as Jesus merely, thinking of Him as He was on earth; He is risen and ascended and at the right hand of God, but then He is the very One who was down here who is feeling for me. He is out of all the circumstances of trial Himself but He wants to sustain me in them in order to endear Himself to me.
W.A.W. No one can sympathise but Himself; no saint can sympathise with another.
J.B.S. That is going too far. If a brother comes to sympathise with you he may really do so but he cannot go beyond your level; but the Lord is so infinitely above it all that He can come down to you in the lowest point to bear you up to the very highest point, as we have it in chapter 10, "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest".
T.M.G. But He is the One who has been down here, and is it not true that you can have sympathy only from One who has been in the same trial and is out of it?
J.McF. Is it only for special occasions that we need the Priest?
J.B.S. You require Him always for God. But supposing that you are so weighed down with the pressure that you are not able to lift yourself up, He comes to you and bears you company and lifts you up to bear Him company, and thus you will be so sustained above the pressure that you can turn to God.
J.McF. We always need Him in that way?
J. B. S. Yes, if you always have infirmities.
J.McF. But have we not always infirmities?
J.B.S. Well, sometimes not much. I think there are some days that I have not much.
W.K. It is not necessary that you should have infirmities every day?
J.B.S. No, but then if I have, I have learnt the resource. It is not like a man in sickness who turns to a physician not knowing whether he can meet his case or not. I know the Lord can meet the circumstances and my heart is drawn to Him because He not only comes down to me in the lowest but also conducts me to the highest point, that I might be in His company. Companions is the great point all through. If I have got love in Romans I have company in Hebrews. And where? In the holiest. The antitype of the holiest is Christ Himself. It is very important to know that I have come to Him in glory. In the holiest was the golden box with the cherubim resting upon it and the moment Christ died the veil was rent. He was the answer to that. And now where have you come from and where have you come to? I have come from the greatest pressure down here lifted up by company with Himself to the brightest spot up there, the holiest of all, where the glory rests. To a Jew the apostle would say, 'The holiest of all,' and to a gentile, 'Beholding the glory of the Lord.'
J.B.S. Because a gentile knew nothing about the holiest.
A.G. Then all that God set forth in the holiest is now found in Christ?
J.B.S. Yes, and what you have got now is beholding the Lord's glory and the effect upon you is such as nothing else would produce - no amount of reading Scripture even - you are transformed to the same image.
W.K. That is by being in the holiest.
J.B.S. Yes, and that shows again that the whole bearing of the person becomes indicative of the measure of the Spirit's work in him.
W.K. Yes, for of course it is the Spirit that leads you there.
J.B.S. Yes, and you are changed. The word is really metamorphosed. It only occurs four times in the New Testament, and in Romans 12 it is translated 'transformed.' To me it is a most beautiful thing that if I were beholding the Lord's glory I should be completely transformed. I have heard it said, we may have such a wonderful unfolding of Scripture so as to be transformed, but that is not it. Look at Psalm 73. There is a man completely transformed, but how? By going into the sanctuary. By beholding the Lord's glory perhaps in your own room you would be transformed, but then it would be in reference to yourself; but if I behold the Lord's glory in the assembly the effect will be in reference to the assembly. When I go into the assembly I go into His house; when He comes to me it is to my house and in reference to my needs. The practical effect is that the Lord becomes so endeared to you that you are looking off unto Jesus and running the race. Now you go to your business every day and perhaps on the way you find something to attract you. But you refuse it. I have got a power which is able to carry me on and therefore I run with endurance.
Matthew 16:13 - 18; 1 Peter 2: 1 - 5
J.B.S. We must bear in mind how far we have gone. We have seen in Romans that we are justified and, more than that, we have learnt to prefer Christ to Adam. Consequently in Hebrews we have seen how we have the Lord's company from the lowest point with us to the highest point with Himself in the presence of God, the holiest of all. Anyone who has learnt those two steps is prepared to go on. He knows that he is not only clear of all that was against him in the sight of God but he is freed from sin and, not only that, but he has learnt to prefer Christ to Adam. Then, further, he has company with Christ and in His company he learns what resources are in Him. We are borne by Him above everything here so that we can enjoy Him in the presence of God. Thus He is for us a great Priest over the house of God, and practically the effect is the same as beholding the glory of the Lord; 2 Corinthians. 3:18
Now you find that your heart is drawn away from this earth by a Person who is not here and whose company is the solace and desire of your heart. The next thing you have to learn is that there is a spot on the earth where you can find Him. In Hebrews it does not say you have gone to heaven but that you are in company with the One who is in heaven and you have found out how indispensable He is to you because of the benefits you derive from His company. To one who has reached that point it would be a great thing to know that there is a spot on earth where you can be in company with the Lord of glory, not only in your house or circle, but in His house and His circle.
W.A.W. Do you think that we must find Him up there before we discover that there is a spot on earth where He is?
J.B.S. Well, I think if you do not know what His company is you can hardly appreciate what it is to find Him in the assembly. In Hebrews you have presented the congregation of God, not actually the assembly. He is a great Priest for us collectively over the house of God, and He is also a great Priest for us individually to lift us above our infirmities so that we can accompany Him into the presence of God.
W.K. What difference do you make between the congregation and the assembly?
J.B.S. It is those who form the assembly who are the congregation.
W.K. But then you make a distinction between them?
J. B.S. I meant that in Hebrews the saints are not viewed as gathered as the assembly of God. It does say once, "In the midst of the church (or congregation) will I sing praise unto thee", and in chapter 10 we are warned not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together.
J.G. Do you mean that the truth is more individual in Hebrews?
J.B.S. Well, they are looked at as taking the place of Israel - the people of God.
W.K. Do you say they were not in union?
J.B.S. Well, they were not formed into it.
Ques. Would you say that they were not beyond the congregation on earth?
J.B.S. They are christians and therefore beyond the congregation. But I dwell on the simple fact for the soul that first in Romans you are freed from sin and thus fitted to have company with Christ; then in Hebrews you have His company and He not only supports you with His company down here but He bears you up above your infirmities as the great Priest who has passed through the heavens. You know what He is to you individually, and collectively He is for us a great Priest over the house of God. You are
brought to God's presence but Hebrews does not go beyond that; there is nothing about coming to the Father yet. I think it is when one has reached this point that he is ready for the further truth that there is a place here on earth where the Lord is to be found. Take the case of the youngest believer. He will say, 'I desire to break bread.' Why? Because the Lord has asked me to do so in remembrance of Him. And where is He? I ask. Oh, He is risen. You know He is risen and you are going to remember Him in His death. It would be a terrible thing to remember His death if you did not know that He is risen. The way christendom gets out of it is by making the Lord's supper merely a setting forth of the blessing received from Christ's death. They say, 'Take and eat this bread in remembrance that Christ died for thee.' There is not a word of that in Scripture. They make it merely the personal benefit to you, not a remembrance of the Lord Himself in death. Unless you know He is risen you cannot really remember His death, and christendom gets out of the difficulty by putting a human interpretation upon the Lord's words which gives them a personal application to the believer. Nothing is more common. How often hymns are given out at the Lord's supper as if my benefit was the chief thing in it. Sometimes I have to say, 'I do not go to meet my Saviour.' He is my Saviour, but I go to meet the Son of God. If you are not saved, if that is not settled, you have no business there.
We have the pattern of it in John 20. The Lord says, 'Peace to you.' There is not a disturbing element left, I have removed everything that-was between God and you. And then more, He breathed on them as if to say, I put you in the same character of life that I am in Myself. That is the pattern, not the institution, of the assembly.
I say to a person who has got the two first steps-brought to God without a cloud, knowing Christ's
love and preferring Him to Adam, and finding out the resources that there are in His company at the right hand of God - I say to such a person, however young in the faith, would you not like to meet that One in the spot where He is on earth? Certainly he would. I do not think it is a question of what his information is, but I believe that when he looks for the Lord in that place he must and he will look for Him as risen from the dead. For once you accept Him as risen from the dead you will find more and more every day what an inconceivable step it is to take, to go into His presence.
W.A.W. An inconceivable step to find Him on earth?
J.B.S. An inconceivable step to find where He is on earth.
W.A.W. It is a great thing to see everything settled first.
J.B.S. Yes, otherwise you will make it, as they do in christendom, a means of grace. If a man is going to die they give him the sacrament. The Lord's supper is simply the remembrance of the Lord in death. If you are at the Lord's supper you are identified with the responsibility of the table; but we are identified with Christ's death all along the road.
W.K. You do not mean the benefits of His death?
J.B.S. I mean the effect of His death. If you are a partaker you have communion with Him, and that is the next step. We have rather confused things by speaking of going to the Lord's table. It is to the Supper we go, but it is to the table that responsibility attaches. "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of the Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of the Christ?" (1 Corinthians 10:16). I am not identified with my own death but with Christ's death.
W.K. You speak of that as responsibility?
J.B.S. And is it not? But I will tell you another
thing: the more really you remember Him the more heartily you are glad that you are identified with His death here. "Where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried", Ruth 1:17. I am out of my own death and identified with His. The Corinthians forgot this and they were trying to reign as kings. I am sure that if we had a deeper sense of the fact that Christ died here instead of looking for something from this place, we should be refusing everything that would tend to make us forget that He died here or that would in any way make up to us for His death here. Supposing you saw 'He died here' written on every wall and every tree you came to, what would you think of it?
W.K. It certainly is not the happy side.
J.B.S. But it is the true side. His death here has severed you from the place where He died and attached you to Him where He is.
W.K. It connects with what you said on the first evening about being separated from the man.
J.B.S. The first great thing every one of us has to learn is affection. If we all had affection everything else would come easy enough.
T.M.G. If we were all like Mary of Bethany.
W.A.W. By taking the cup you say, I identify myself with Him in His death. Do you mean that I own there that I am severed from everything here, that everything is gone as far as this earth is concerned?
J.B.S. It is His death I have before me, not my own. I am out of my own death, not to enjoy myself here, but to be identified with Christ's death. I am a partaker of the altar.
J.W. You say you would hesitate to ask a person to partake of the Supper?
J.B.S. Because of its responsibility.
J.W. But would it be right to put the responsibility before him?
J.B.S. I would try to put the Lord before him. The question is, Does he know Christ risen? If he
does not know Christ risen how can he remember Him in death?
J.W. A person might be justified and not up to partaking of the table?
T.M.G. Your point is that the person wants to get to the Lord where He is?
J.B.S. Yes. It is not only that he knows the Lord as everything to him outside of this world, but that there is a spot on this earth where He can be found.
T.M.G. Affection is really the great thing.
J.B.S. But then you must have affection in connection with the fact that He has removed everything. Therefore I put the case of a young believer as an example and I ask him does he know Christ risen, because if he does not he is not justified and he has no business at the Supper, but if he is justified he can then remember Christ's death. If it is Christ risen and in glory that he knows it is not simply his Saviour, though He is his Saviour, of course. He is declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. Therefore in Hebrews all through it is the Son of God.
J.F.H. I think there is a difficulty in people's minds about being justified. They take it for granted in regard to others when justified themselves.
J.B.S. A person is not justified until he knows Christ risen from the dead.
J.F.H. But sometimes we take it for granted.
J.B.S. Yes, sometimes we ask a man, Are your sins forgiven? But that is not the same thing. The question is, has everything been removed, and how does God whom I offended feel about me? Yes, everything is perfectly removed and God is perfectly relieved in regard to me. See how Paul preached the gospel. He said to the jailer in the agonies of conversion, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved", Acts 16:31. The question at once arises, Where is He?
He was in death and judgment, but He is out of it all. When I preach the gospel from the story of David and Goliath I only go so far as David having Goliath's head in his hand. The work is done, not doing.
W.K. When you speak of a person being justified you do not mean that they understand justification?
J.B.S. No, but that they are clear with God. It is very important to observe that the Person of Christ risen was the first thing presented by the apostle to the newly born soul. He did explain all to him afterwards, but that is the first thing he presented to him for faith.
W.K. The point is to be in it; explaining it is quite another matter.
W.A.W. That would give another character to the assembly.
J.B.S. Yes, surely it would. But let us take the steps we have gone over. First you are justified and in connection with that you prefer Christ to Adam; next you have the company of the One whom you prefer and you find the resources that are in Him at the right hand of God - that He can bear us above the greatest infirmities down here and can carry us into the glory of God up there. Now comes the question, how can you find Him here on earth? If you read Matthew 14 you find how the Lord is refused here on earth and takes a new place. In the beginning of the chapter John the baptist is beheaded (verse 10); the Lord was virtually rejected and He goes into the wilderness as rejected and there He feeds the multitude. Then we find Him taking a new place altogether: He is no longer in the ship, He is on the water - walking on the water (verses 24 - 31). You may say He was in the ship. Yes, but He is there no longer.
T.M.G. What do you call the ship?
J.B. S. He was in our circumstances down here.
W.K. Your point is that He has left our circumstances, and that if we would be with Him we must leave our circumstances and enter into His?
J.B.S. Yes. Peter has affection for the Lord and therefore he will join Him where He is. So I do not put the step before the young believer but I would put the Lord before him. Would you like to meet the Lord? Yes, I would go anywhere to meet the Lord. I do not tell him where to go but I know that if he joined the Lord in the place where He is it would make a great change to him. What was said to me when I was young was, 'Have you faith for it?' I did not know whether I had faith for it or not but I knew that was the place for me. Affection leads the believer to take the step without knowing what is involved in it, though he knows enough to deter him as a man from it.
W.A.W. But still the purpose and the affection surmounts everything?
J.B.S. Yes, that is the thing all through. In Romans you have His love, in Hebrews you have His company and you learn what wonderful resources are in His company. You have found what He is as passed through the heavens. Would you like to go to heaven? Would you like to find Him on the earth? It is easy to explain earth and heaven, but it is not easy to explain an out-of-the-world condition. Walking on the water illustrates it. I would not ask a believer, Are you walking on the water, but, Are you going to Him, a risen Saviour? If you go to Him as the risen One you are outside of everything that is of man. In Matthew 14, of course, we have only a pattern. In Peter you have first grace in action "If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious". But that is not all: "To whom coming, as unto a living stone" - where? "Disallowed indeed of men". You have to go outside of man to get to Him.
W.A.W. Because the living stone is there.
J.B.S. You are coming to that.
W.K. And the step must be taken.
J.B.S. Yes, but I do not put that before the young believer; what I put before him is, Do you know Him risen and are you set for joining a risen Christ? It must appear to the youngest believer that to do that I must take altogether new ground, but still I do not mind it to get to Him. I have already learnt to know Him, I have tasted His love; I know something of what He is to me and that I have to do with Him in glory and how He can maintain me in the presence of God.
W.A.W. Well, if that is not desired in some measure I would have very little confidence in the person.
J.B.S. Yes, but I do not say merely desired, but you are set for it. And you must come to the place before you find out what it is.
Ques. Was that why you read Matthew 16?
J.B.S. I read it to show how you become a stone. As the author of the Synopsis has said, Peter was called a stone the very moment he was called by the Lord but he was not confirmed till Matthew 16. You must be built in before you are built up. No doubt Peter was morally learning what his place was in Christ, when he came to a place where there was nothing to support him but Christ. John 6 occurred at the same time as Matthew 14: the one is God's side the other is man's. John 6 is that I have to go through death to get life. I must feed upon Christ as dead. Therefore in the end of the chapter Peter says, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God". I think it is interesting to see how Peter reached this: it was by going outside of all that is of man. He had travelled through what was death to himself (to us Christ's death) in order to reach Him. If we live in that sphere it would be - it must be - the life of Christ.
A.G. What is the difference between that and what people have in their thoughts now, that it is their own death?
J.B.S. Well, it is not true. You will very soon find out where they make the mistake if you speak to a man who holds the doctrine of holiness by faith. He says, If I am dead with Christ one minute, I can be dead two. The first part of the statement is right, the second is wrong - he leaves out "with Christ".
A.G. If you say baptism is the setting forth of the death and resurrection of Christ, does not that bring in ourselves?
J.B.S. Well, nineteen out of every twenty people make baptism a profession of their faith. When you come to Scripture you find there is no other way you can appear before God but by baptism - you must pass through death.
A.G. I was thinking it was so little apprehended that it is Christ's death.
J.B.S. It is Christ's death, but death as God's judgment upon man. What came out at the flood was, "The end of all flesh" - not sins - "is come before me". Everyone admits that the sins must be put away but besides that the thing that committed the sins must go. There is atonement for sins, but there is no atonement for sin. Christ has appeared in the end of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. What people have thought to improve or get atonement for must go. If there is atonement for it you want to keep it, but I do not want to keep it. God has condemned sin in the flesh. It is ended in the death of Christ. He has died out of that condition. He gave up the life to which sin could be attached.
W.K. And being judicially ended it could not be revived.
J.B.S. Never by God. If you revive it you will only bring in judgment, you will be scourged.
A.G. Is not that often a continual struggle - reviving the flesh?
J.B.S. If you say there is a continual conflict between flesh and spirit, I agree with you.
T.M.G. Would you explain what you mean by saying that if you revive it again you will be scourged?
J.B.S. One who does so is delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. I see it often, that a man indulges himself in what he calls a harmless thing and that very thing which he indulges comes down upon him. He has cut a rod to beat himself. I do not mean that a person is to be an ascetic. But the body is the Lord's and you have no right to treat it badly, because it is His, and neither have you any right to indulge it, because it is His. It is entirely under a new government.
W.K. You must then get direction from the One to whom it belongs?
J.B.S. Exactly, and there is where the exercise comes in.
W.A.W. It is not hard to keep the body under when you are in the proper place.
J.B.S. If you walk in the Spirit it is not. It is not, as under the law, a question of doing what you do not like, it is a question of affection and the more thoroughly you are attached to Christ in heart the more readily you can say, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world", Galatians 6:14. I part with the old thing and I am very glad to be rid of it for I am sick of it.
W.K. The difficulty is in walking in the Spirit.
J.B. S. Quite so, but you see again it is heart work. If you are walking in the Spirit you will keep Christ prominently before you. If you have lost it you have allowed yourself to come before you. Nothing tries me more, for instance, the whole day long than to avoid trying to say something pleasant or amusing.
That is a trial. Why? Because it is of no profit. You say, What harm is in it? I say there is no profit in it.
But let us go on with the subject. I do not think that I come into the house of God for my own blessing. I hope I will be understood, because I know very well I am touching upon ground that is not generally familiar. I do not say that I do not get blessing there, but that is not what I am looking for. People say, I can have the Lord's company at home in my own room. True, but not in the same way as in the assembly. "We all, looking on the glory of the Lord, with unveiled face, are transformed according to the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit". I believe you could have that in your own room; but there is this difference, that if the Lord is with you in your own room it is about your circumstances, but if you are in His company in the assembly it is with reference to His circumstances. If I want to know what the Lord's mind is and what His pleasure is for me as His servant I must come into the assembly. If I want to know how I ought to order my own affairs, getting a house, for example, I have the Lord in my own house. And I believe if I were really looking to Him I would go to the right place. I have said to a person looking for a house, if you go into the presence of the Lord He will soon direct you to the right place, He would influence you to the right course. But then in the assembly it is another thing altogether, it is not with my own affairs I am occupied there but with His. It is like the queen of Sheba: she gets into Solomon's own private home circle and there she is lost.
W.K. It was the things connected with him that entranced her.
J.B.S. Exactly. In the assembly you are brought into correspondence with the Lord's pleasure and therefore you come out to serve Him rightly.
W.K. And all this is effected by the work of the Spirit?
J.B.S. Yes, you have come into the ground of the Spirit in Romans and you must keep to it. Not only your sins are gone but you yourself are gone.
W.K. We have not merely the objective side - Christ up there - but we require the subjective side, the Spirit in us?
J.B.S. Yes, all is effected by the Spirit. I say that once you are conducted by the Spirit into the presence of Christ you will never lose it. I do not say you will never lose the joy of it. You may do that through failure but when you are restored you will come back to it. It is what the apostle looks for: "Until we all arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, at the full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ", Ephesians 4:13. Some people try to get out of that by saying it is in the future, but it happens to be present. You may say we are very far from it. Well, I admit that.
W.A.W. That dims the brightest thing on earth.
J.B.S. If I want to get the Lord's mind about His interests I cannot until I go into the assembly. If you want His mind about your own circumstances or your own individual path you can find Him in your own house, but it is in the assembly you learn what fits you for His service.
W.A.W. I do not see how you get His interests in the assembly.
J.B.S. Well, that is where all His interests are found. I believe there is a great lack of understanding that the place from which to go forth on the work of Christ is from the assembly. I heard a brother once say, 'There are a great many preaching here but very few praying.' The Lord shows in John 15:12 - "This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you" - that you must begin at home, in the inner circle.
Ques Is Hebrews 2 accomplished in the assembly?
J.B.S. That is the first note struck. He leads the praises to God where God is. He bears our names upon His breast.
W.A.W. But it is privately in the closet I learn how to act for Him individually?
J.B.S. It is not merely learning it but you are fitted for it. It is like Elijah getting two breakfasts before he started on the journey to Horeb; 1 Kings 19. He was prepared.
A.G. You were saying the assembly is like the parliament?
J.B.S. Yes, if one may say so, the Lord is the Speaker. It is He who rules everything.
J.B.S. Ah, now you come to what I find rather difficult. I believe a great deal is said and done in the assembly that is not by the Lord's direction. Things are often done by influence. We are no better than other people; we have all the elements within us that they have. The principle among some is that you wait till you are moved. And so a person often says, 'I had so-and-so on my heart.' But having a thing on your heart is not authority for acting. A sister might have it on her heart as well as you.
W.A.W. Well, if you think of all that we are the wonder is we get on so well!
J.B.S. Ah, that is not the way to look at it. The way to look at it is how far behind we are.
The next subject will be the Head. Now we are supposing that we have got as far as the assembly in Acts 2, and that we are there in the power of the Holy Spirit, but I think there is a great difference between being led by the Spirit of God and being directed by the Head. I do not believe 1 could explain it but still I believe there is a great difference.
W.A.W. But it is not direct revelation you get in the assembly?
J.B.S. I do not say it is, but when we come to the Head I will tell you all I know about it, which is very little. You get direction. I do not say having a thing on your heart is direction; it might be of the Spirit and yet it might be only for yourself. Really it is so solemn and so great that I can say very little about it. But I believe that nine-tenths of our meetings do not go beyond Acts 2. We defer to the Holy Spirit and we look for the Holy Spirit to profit and He really does profit, but so far as I know the teaching does not go beyond the gospel as a rule.
W.K. I think that is very easily accepted.
J.B.S. I do not see much going beyond the gospel when a brother gets up and speaks about the wonderful enjoyment the prodigal had in the father's house. Everyone would say what a beautiful discourse; still he did not get beyond the gospel. I am only showing how low down we are, and I think it is a great thing for us to get the idea that instead of being the light of the world at the present moment we have only begun to light a farthing candle. So far behind are we as to what the church of God is.
T.M.G. When you speak of the gospel do you mean that it is something connected with ourselves?
J.B.S. Yes, I know what people like. In the periodicals people are always looking for something about what Christ is to them.
Ques. But does not the Spirit of God take of the things of Jesus and show them unto us?
J.B.S. Where do you get that? The things of Christ in John 16:14 are really the Father's things as the next verse shows: "All things that the Father hath are mine". But that is not direction.
Rem. It will take you where you will get direction.
J.B.S. Well, that I will not deny. Direction is from the Head and in connection with the body because it is what suits the body. There is nothing more difficult to explain.
T.M.G. I think if I am not mistaken I have heard you say - using that word in Revelation 3 - that there is a difference between His supping with us and our supping with Him?
J.B.S. I do not say that passage means that, but it explains the two sides. If a person asks me how it is that brethren with all their light are not in a different state, I turn to Haggai. There I see that the people were stopped building the house of God and they built none for sixteen years. They were very busy about their own blessings, but they were not prospering.
Ques. Do you mean worldliness?
J.B.S. No, but they were occupied with their own blessings. I see it everywhere. No one can tell it like one who is suffering from it. People gladly hear of what concerns their blessings, but to turn to Christ's side and to be occupied with what He is interested in - that they do not seem to enjoy.
W.K. Does not that prove the want of the satisfaction of John 4?
J.B.S. Well, I find in Haggai that they sowed much and brought in little; they looked for much and it came to little.
W.K. The energy of the Spirit was wanting.
J.B.S. Really nothing can satisfy the true heart but to know that I am united to Him, and if I am not united to Him I can never really understand what are His interests.
Colossians 2:1 - 11
J.B.S. We have come as far as the assembly where the Spirit leads according to Acts 2. Tonight we go on another step.
The Colossians were a nice company. The apostle could speak of their faith and love, and he prays for them on account of the hope which was laid up for them in heaven (chapter 1: 4, 5); yet they did not know the mystery. It is very important to understand how far you may go without knowing the mystery. The great point in the mystery brought out in this epistle is that Christ is the Head. It is not that they had never heard of the mystery but they did not have it in power. Therefore the second chapter opens with, "I would have you know what combat I have for you". A combat supposes a great opposition. Even the apostle was in prison.
Remember the Colossians were in what we would call a nice state. The apostle could rejoice in beholding their order and the steadfastness of their faith in Christ (chapter 2: 5). But they did not know the mystery and it was important for them to know it because it was the great and only preservative from the snare to which they were exposed at the time, and with which christendom has been caught. That snare is that by man's mind and religiousness you could .help on the service of Christ by what is called tradition - the rudiments of the world - and philosophy, or, in theological language, ritualism and rationalism. One is making man's body and the other making man's mind contribute to Christ's service. That was the impending danger at this time and I need not say that it is what has overrun christendom. No one would be appointed a minister of the gospel in christendom if he
had not these two qualifications - that he was a religious man and that he was a learned man.
The snare was different from that at Corinth or among the Galatians, because the idea was to make man's mind contribute as it were to Christ and to His service. The Corinthians were full of their own mind but it was all for themselves, not for Christ's service, and the Galatians were full of law but it was to correct themselves, not to contribute to the service of Christ. But everyone knows what is rampant now in christendom, ritualism on the one hand and rationalism on the other. The one has to do with religiousness and the other with man's mind. Now nothing can save you from ritualism or rationalism but the knowledge of the Head. Many may think they are safe from this influence but it is uncommonly subtle, and a person may very easily be taken with the idea that by certain religious attitudes, or gestures, or some bodily effort, he can help on the work of Christ; on the contrary, he will hinder it.
W.K. When you speak of rationalism and ritualism you do not intend to convey to us any definite systems with those titles?
J.B.S. That is the shape these things have assumed in christendom which are called in Colossians tradition and the elements of the world. And that is the reason why we need this epistle. We might have gone from Romans to Ephesians but we are all so leavened with this snare that we have to learn Colossians before we can apprehend Ephesians.
A.G. Would you say that the national churches have gone into ritualism and the Dissenters into rationalism?
J.B.S. It is more or less so, but everyone is affected by it. I said to a very intelligent brother lately, Do you not see the Colossian snare break out among us sometimes? Yes. One thinks by a sanctimonious manner or by saying something in a very eloquent
way to help the service of Christ. He loses power by it.
W.K. That may be found anywhere.
J.B.S. Yes; it is in the air and we are all liable to it. The only thing that will preserve you from it is the truth of the Head.
W.K. You mean the enjoyed sense that you have the Head?
J.B.S. No doubt the Colossians knew there was a Head, but the thing is to have it in power, to understand it.
A.G. Would you say that anyone acting in natural piety or in the energy of the mind loses energy in the service of God?
J.F.H. I would hardly say he loses power, for a person might not have got that length.
J.B.S. What I meant was a person who knew what it was to be led by the Spirit of God in a measure but trying to improve on it by saying things in an eloquent way. He loses power. You will find that an eloquent discourse exhilarates you, but a spiritual discourse subdues you. You are charmed with an eloquent discourse and can talk about it to others; but the effect of a spiritual discourse is that it subdues you and you would like to be alone.
W.K. It brings the sense of God to you.
J.B.S. Exactly. That is what we have in Psalm 73. The first impression when a soul is before God is the greatness of His presence.
W.K. And that is why you are subdued?
A.G. "No flesh should glory in his presence".
J.B.S. Nothing can be more subtle than this snare. A person might say, 'Could I not use my mind, could I not use my religiousness, or could I not put on a sanctimonious manner?' You will lose power if you do. Do you want me to have an indifferent manner? I want you to have the manner which the Spirit of God
would give you. People say, It is only manner, but remember manner is indicative of what is your power. The ritualistic effort is to make the outward appearance a help to Christ's service. The true thing is to have a body of light but you remember when the Lord spoke of this: "As he spake, a certain Pharisee besought him to dine with him", as much as to say, 'That is exactly my doctrine.' No, says the Lord, 'You cleanse the outside of the cup and platter,' I begin within.
W.K. Then it is still the question of which power, human or divine?
J.B.S. Yes, quite so. But then you see what a difference there is. We have got as far as the assembly formed by the Spirit; what we have to learn now is that Christ is the Head. It is easy to say I see it in Scripture, but you have no power in speaking of what you merely see in Scripture, your power is in speaking of what you know. It is not only that I am in the presence of the Lord of glory and I am looking to Him to speak, as I might say, in faith, but that I am directed by Him. I have lost my own mind, my own head, and have another. It is not like the head of a family, or the head of a firm, but it is as if every christian in this room had lost his head and all had got the same Head. In my acquaintance there is nothing so little known as this, except union; and certainly if you do not know the Head you will not know union.
W.A.W. Do you not think that what we had last night would preserve us from this snare?
J.B.S. No. They did not learn the Head in Acts 2 nor is it made known all through the book of Acts. They were gathered together by the Spirit of God to be led and acted on by the Spirit of God without any appointed ministry but the knowledge of the Head was not revealed. As far as I see, while there are many companies, thank God, gathered to the
Lord Jesus Christ and really waiting for the leading of the Spirit of God, where is there a company that is directed by the Head? I think it would be a wonderful thing if you were directed by the Head. If I go to the Catholic he will tell me the pope is the head; if I go to the national church the sovereign of the country is head; but I come to real devoted christians who are separated from all that, and while they will tell you that Christ is the Head yet they look upon Him as the head of a family or of a firm. They would not have the pope or the sovereign or a man at all, but then what does the head mean? It really means this: here is a company of five hundred christians and they have all lost their heads and have now all got one Head.
J. B.S. One Head, one Source. You will find after-wards that the qualities come out: "bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering", etc. Where do you get them? It is from the Head. First we have to know what the Head is, and next how we receive from the Head. He is Head, and we may know it and yet not be holding the Head. That is individual. We have all to learn it and to hold the Head individually. The first thing is to learn what it is, in which are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
W.A.W. When you spoke a little while ago of being exhilarated by a discourse, did you mean that we were carried entirely out of ourselves?
J.B.S. No, I meant you were full of enjoyment.
W.A.W. Well, I have often enjoyed you!
J.B.S. Well, I would a great deal rather you had been subdued. I do not think a man is very much impressed when he is very buoyant, do you?
W.K. Your thought of exhilaration was not really spiritual joy?
J.B.S. No, you are mentally elated.
W.K. What is expressed in the Old Testament by drinking wine?
A.G. How has the church got into such a state as at present?
J.B.S. Because they do not know what it is to have a Head. You see here in Colossians how it was lost. A person could not understand union without the Head nor could he keep the unity of the Spirit without the knowledge of the Head. Now what we have to learn is how the Lord recovers a person. The first recovery of the truth sixty years ago was by a clergyman in a very isolated place waking up one morning and saying, 'I have a Head in heaven.' That was the beginning. The recovery began with the Head, not the body. I am sure I have pondered it over and over and I cannot conceive anything greater than to get an idea of the Head. You may say it was a wonderful thing we had before us last evening, that we can be in the presence of the Lord of glory and that instead of being repulsed by His glory we are not only at home there but we are transformed into the same image. Now comes another thing: do you know that you are to get direction from that One, that He is your Head, and not only your own Head but the Head of the assembly? I know there is a great difficulty in explaining it. I think I could explain to myself what is the difference between a person waiting on the Spirit to speak in the assembly and one getting direction from the Head, but I do not know whether I could explain it to anyone else. I used to pray to the Lord to give me a subject for the assembly, then I saw that was not the thing. As Head the Lord directs you to a thing, not your own mind. A person often says, I had such a thing on my heart. That may be very true and the Spirit may help you about that, but it may be only for yourself. The Head gives direction at the moment.
W.A.W. Direction about what the Spirit has already made yours?
J.B.S. You may know very little of it and you ought to have no preconception of it beforehand.
J.B.S. Of course you cannot go beyond what you know.
T.M.G. You may get more in giving it?
J.B.S. No doubt you often do. Sometimes I feel I know very little about this. Say what you do know, is the answer I get. It does not depend on how much you know or how you can express it, but on what is the Lord's pleasure for His people at the moment.
W.K. You are speaking now of getting the dictation of the Head.
W.A.W. Rationalism you say is only prevented by knowing the Head. Why do you confine that to the assembly?
J.B.S. I do not, but I say, If I am not right in the assembly I am not right myself.
W.A.K. Then a person might have what we had before us last night and yet turn to rationalism?
J.B.S. Exactly so, and that is where the truth of the Head comes in. I cannot conceive anything greater than that I get direction from Christ Himself for the moment.
W.K. You said, I think, that any preconceived idea of what you would minister would destroy the dictation?
T.M.G. A servant of the Lord might go to a place and know nothing about the state or need of the people and yet if subject to the Head he would minister just what the Head would give for the time.
W.A.W. Yes, but is it not important to see that it is his own; he does not get it by revelation at the moment? It is not something foreign to him.
J.B.S. No, but it is not merely something laid on your heart. I go back to my own experience. I had something on my heart. I thought, This is a good thing; I had faith about it and I looked to the Spirit to help me, and no doubt He did; but I do not call that dictation.
T.M.G. I understood you to say that you might know very little about what the Lord would have you say, but is it not true that in speaking of it you get more?
J.B.S. I have said it over and over again and I have had it confirmed by others that you get an expanse of truth in the assembly that you do not get anywhere else.
J.F.H. You spoke of looking to the Spirit to help you; I think brethren generally look to the Lord.
W.K. With all respect I very much doubt if that is the case. While nominally it is the Lord you look to it really is the Spirit you are expecting to act.
J.B.S. I think generally there is something on your heart and you are looking for an action of the Spirit. That leads to Quakerism; a sister might have a thing on her heart as well as a brother.
W.K. I suppose it is not merely the speaker that is to get an enlarged idea of the truth presented at the moment, but all?
J.B.S. Exactly. I believe all would get wonderful enlightenment, and they would say that it is from the Lord.
T.M.G. Is it not true that a person might be in the enjoyment of something for himself and that that might be the very thing the Head would give at the time?
J.B.S. It might be so, but I think generally it is not so. Very often it is something you did not think of at all.
W. K. The enjoyment of it for oneself is no guarantee that it is the thing for the assembly?
J.B.S. No, nor even what others would think was good. G.V.W. used to say that he knew the state of a meeting by what he was given to say.
Ques. Would you say that no one should have things on his heart?
J.B.S. Oh, no, but that is no authority for giving those things out. I think when we come to see the truth of the Head we shall understand it better. There are two things in this chapter (Colossians 2) which you must learn before you can understand the Head. The first is in verse 10: "Ye are complete in him, who is the head of all principality and authority". That is something to ponder. I think it is a very good thing to do, as a countryman once told me; I get a scripture, and I walk about the room thinking of it, and I get something from it though I hardly know what it is. How many of us have sat down for half an hour to think of that: I am complete in Him? You cannot add to what is complete. You need not bring in mind or body. The body is the Lord's and He can use it as He pleases. The mind belongs to Him; you belong to Him. The first thing then is that you are complete in Him. If you accept that thoroughly you will be ready for the second thing which is in the next verse: "In whom also ye have been circumcised with circumcision not done by hand, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of the Christ". Observe it is not the sins of the flesh. Some pious monk in a very early age put in those words in the margin because he did not understand the verse. A man looking for religiousness to commend himself to Christ could understand putting off sins, but putting
off the body of the flesh made his religion worth nothing.
W.A.W. If we learn the tenth verse is it the power for the eleventh?
J.B.S. Yes, if you have learnt the tenth you are prepared for the eleventh. You are first complete in Him and then the old thing is put away. The way I illustrate it is by an emigrant who had some friends with him of whom he was not very sure, and as soon as he landed he said, I think we had better burn the ship - so that they could not go back. It is not merely the old man crucified with Christ, it is put away, put off. I do not want anything of the flesh to help Christ for I am complete in Him already.
W.K. It would be impossible of course to touch the eleventh verse if we had not the tenth?
J.B.S. Quite so, and if you really accept the tenth you will find how easy the other is.
W.K. Because if you are complete in Christ then, of course, you can do without the old thing. It is, in a sense, no pain to get rid of it because you want to get rid of it.
J.B.S. The flesh is the thing that makes the trouble and the thing that has to be set aside. You find the same principle in Romans: "That the body of sin might be destroyed" (chapter 6:6); and, "Who shall deliver me out of this body of death?" (chapter 7:24). It is the body of sin.
W.K. It is not merely sins in detail?
J.B.S. No, it is the principle.
W.K. It is one's natural life in point of fact?
J.B.S. Exactly, and it is there where the judgment rests. It is not merely that there must be an atonement for your sins, but sin is to be condemned, that order of being must go. That is the practical difficulty with souls: that that order of being must go.
W.K. As being utterly contrary to God?
J.B.S. Yes. God said long ago, "The end of all flesh is come before me" (Genesis 6:13).
W.K. And the point in this chapter is that the flesh in a religious form is no better than in a gross form?
J.B.S. Quite so. Here it was being brought in to contribute to the service of Christ.
W.K. That which was hateful to God.
J.B.S. Quite so. Therefore lower down in the chapter we "have died with Christ from the elements of the world". In Romans 6 we are only dead to sin; here we are dead to the world.
W.K. To its "elements;" the least thing in it?
J.B.S. It is ABC, so to speak.
W.K. Many a one would refuse the world as a system who does not refuse the elementary principles of it. Many a one would refuse the world looked at in its glaring forms, who might have in his own heart the principles on which the world is built up.
J.B.S. Quite so. If he had the least bit at all he would not be free of it. A person might be dead to sin but yet might not be holding the Head. If you are dead with Christ from the elements of the world you are over Jordan.
W.A.W. Is this the result or have we to do this?
J.B.S. The Spirit of God brings you into this: you are over Jordan; you have died with Christ from the elements of the world.
W.A.W. I could do nothing to get that?
J.B.S. Well, we have had that ground long ago.
W.A.W. Of course, it is not such an effort after all.
J.B.S. I am not saying a word about effort, but it is a great trial.
W.K. It is a very great trial, because it is parting company with yourself, and that is the greatest trial any man could have.
J.B.S. Still, you have to take the step. I am outside this world; as another has said, In an out-of-the-
world condition of things. I daresay many in this room would say, I do not know where you are going because you say you are not going to heaven and yet you are outside of everything here. That is Jordan. I can understand a person saying to me, That ground is outside one's senses. Yes it is.
T.M.G. A dead man living on earth.
W.K. In a scene to which he does not belong and a system of things which is altogether contrary to him.
J.B.S. Yes, I find it easy enough to explain heaven and earth but very difficult to explain an out-of-the-world condition of things; that a man can be in the world and yet outside of it. I remember at a large reading J.N.D. asking, Where do you put Colossians? There are three things I think I said: Entering, possessing, dwelling. I would call it entering. No, he said, That will not do. I saw afterwards that it was preparing.
W.K. As Joshua stood on the bank - it is resurrection.
J.B.S. You will find it very important if you want to understand the Head. You can never understand the Head until you have reached the spot where there is no human voice.
Ques. I would like to ask one question about the direction of the Head and the leading of the Spirit. I understood always that if a person was led by the Spirit he would be sure to be directed by the Head?
J.B.S. I say the Spirit could not lead to direction if you had no Head to direct. Where do you put Colossians?
T.M.G. And yet they had the Spirit?
J.B.S. Yes, and the apostle could speak of their love in the Spirit.
J.M. I was thinking of Romans where the Spirit of God leads us into the things of God, revealing them to us.
W.A.W. What was it you said about the human voice?
J.B.S. You reach a spot where there is no human voice. "Wherein there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman; but Christ is everything, and in all" (Colossians 3:11). Let anyone in this room tell me, if he reached by the Spirit of God a spot where he was free of every human voice, where he had to do with Christ and Christ was everything - if he touched it but for a moment - could he ever forget it?
W.A.W. Does the Spirit of God lead to this when we reach the point where you brought us last night?
J.B. S. I do not say you have this but you are ready for it. Many are where we were last evening who are not where we are this evening. It is not only that I am in His presence but He is the one who dictates to me.
W.K. You mean that what we had last night was that we reached where He is?
J.B.S. Yes, and that is really where the Colossians were.
W.K And now this step we are on tonight is to reach a place where we hear no voice but His?
J.B.S. Yes, where there is not Greek and Jew.
W.K. Neither the polished man nor the rough man, no man at all?
J.B.S. "Christ is everything". Thank God there are hundreds of christians who can say Christ is Chief; but I have another question: Is He everything? Do not many think that they would like some-thing else along with Him?
W.K. You mean that everything else is excluded?
J.B.S. Yes, but there is no lack, for Christ is everything. Therefore you get, "Put on ... bowels of compassion, kindness, lowliness", etc. I might be
naturally a severe, harsh character, but now I come out in a new way.
W.A.W. Wants are unknown there?
J.B.S. There is no want. But then you get to the point of being in His own circle and having before you what His interest is. The more I look at it the more profound I see it to be and how little one really touches it.
Ques. Would you say that the Spirit is the channel through whom the direction comes?
J.B.S. Oh, certainly: there is no other.
Remember in Colossians it is not crucifixion with Christ. Crucifixion is the judicial termination of the thing, but here it is putting it off or putting it away, which has to do with circumcision, or Gilgal.
T.M.G. It is the carrying out practically of what has been done on the cross?
J.B.S. Exactly. And that is what you get in the early verses of chapter 3 which so many use for practice. It is not so much practice as practical, I do not know a better illustration than Elisha; when he got Elijah's power he took his own clothes and rent them in two pieces. He said, 'I have done with that mantle.' Why? Because I have got another.
W. K. Is the rending the circumcision?
J.B.S. Yes, but it is not that you yourself effect it you accept what has been effected for you. It is not like Marah, putting away the thing as it arises; but Gilgal, rolling away the whole thing. "Have your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth; for ye have died, and your life is hid with the Christ in God". Now you have to do with Christ's life as it is in Himself, not as in Romans 6 for your relief. Therefore here we have, "Put to death therefore your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness", etc.; and not only so, but, "Now, put off, ye also, all these things, wrath, anger, malice, blasphemy, vile language out of
your mouth" - wherever the will is you put off that - "... and having put on the new, renewed into full knowledge according to the image of him that has created him".
T.M.G. We did not catch what you said as to the difference between Romans and Colossians.
J.B.S. In Romans you get Christ's life for your relief. I am delivered from the man where the death is and with the Man where the life is. But in Colossians I come to another thing: "Your life is hid with the Christ in God. When the Christ is manifested who is our life, then shall ye also be manifested with him in glory". You are now, if I may so speak, at home with Him.
T.M.G. In Romans it is rather the negative side, in Colossians the positive?
J.B.S. Well, I would not say exactly the negative but it is touching it for yourself. It is the first sense of being clear of the old man.
A.G. You made a difference between practice and practical?
J.B.S. The practice here is putting on "bowels of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, long-suffering", etc. The idea is that of a man going to work: he first takes off his coat. The first thing you do is to go to Gilgal, that is chapter 2: 11, 12, which connects with chapter 3: 1. You are over Jordan: "If therefore ye have been raised with the Christ, seek the things which are above". That shows you are not there if you are seeking them, that is plain.
W.K. In Colossians you say it is the life presented more in the character of association with Christ?
J.B.S. I do not know exactly how to express it. You are at home with Him. You put off these things and put on the new man; you come out in the character of the new man. Practically speaking we are all
:Wesleyans more or less; we are always trying to improve the old man. No, I have done with it, I have the new man.
Ques. Why do you say we are all Wesleyans rather than Calvinists?
J.B.S. A Wesleyan is one who is trying to improve the man.
J.F.H. I always think there is a great mixture of flesh and Spirit in Wesleyanism.
J.B.S. The truth is they use the Spirit to improve the flesh they try to put the new wine into the old
bottles. I was saying something of a brother lately and he asked me how I knew it. Well, I said, I know myself and so I know what you are at. We need not put this away from ourselves, we are all affected by it. We need not say a word against anybody. We are to help one another and we have nothing but what we have received.
W.K. Well, you said the way we got to the Head is by these two verses. First that we are complete in Him, and then being in the sense of that we can afford to get rid of the hindrance, the body of the flesh which is to go altogether; chapter 2: 10, 11.
J.B.S. Yes, and that is what comes out in chapter 3. It is not something to be done when the thing arises (Marah) but the whole thing is gone (Gilgal). "Christ then, having suffered for us in the flesh, do ye also arm yourselves with the same mind; for he that has suffered in the flesh has done with sin", 1 Peter: 4:1. I am to come out now in quite a new way.
W.K. Then we have life in association with Christ risen, and then we go on to put on the character of Christ?
J.B. S. Yes, we put on His affections: we belong to the christian circle.
W.K. You do not confine that to the gathered company merely?
J.B.S. No. It is what comes out constantly. "Let the peace of Christ preside in your hearts, to which also ye have been called in one body" - that is the first time you have the gathered company here.
1 Samuel 17:57; 18: 1 - 4; John 10: 11
There are evidently two parts in the gospel - one is the misery you are brought from, and the other is the position you are brought to. If you do not know the position you are brought to, you are not sure that you are brought from your lost estate. Many are truly converted, but they are thinking only of getting out of the debtor's prison. You might be set free and yet be poor and sorrowful though owing nothing. That is not the gospel. The gospel is, not only that you are cleared of all that is against you, but that you are brought into the most unspeakable blessing in the very place of your misery, not merely when you come to heaven. Many christians are looking for earthly blessings. They have touched the first part of the gospel, but not the other part; they have not, through faith, had access into the favour of God that the believer in Christ is as Christ is; this is his position - his Saviour is his portion. The One who saved you from misery is now your life and portion in the place of your former misery. I say all this by way of preface.
Now let. us look at these Scriptures. All Israel were under an oppressor. Suppose you go into the town and say to a man, Are you clear of the oppressor? What oppressor? Death. "By man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead". You want to be clear of the man where the oppressor is, and you want to be as the One who has removed the oppressor on the earth - on the very spot, on the battlefields where the oppressor had been. Some say, I cannot be sure till I get to heaven. Others can say, I am sure my sins are gone. But have you
found unspeakable resources in Christ here before you go to heaven? Oh, you say, If that were true, I should be the happiest man on the earth. "Joy unspeakable and full of glory;" it is not earthly joy. Now here Israel were in this terrible position. David's father sent him to see how his brethren fared. The type is beautiful. What a sight presented itself to our blessed Lord! David was sent by his father. Our blessed Lord was sent by His Father. God so loved the world, that He sent His Son. And what did He find? Every man oppressed by death. In the type David addresses himself to the fight, overcomes the Philistine - the oppressor - and cuts off his head with his own sword. He is then seen with the head of Goliath in his hand. He has done the work. I do not present Christ to you doing the work; I say the work is done. It is thus that Jonathan sees David - the head of Goliath in David's hand. "Himself" hath done it.
Mark how Paul addresses the poor pagan Philippian jailer, who was in great distress of soul: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved" (Acts 16:31). Where is He? He is risen. It is as the Lord He was presented to this poor sin-stricken soul. The work is done. The oppressor is dead. Now is there anyone in this room who does not know that the oppressor is gone? Would it not be a wonderful moment for you if you could say, The oppressor is gone? Christ entered into death that "he might destroy him that had the power of death", Hebrews 2:14. The oppressor is gone. I fear there are a great many christians who are not as happy as Jonathan was. Jonathan could say, The oppressor is gone. He (Christ) "hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light", 2 Timothy 1:10. Christ has overcome death, as David had the head of Goliath in His hand. Saul represents the religious man, and as the religious man he asked him, "Whose son art thou?" He was grateful. I do not like gratitude
merely; gratitude means, I would do as much for you. Look at Jonathan, he loved David as his own soul. Now you see where he is, the oppressor is gone. Jonathan makes acquaintance with the true king of Israel; he did not know him fully, but he loved him as his own soul, and not only that, but they made a covenant together - there was an understanding between them. That is what I call the confirmation or seal of conversion. It is a wonderful moment when there is a covenant between me and my Saviour, a conscious bond with Him, which is the sealing with the Holy Spirit. I see a man who has assurance of forgiveness, he is singing of the virtues of the work of Christ - that is his hymn. I watch him when he advances, I find he has changed his hymn, he is praising the Saviour. That man has made a good step, has he not? But I want to press on you that Jonathan made a covenant with David - he loved David. Love likes to make little of oneself in order to make much of its object. The woman in Luke 7 brought the fragrant ointment, which would have added importance to herself, and anointed the Lord with it. Here is the king's son, the heir-apparent to the throne, as we say, and see how he confesses his love. "And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle", 1 Samuel 18:4. Jonathan treats David as the one entitled to be king; all this was done in the very spot where the oppressor had prevailed. Jonathan has found a friend. David is the delight of his heart, in the very spot where he had been oppressed by Goliath - a wonderful exchange.
I turn now to John 10:11. We find the Lord here stating, "I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep". It is not merely caring for them, He gives His life for them. Now consider the work of the Son of God. He became a man, He
saw the oppressed condition of man, and before He came He says, "A body hast thou prepared me". Blessed be His name! How wonderful to know that the Son of God can look down upon the trouble and misery here and say, "I come to do thy will". Hence the Lord says in John 4:32, 34, "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". We can marvel to see this Shepherd, the Son of God, sent by His Father to see how His brethren fared, His heart moved to come down and assail this terrible giant. He is the antitype of David. God's Son became a Man, born of a woman, that He might "redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons" (Galatians 4:5). He would sever us from that man on whom the judgment of God lay. Not only are sins to be atoned for, but death - the judgment - is on every one. If you never had committed a sin, if you were a babe, death - the judgment of God - is on you as a child of Adam. The Son becomes a man. He goes down unto death - the judgment of God. You see God in judgment in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, having borne the judgment on man, and having glorified God in dying, He has risen from the dead, He is "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead" (Romans 1:4). "In that he died, he died unto sin once; but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God" (Romans 6:10). "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Romans 10:9).
Many believe on Christ as the sacrifice for their sins, but they are not consciously justified. They may have assurance that they will not be lost, but they do not enjoy acceptance with God. I ask you, Do you believe in Christ risen from among the dead? "If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins" (1 Corinthians 15:17). It is with Him risen that you have to do.
He "hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel" (2 Timothy 1:10). It is a great moment when you see Him risen from the dead. I remember a company of military men where I was once asked to speak on the Lord's coming. One officer said, I used to go down on my knees to pray to the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. One day a lady said to me, But He is not there. This had a great effect upon me. Often the gospel preached does not go farther than Christ on the cross. You are not justified until you believe in Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. It is the rising which ensures justification - not merely the dying. The dying was for the offences; the resurrection is the receipt, and immensely more. Christ is become the firstfruits of them that slept. A Man who has glorified God when bearing the judgment of death has been raised from among the dead. I know when you believe this you will be greatly blessed; for we read, "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved". He "was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification" (Romans 4:25).
Now I come to verse 14, as to the nature of the intimacy which subsists between the believer and the Saviour. I believe it is unknown until you have made acquaintance with Christ risen from the dead. It is Christ risen who is the delight of the heart. Hence the apostle says, "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection" (Philippians 3:10). Let me turn to a passage which will explain this intimacy. In John 9:35 - 37 it reads, "Jesus heard that they had cast him out" - the man who was blind - "and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? And Jesus said unto
him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee".
Now mark - I have tried first to show you that all the oppression has been cleared away; now I am presenting the source of full enjoyment - your position while on the earth. It is Christ Himself, and in the very place where the man once blind was. He has not only received sight, the darkness cleared away, but the light was so effectual that he is cast out of the synagogue, outside everything humanly religious. Such is the effect of light. First his neighbours bring him to the Pharisees - the religious men. The Pharisees said, He is not of God because he has broken the sabbath day. Then the parents say, "He is of age; ask him". They feared the Jews. It is not transgression here as in chapter 8; in chapter 9, the light has come and has exposed the darkness in which the religious man was. Now the man who was blind is in the solitude of light. Would that many knew that experience, they would never forget it! You are outside of all that man reveres, in the solitude of light, but you will not long be lonely. Jesus heard that they had cast him out. Blessed be His name! He comes to him, and says, "Dost thou believe on the Son of God?" He gave him the light. The One who has perfected your salvation becomes the source of all joy to you in the very place where He has cleared away all the darkness; you now can count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus your Lord. How blessed the solitude of light would be to you if you knew the wonderful resources which are in the Lord Jesus Christ. Some complain of being lonely! I am sorry for you, because you ought not to be lonely. Never less alone than when alone. Note the Lord's answer to this man. "Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee". The last time they met he did not see Him, for he was blind. Now the Lord says, "Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh
with thee". Surely there is no one with any heart for Christ who would not have enjoyed that interview. Nothing in this world could equal it, and that is the intimacy which is referred to in chapter 10: 14, 15. These two verses ought not to be divided. "I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father". The simple meaning of the passage (I daresay some of you may not have looked at it carefully) is that the same kind of intimacy subsists between the believer and Christ as between the Father and the Son. That is the meaning of the passage. It is far beyond Jonathan and David when they made a covenant; now we are brought into the most unparalleled intimacy with the One who has saved us. The good Shepherd not only gives His life for the sheep, but He is our life and the resource of our hearts. I hope there is no one in this room, even though he may not understand it, who will not admit that God's salvation is wonderful. You are not only freed from the oppressor, from the one upon whom the judgment of God lay, but the One who has accomplished your salvation is now and evermore in the deepest intimacy with you. I need not add more but I ask each of you, Do you believe it?
The gospel comes down from heaven. Many are limited in their apprehension of the gospel by taking a gospel from the Old Testament. Properly speaking the gospel is not there. You do not get the true idea of it, or anything equal to it, in the types. It is not a question of how much of the gospel is received, but whether the whole scope of it is presented.
I constantly find that many have not the true idea of the gospel. The first thing to be seen is that the gospel comes from God. Is man's need the measure of God's grace? No. True the grace covers his need. It would not be the gospel if it did not cover man's need; but it is far more than that. If you come to look at what the gospel really is, it is entrancing. In the gospel I touch the source, the very spring of God's heart. The rest comes after: "The mystery of God; in which are hid all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge" (Colossians 2:2,3); but the fountain where all began is the gospel. It is the Beautiful gate of the temple.
The glory that had been driven away through sin in Ezekiel's time returns in Luke 2:10,11. It returns to make this wonderful announcement: "I bring you good tidings of great joy ... for unto you is born this day ... a Saviour. which is Christ the Lord".
Israel, more guilty than in Ezekiel's -day, "crucified the Lord of glory". and now "the radiancy of the glad tidings of the glory of the Christ" shines down to you - a sinner on earth. It is the light from the finish, from the top, from the glory of Christ to me, where I am, in all my distance, in "the highways and hedges". The evangelist is sent to open eyes, and when the eyes are open the light comes in and invites me to the very top where the light comes from. It is wonderful!
Where did the invitation to the feast (Luke 14) come from? From the house to the highways and hedges, to "the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.... Compel them to come in, that my house may be filled". What a wonderful thing for each to be brought to the feast in God's house. From the lowest to the highest!
You have not the full comfort of the gospel if you do not know that God Himself delights to have you in His house. The Son knew the joy His Father would have in the "many sons" He brings to glory. God will satisfy Himself about us. He has removed in the cross of Christ all that was contrary to Himself, and He will conform us to the image of His Son. He has His ideal and will bring us up to it. The gospel is not merely the benefit of the sinner, but the Father has joy, and the Lord Jesus Christ shares in the delight of having us in company with Himself, and, as we enter into it, we enter somewhat into that wonderful word, "They began to be merry". The gospel is not only that I should like to go into the Father's house, but, what is immensely more, the Father would like to have me there, and I am brought there in perfect suitability to Himself. When I am delivered from the burden of my sins, the action of the Holy Spirit is to shed the love of God abroad in my heart. No one understands love till he has tasted it. There is nothing we are so ignorant of practically as the love of God. God delights in having us with Himself.
In the Lord's private life on earth, from infancy to thirty years, He was the delight of God; then He went into public life, and it culminated in the mount of transfiguration, where the glory not merely saluted Him, as at His birth, but invited Him. As Peter says, We were "eye-witnesses of his majesty" (2 Peter 1:16).
In private life and in public life He is the perfect One, and now from this point, invited by the glory,
He comes down to die. The judgment of God - death - lay on us, and He, the one "corn of wheat", dies; but He is raised from the dead "by the glory of the Father". God's holiness is met, and in righteousness He is raised from the dead; and now "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound". Therefore He says, "The glory which thou gavest me I have given them".
But first I have to learn that I have life in the Person who effected the justification; therefore it is called the "justification of life". This is far more than mere acquittal. Righteousness is established; God is free, and His love can express itself. Therefore when in the parable the prodigal turned towards the father, the father ran. Love travels faster than necessity. Necessity brought the prodigal to the father. Love delights to satisfy itself about me. It is not only that you can go in, but a much greater thing - God, in all His majesty and His glory, can come out. All is equipoised. The glory cleared Isaiah (chapter 6), but it could not invite him in; that was reserved for "the glory that excelleth". Not only have I the entrée (holiness is the entrée), but I am shaped to the grandeur of the scene, shaped to the glory of God. Not admitted like a stranger, but metamorphosed to the same image; not to equality but similarity; metamorphosed into moral correspondence; not merely a wonderful change, but I have new tastes and new interests, I have come to the greater than Solomon.
Glory is the expression of God's satisfaction, consistently with all His attributes. "The glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ". Beholding His glory, you have the sense in your soul that that blessed One is in divine satisfaction according to all God's attributes.
The Lord grant that our hearts may understand what a delight it is to the Father to have us in His own presence, suited to Himself, characteristic of Him who brought us there.
I suppose that every thoughtful christian would admit that we are in these difficult days. Paul prophesied that this state of things would come. There is a great step from 2 Timothy 2:18, "Who concerning the truth have erred", to chapter 3: 8, where we read they "resist the truth". In chapter 2 it is the great house; we have to purge ourselves from the vessels to dishonour. Luther, as far as he did so, was a vessel to honour. There are two steps enjoined: one, to purge yourself from the vessels to dishonour; the other, to "follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart". This course was necessary before the difficult days; now we are in the difficult days.
There are two things I desire to bring before you: first, the state of christendom, and secondly, the remedy. A good physician has two qualities - first he knows why your health is impaired, and secondly, he knows the remedy; but a great deal of our feebleness arises from not knowing the state of things around us, and hence the attempt to effect a cure is ineffectual and labour in vain.
In Romans 1 you get heathendom unmasked; and here in the first ten verses of this chapter we have christendom, but covered, "Having a form (or cloak) of godliness, but denying the power thereof". For example, we may find a man attending divine service, so-called, and yet going on in all the wickedness of his heart. In Romans 1 it is all uncloaked, it is horrible. The great effort of the day is to elevate man. The pope exalts himself in all that is of God. The man of sin will oppose and exalt himself "above all that is called God". "For of this sort are they which creep into
houses, and lead captive silly women" - really effeminate, sentimental characters - "... ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth". You may think that I am exaggerating the state of things, but no, we do not sufficiently apprehend how grievously every divine idea is imitated. There are now men who resist the truth "as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses;" they tried to neutralise the divine work by imitating it. I do not think we have any idea of all the mischief which is done by imitation. Look all around; see churches built avowedly in honour of Christ when He Himself is rejected; and how many are deceived by the imitation! But I have a sadder tale to tell - no matter however true or however beautiful the divine work is, it is imitated. A christian gifted of God is imitated. The enemy does not care to imitate what is of no value; just as diamonds are imitated with glass, so it is the best thing which Satan imitates, but the attempt is to neutralise the divine work. The imitators assume to effect by natural ability the same as the christian effects by divine power. What was it that checked Jannes and Jambres? It was life. That is where John's ministry comes in now. When to the church of Ephesus it is said, "Thou hast left thy first love" (Revelation 2:5), the reward to the overcomer is to eat of the tree of life. "But they shall proceed no further; for their folly shall be manifest unto all".
You see I trust what I have sought to show you as to the state of christendom - how everything divine is imitated by man, and what an unceasing effort there is to retain the first man. Well now, what is the remedy? We find it in verse 10: "Thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life", etc. Paul's teaching includes the gospel and the assembly. It is of all importance that we should know Paul's gospel, otherwise we cannot apprehend the assembly. The first time the mystery was divulged was to Saul of Tarsus. The Lord says to him, "Why persecutest thou me?"
This is the first intimation of it. It is a great thing to accept that God cannot support anything on this earth that is not Christ. He could not support any other. God has but one Object before Him - Christ. In Paul's gospel the measure of our acceptance is, "As he is, so are we in this world", 1 John 4:17. There is nothing God will not do for one who is a bit of Christ, for those who are His body on the earth during His rejection. Think of it! God's Son was cast out and rejected, and His body is here where He was rejected. No servant is up to his work unless he has God's object before him. Everyone's power is according to the measure in which he has God's object before him; for when he has, God supports him. What do we find in Scripture? If you read from Abraham down to the coming of Christ (I propose to you a most interesting study), what do you find? That the man who has God's object before him at the time is markedly supported by God. The remnant of every dispensation is characterised by the essential grace of the original. Look at Jacob, he is the remnant of the Abraham dispensation. That self-seeking man at the close of his life looks for nothing for himself; he blesses the sons of Joseph, worshipping God leaning on his staff. Look at the remnant in Isaiah 6:13: "In it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves". Nothing for man to see, but the substance is there.
Samuel, the last of the judges, when Israel was oppressed by the Philistines, prays; and God in a remarkable way supports him, so that he erects Ebenezer. Daniel on the eve of being condemned to a dreadful death opens his window three times a day and prays towards Jerusalem, which was then a heap of ruins, but still it was God's object on the earth, and his heart is set upon God's object.
In the New Testament (Luke 2) we get Anna the prophetess, a beautiful example of a heart set on God's object. She was at least eighty-four years old, and departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day, and though all the learned doctors could not see the Lord in the child Jesus, "she coming in that instant gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem".
May God grant that each of us may apprehend not only the ruin - the present state of christendom, but may we also so know God's remedy, that we may not only be preserved from the influences but be able divinely to counteract it.
2 Corinthians 5:14 - 21
It is deeply solemn and instructive to find an assembly like the Corinthians, which came behind in no gift, carried away by the natural mind, and that there was consequently such a break-up in divine things that they had got astray in every circle - private life, public life, etc., and this though they had received the Holy Spirit. In chapter 3 the apostle shows the difference between the righteousness of the law, which was a demand, and the ministration of righteousness from the glory. Isaiah said, when he saw the Lord of hosts, "I am undone". Now, the nearer you come to the glory the better off you are. There is no one converted now but by the light from the glorified Man in heaven which has reached him. The first touch from God is the light. See the thief on the cross, the Philippian jailor, Saul of Tarsus. All the grace proceeds from Him, so the nearer you get to Him the better off you are.
I want to bring before you the subject of reconciliation. There are two sides of grace - one is how God has relieved His own heart, the other is how the believer gets the benefit of it. Many christians are occupied with Romans 8 before they have learnt chapter 5. Chapter 5 is God's side and chapter 8 is our side. The first great thing to see is the weight that is upon us. I believe that the nature of the distance between God and man is but little known. What is it? The judgment of God - death - lies upon man. "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Genesis 2:17). The creature must go in death. God said to Adam, "Who told thee that thou wast naked?" The word to Satan was that the seed of the woman should bruise his head, and that he should bruise his heel. "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" (Hebrews 2:14). The man who is under death must go in judgment. First, you must realise the pressure; man under the judgment of death must go, intellect and all. The flood was a type of it; God says, "The end of all flesh is come before me" (Genesis 6:13). Noah prepared an ark; he was one year and ten days in the ark - a figure of every day of your life, every variety of circumstance the whole year. For that time there was nothing of flesh to be seen, it was either under the waters of the flood or covered in the ark. After one year and ten days in the ark Noah comes out and offers an offering of sweet savour and is now in a new condition.
When man was fully tested and tried, God had a Man in reserve - He laid help on One that is mighty. No one ever knew what sin is in God's sight but the Lord Jesus Christ, and He has removed it. He had the full sense of what it was to be under the judgment of God. "He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin". After perfectly glorifying God in His life here, the glory claimed Him: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased". But then He dies for the man who was under judgment; that man must go in death; he is made an end of, not atoned for. If you atone for anything you keep it. Christ in His death atoned for sins, not for sin. "God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh", etc. If God sent Christ ("a body hast thou prepared me"), He comes to remove all that was not according to God.
I come now to reconciliation. Souls are more occupied with their own feelings about God than with God's feelings about them. The prodigal wants to know what the father thinks about him. He says, "I have sinned against heaven, and before thee;" and when he comes he finds his father on the very best
terms with him. Love travels faster than necessity. He "ran, and fell upon his neck, and covered him with kisses". When the prodigal came to himself he thinks about himself, and proposes to say, "Make me as one of thy hired servants;" but when he comes to his father he gets the very best reception, and he dare not make any proposal. The elder brother cannot understand it. He says, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, and neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment; and you have shown me no such consideration. Here is a scapegrace, and you have killed for him the fatted cal£ How is the incongruity solved?
The Shepherd had gone out and brought him back. God can now receive the returning prodigal on the ground of the glorified Man. John says, if you knew the love of God, you would find that as Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, so are you here in this world. The moment Christ died, having borne the judgment, the veil was rent from the top to the bottom. The One who has died is raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, and confers life. The first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam a life-giving Spirit. Now it is no longer Adam but Christ. The real practical defect in souls is, they do not prefer Christ to Adam; it is not that they do not love Him, but they hold on to the man who God has judged and ended. God never reverts to that man. God never imputes sin to the believer. He has judged sin; there could be no more offering for sin; but if you revert to the man that has been judged and do not judge yourself, you will be judged of the Lord.
Verses 14, 15: "For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead; and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again". Many believers hold resurrection, who do not hold it
in its magnitude. He was "put to death in flesh, but made alive in the Spirit". You have passed out of death into life. Why? Because Christ has risen out of it. There is no justification unless He has risen from the dead. We should no longer live unto ourselves; we are out of it all. Then comes, "Henceforth know we no man after the flesh".
Do you know the terms of your acceptance? Christ has removed every shade of the distance. You never can improve your acceptance, and you can never lose it. You are accepted in the Beloved. If there were any moral disparity between you and Him, you could not be united to Him. "Both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one" (Hebrews 2:11). But that is not in the flesh. "Henceforth know we no man after the flesh", etc. "So if any one be in Christ, there is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold all things have become new". God has only one Man before Him now for the believer. See John 17:17, "Sanctify them through thy truth". That is a new kind of being altogether. Your body is the Lord's, and Christ is your model for everything. God has completely removed everything from His own eye, so that He can express Himself to the unspeakable satisfaction and delight of His heart; He is bringing many sons to glory. Romans 5:1 - 11 are the terms God is on with you. Romans 8 is how you are before God. Is God happy about you? Yes. Old things are passed away, all become new. Every bit of the man who was under judgment has gone in judgment. If you do not know the terms on which God can receive you, it is vain for you to seek to be in correspondence with Him. "All things are of God". You are to be in moral keeping with this.
Verse 20. It makes a very great difference in preaching the gospel if it is pressed that the judgment of death is resting on man. In what is called popular preaching, it is expected that by working on the
feelings by music, etc., one will accept Christ. Believe me that every effort in a natural way will come to nought. If God is with you in your preaching your audience will be subdued by it, not exhilarated. If I were preaching to a sinner I should seek to get at his conscience, but it is the light he wants. Light finds out the silver piece; the light shows what is suited to God - turned "from darkness to light".
The Lord grant that each of you may know, not assurance only, but your full acceptance with God, for His name's sake.
Exodus 12; 14; Luke 15
The grace of God as brought to us in the gospel may be divided into two parts - first, what we are brought out from, and secondly, what we are brought into. Many converted souls know something about what they are brought out from, but very few have the least idea of what God has brought them to, and no soul is entirely off the old ground until he knows what it is to be on the new. Moses' commission was to bring the people out of Egypt and into the land. As soon as a soul knows he is on the new ground he is out of the old. The gospel is that God has brought you out of the land of darkness and shadow of death into the land of light and glory.
The defect in many souls is that they do not know the nature of the distance between God and the sinner. Only one Man ever knew that, and that was the Lord Jesus Christ. Every one, even a pagan, knows that there is a distance between the Creator and the creature, but how few, comparatively speaking, understand the nature of the distance. Cain did not know it; he, like a bad physician, tried to cure the disease not knowing what it was, not understanding the nature of it; and there are a great many people who do likewise.
The gospel from God's side shows us how God has removed the distance. Abel had faith in God and knew that nothing could remove the distance but a Victim not personally chargeable with the sins for which he suffered, and he offered of the firstlings of the flock and the fat thereof, but there was no resurrection in that type. The victim dies, and the sins are gone. Here nine-tenths of those who preach the gospel stop. The gospel usually preached is forgiveness of
sins, but not resurrection. There is no resurrection in the sacrifices of the Old Testament. No victim that was offered was ever raised again. And if resurrection is not preached there can be no real sense in the soul of the distance being removed. Only death could remove the distance; the victim must be one not chargeable with the offence at the time of death, that is, there must be personal excellence in the victim, but it is in apprehending, the resurrection that the soul gets the sense that that which caused the distance is removed. The thought of some is that the sinner can do good works so as to please God, and that Christ's righteousness comes in as a set-off for his unrighteousness. But there is no victim there. You must come to own that you cannot remove the distance yourself, and when you take that ground you find that God has removed the distance, and from His own side, too: "Mine own arm brought salvation" (Isaiah 63:5).
To illustrate this: suppose a child broke a clock and was told to go to his room until he mended it. Could he mend it? How long would he try to do so? Why, the more he tried the more he would injure it. Then his father comes in and says, I will mend it myself. Now this brings out two things. First, the love of the father, which does not like the distance to continue; secondly, that as the father has mended it himself, he must be satisfied as to the way in which it is done. Thus the grace of God has come in, and God has removed the distance; from His own side He has done it.
Every sinner is under the righteous judgment of God, because he has the nature of a sinner. You see it in a baby: the nature shows itself. When God addressed Adam, what did He say? Not, What hast thou done? but, "Where art thou?" Adam hid himself because of what he was; he said, "1 was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself". God said to the woman, "What is this that thou hast
done?" She had believed the lie of the devil when he told her, "Ye shall not surely die". To man's eye they did not die, but in God's sight from that moment man was morally dead. How slow all our hearts are to accept the place of death!
We will now read Luke 15:24, "This my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found". You see it was not only that he was lost, but he was dead, too. "The wages of sin is death". The man that is lost and dead must go from before God's sight. Let me ask, Are you going to keep that man; are you going to dress him up and make him important? Never!
Christ gave up His life that He might blot out that man from before the eye of God. That man is morally dead, and in the cross of Christ he has come to an end judicially before God. When the children of Israel walked through the Red Sea they were out of the place of judgment. The first part was done; they were brought out, but not yet in. A person who is not out knows that Christ has died for him, but he is occupied with the difficulties of the way though he knows that as to the past all is settled for him. But when he is out he is occupied with God, he is able to take up the song in Exodus 15, which is all about God, and it could not be otherwise: "Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed".
To return to Luke 15, we have there a parable in three parts, and each part is about the joy of the finder. The shepherd goes out to seek his sheep up and down the mountain until he finds it, and when he hath found it, he bears it in triumph on his shoulders and carries it to the house (not home) rejoicing. The point is not so much the safety of the sheep, but his own joy in finding it; he calls together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, "Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost".
Then you get the woman sweeping the house, and
seeking diligently for the lost piece of silver. This is the Spirit of God in the evangelist seeking for every-thing that belongs to Christ in the world. She too rejoices, and we read, "Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy" (not of the angels, but) "in the presence of the angels".
Now we come to the third. A father has two sons. One of them gathers up all that belongs to him, and goes into a far country, and you know the result. We find this continually in the history of man: his soul starves, and he tries to satisfy himself with husks. Every man who is saved has been converted against his will. In chapter 14 you find God sending out His servant to compel them to come in that His house may be filled. Suppose a sovereign saying, I throw open my gates to the needy, and not only so, but he sends out his soldiers to compel them to come in. You would say, That is very fine; but the gospel surpasses all this because the spring of all is love: What makes a man turn to God? The fact that death stares him in the face. No man ever got saved till he knew he was lost.
The thief found this out - he turned to the Lord, and went to paradise; his body did not go there, the old thing was left on the cross. Of course we get redemption of the body through the work of Christ, but that had not come out yet. When Adam sinned he felt the difference in himself, and hid himself amongst the trees of the garden; he knew what taking the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil involved. Death came in. What then? God says, You must put the blood on, "and when I see the blood, I will pass over you" (Exodus 12:13). It is a great thing to get hold of the fact as to how God looks at the blood; not how you look at it, but how God looks at it. It is a wonderful thing when a soul learns that God has His eye on the blood of Christ. That gives you shelter, but you are still in the doomed
place. You are safe, you can say, I know I shall not be lost, but you are not happy. You are still in the place of death; what occupies you is the power of evil. You are not out of Egypt.
Now in chapter 14 you will find that the children of Israel had to walk through the Red Sea before they enjoyed assurance. I do not say acceptance, but the assurance of salvation. You must get assurance before you get acceptance. A man might preach the word of God for years, and study what is called divinity, and yet he may never have learned acceptance. He may have assurance without having acceptance. You will not find acceptance in any book of divinity. You say, Where then can I find it? Where God finds it, in Christ. There is a great difference between assurance and acceptance. God says to Moses, Open the way through the Red Sea, let the waters become a wall on the one side, and on the other! It was a wonderful way, but they walked right through, and they could look back upon it as a journey they had taken. I do not believe that anyone can understand what acceptance is unless he possesses it. God Himself has made the way through; I must travel that road. I had death on me; therefore Christ died for me.
The fear of death is a right feeling. Look at Hezekiah, how he feared it - he was afraid to lose his body. We all shrink from death. What is to be done? The Lord comes. One born of a woman removes the sin; He bruises the serpent's head. Through death He destroyed "him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;" and delivered them who "through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage", Hebrews. 2:14
Do not think you can slip easily into these things. I never knew a bright light shining for God yet without
there being previously what I would call a severe conversion. God always begins with the bass note, and He never asks you to sing till you learn that note. Then you get higher. The real practical difficulty with souls is to find out that they have not only got shelter and enjoy a measure of relief, but that God has some-thing infinitely more for them.
The ten lepers (Luke 17) were all cured - converted, if you will - but only one of them got to the Curer. The other nine were satisfied with the blessing, and they never reached the Blesser. Immediately the prodigal turns his eyes towards the father's house, the father sees him. Now what I want to know is, not how I feel, but how the Father feels. When the prodigal said, "I will arise and go to my father", he was not far away, he had only to turn the corner. The prodigal felt it a great way off, it was the far country to him but the father quickly removes the distance. He "ran, and fell upon his neck, and covered him with kisses". Now this is a pattern of the grace of God.
We have to learn what is in the heart of God for us. In Matthew 27:50, 51 we read that the veil was rent the very moment Christ died; God rent it. God's heart was relieved, so to speak, and could come out to man in all the riches of His grace. If you have not got hold of that, you can never be really happy. You must see that God can now be just, and the Justifier of those who believe in Jesus. What did the prodigal learn when the father ran, and fell on his neck, and covered him with kisses? That his father was on the very best terms with him. And I can tell you here tonight that everything which stood against us has been so removed from God's side, that the Father can
come out and embrace His son in all his rags. In Matthew 27 God rends the veil and comes out; in Luke 23 the thief goes in. People speak of the thief as if he had something like a death-bed repentance, but it was not that at all; he went straight from the cross into paradise "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise".
What I desire to press is that God's heart is set upon blessing us, and how the Father can receive the sheep on the ground of what the One who brought it back has done. And Christ's work on the cross has so removed everything from the eye of God that caused the distance that He can receive the prodigals fall upon his neck, and cover him with kisses. That is really what is stated in the original. The translators have given it "kissed him". The elder brother knew nothing of grace, neither as to salvation nor restoration. I never saw a man yet who was truly restored after a fall who did not get a step higher. No one ever understood fully the heart of God but the Lord Jesus Christ, therefore He meets the poor woman at the well, gives her the living water, and says, "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work" (John 4:34). Not her work, but His.
God grant that we may all take a deeper interest in the gospel; that we may know more of His grace which is bringing many sons to glory, and that each one here may see the nature of acceptance. You may say that you do not enjoy it; that is another thing. Well, if you do not enjoy it you are entitled to it, and you cannot deny that there are many who do.
God has removed everything to His own satisfaction, and you learn in the first eleven verses of Romans 5 the terms He is on with you. It is a great delight to the heart of a sinner saved by grace to know that he is received on the ground of another Man who perfectly glorified God. We are accepted in Him, the Beloved. God has changed His Man. and you are never happy
till you believe that and are able to say, I have, too. In Romans 5, from verse 12, it is no longer Adam but Christ. If you do not see that God has changed His Man you will never change your man.
The gospel is that God has sent His own Son, and He came and bore the judgment in such a way that man in the flesh is terminated. One man has gone out and another Man has come in.
May God give each heart here to understand the greatness of His grace for His name's sake.
Genesis 8:20 - 22; Luke 14: 15 - 23
After Noah and his family had been in the ark Noah found himself on new ground in favour and power. Those two words are an immense help in enabling us to ascertain what is the character of the new ground God has brought us on to, favour and power. You may say Noah failed on this new ground. True, he did; we cannot count upon self for anything, especially when set for Christ here. Noah got drunk and miserably failed. A man who cannot rule himself will never be able to rule anyone else. Noah failed, he lost the place of favour in which God set him, and he failed in power.
In Luke 14 the Lord speaks of the real way of having a feast, when one present, no doubt a pious Jew, exclaimed, "Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God". It was a great supper, a figure which sets forth the present large enjoyment of the believer, and where the food of the believer is-it is neither from earth, neither is it on earth. There is a festival prepared by God Himself for the believer which is neither on nor from the earth. Judgment is removed and we are in favour and power. 'All things are ready: Come!' What characterises the grace of God is favour and power. What the chapter sets forth is that God has made a great provision, a great feast, and He invites you to it - the Jews had it here, but you cannot enjoy it where they did, and if you look for anything here you will not get it. You may build a house and buy a piece of land, but it is in the wrong place. How could you expect the favour of God in a place where the Lord was crucified? What is the meaning of showing forth the Lord's death till He come?
I cannot accept any favour in the place where Jesus was crucified. If it had been last Friday that the Lord was crucified it could not be forgotten, but the fact remains that the invitation went out to the Jews first: "Come; for all things are now ready". They refused it, then it is sent to the poor of the flock, and the gentiles who never got a place here - and the servant is sent forth and told to compel them to come in. Now you must not make that the gospel, it is the finish of the gospel if you like, because the invitation is to come into the house. Luke 14 is our side, chapter 15 is God's side. You have the joy of the finder there. The business of the Servant (the Spirit of God here) is to bring them into the house. And the work of the Servant is not done till He has got them in. The question is, What is this supper and how is it to be enjoyed? You must start with this - it is not from earth or on earth. "The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit", Romans 14:17. In simple language this is what is called the great Supper. The Holy Spirit is the feast, and He conducts the guests to it.
I might say a great deal about that, while I quite admit that the invitation is to go forth over all the earth. In John 4 we have a guest found in the woman of Samaria. The Lord meets her there in the most desperate circumstances in which anyone could be found as to character and position, and He tells her, "Whosoever drinks of the water which I shall give him shall never thirst for ever", (verse 14) - it is the strongest figure that can be used; it means, shall never thirst again either here or hereafter. Your soul is conducted by the Spirit of God into the region of satisfied desire. The philosopher will say that is an absolute impossibility. The Spirit of God comes and takes up a poor, outcast woman in the most degraded circumstances as to character and condition and brings her into the enjoyment of a life entirely outside of everything here.
"Shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life". Then in John 7 we have the feast of tabernacles and man found in the most blessed position in which he could be found upon earth; he had seven days of it, too, but on the eighth day, when they had come to the end of the seventh, the Lord stands up and cries, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink", John 7:37. In the first case (the woman in John 4) the Lord begins at the bottom and lifts her up to the top. In John 7 He begins at the top and fills you so full that you cannot contain all you get from above. The idea is, that if a man is full he becomes a giver, not a receiver. And where do you get it? From above.
John 4 and 7 refer to the individual believer - what he gets - and not to service at all. If you want to know about service you must go to Luke 14. If You ask me to explain what the great supper is, well, the Holy Spirit is the One who conducts you to it, and no matter what your surroundings on earth are, the believer has something far beyond anything that can be found below. Romans 5:1 - 11 describes the terms on which God can be with me, and Romans 8 the terms on which I can be with Him; then you go back to Romans 5. You joy in God - you are reconciled - and being justified by faith we have peace with God, and are now in the favour of God and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. That is what the prodigal could say when he was brought in, Now I am in favour, and then we go on to find ourselves in acceptance with Him too, and the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which He hath given us. The prodigal had the sense of reconciliation first, and then of enjoyment. Many know the terms on which God can be with them (Romans 5) who have not been conducted to the other side (Romans 8), where they learn the terms on which they can be with God; that brings in enjoyment. The first thing you learn is that
God could not be on better terms with me than He is. Well, you say, I know that, and can always feel happy when I look up, but immediately I look at myself I am miserable. Then you are not at the feast. You are not making merry. You are not really in the power of the Holy Spirit.
I will try and make myself simple. You may have a very clear idea of the gospel as to what God is to you, and you begin to try and improve self; a man will do anything and suffer anything in his efforts to improve self, so as not to put self out. He wants a corner for self somewhere, but until you give Christ His place self will not go out. It was what I call the coronation day in Abraham's house when Isaac got his true place there, and, that he might have that, Ishmael must go out. It is a wonderful day in the history of a soul when Christ gets His true place. Now Romans 8 comes in, and what feasting there is! The prodigal, if he looks at himself, says, I am not fit for my father's house. But the father calls to the servants, "Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him", Luke 15:22; and what is the best robe? - Christ.
In Romans 5 you get the secret as to how God can do this. He has changed His man. It is not Adam before Him now, but Christ, and He does not expect anything from Adam. The end of Romans 5 links on with chapter 8. In chapter 6, though committed to death, you do not accept it; then chapter 7 proves what Israel found in the wilderness. that they could not keep the law, and I know what the anguish of such a state is. When I found the flesh too strong for me, I said I must try by faith to master it. I do not say that now, because I have learned that the Holy Spirit alone can master the flesh. "If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live", (Romans 8:13).
The moment the best robe is on - that is, that you know yourself as "in Christ" - what follows? "Bring
hither the fatted calf, and kill it and let us eat, and be merry", (Luke 15:23) - a figure of the great enjoyment you have in the presence of God. It is not so much here that you know it, but now you enjoy it, and that verse is fulfilled: "The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit", Romans 14: 17. You are free of self. There is a class of religionists who say the prodigal kept on his old clothes under the best robe that he might look at them occasionally in order to keep him humble. No teaching or reading will displace self. A Person only can do it. "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me", (Galatians 2:20).
Again I say, it was the most festal day in Abraham's house when Isaac got his true place there - when the three hundred and eighteen servants all bowed before and acknowledged him. Then Ishmael must go. You ask, Who is that? Ishmael is descriptive of the most accomplished in nature; he had been brought up, too, in Abraham's house, but he mocked Isaac so now the natural man will never accept Christ. A great many see that God has changed His man, but they do not come to Romans 6, they are not prepared to part with self. We have all travelled the road, we know it. All are counted as dead by God, now "reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus", (Romans 6:11). Here the most unaccountable mistake takes place. People think that "baptised unto Christ Jesus" means the mere formal act of baptism, and that their acceptance of baptism is an act of obedience, an expression of their being dead and risen with Christ; but we do not become dead by the reckoning of faith, neither do we obtain holiness by faith; these are not scriptural statements. "He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love", (Ephesians 1:4).
We cannot be too simple about it, nor can we deviate
from it - that God never sees me in the flesh. He knows I am in it, but He does not see me there. If there is anyone here today not clear about it let me say that there is no more offering for sin, and how can you improve anything that is gone from the eye of God? The Corinthians and Galatians had got the Spirit of God but were not walking in it, and many now have the Spirit of God but are not walking in it. I could not say that any man has the Spirit of God so long as he tries to improve the flesh. God says, I have removed everything from My eye in order to be on the very best terms with you, and I want you to be in moral correspondence with that. The Holy Spirit is the witness to me that I am as clean as God can make me.
I would say to the young believers especially, that I believe it to be most mischievous to look at baptism as in Romans 6 as a mere ordinance. Let me tell you that it is a real experimental thing. In the first edition of the Synopsis it is not made experimental, but in the second it is. How is it accomplished? You find that in Romans 8:13. "If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live". Holiness by faith does not go beyond the ten commandments. To put it simply, these things are not in correspondence with the mind of God. You might know the gospel and yet not be walking in the Spirit of God, and He always occupies you with Christ, not with your usefulness. "Walk in the Spirit", (Galatians 5:16), and He will not let the other man in. If Christ is not living in you, then you are not at God's side of things. When you are there, you will find yourself in the unclouded enjoyment with God of Christ and heavenly things. The natural man says, What an impossibility, because you cannot know anything about it until you are in it. Let me ask, Do you want it, are you ready for it? God never gives anything till the soul is ready to receive it. When you are ready you will long for it.
You may say, Where do I start? You never start till you reach Romans 8. Again I repeat, If you only know the work of Christ you are prepared to make sacrifices, but if you know Him as your life then you are ready to suffer for Him. The Lord give us to know not only our acceptance in Christ, but also how the Holy Spirit can give us to enjoy that acceptance.
Exodus 25: 1 - 17; John 1:35 - 40
We get a very touching lesson in Mary of Magdala, for she had very little intelligence, but more heart for the Lord than anyone on earth at that time. The whole thought with her was, where the Lord was. She had a devoted heart, which is really the introduction to the assembly. As soon as you know the value of the work He has wrought out for you, the first question you ask is, Has He any place here? You see it imitated in christendom where religious buildings serve more as a diversion from the right spot than otherwise. Better to be in a country where there are neither churches nor chapels, and have your heart awake to the fact, Christ is my Saviour, and now I want to know if He has any place here. You see it first in the song of Exodus 15: "The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation", (verse 2). Here God is before you, and if you know He has saved you and that you have been brought by Him into the cloudless joy of His presence, have you no feeling as to His having a place here? I trust that there are many hearts in this room that will respond to the question. Can I find a place where the Lord is? You get it illustrated in the Old Testament. As soon as the people are out of Egypt, three things are before them: first, they are clear of that place, then, "I will prepare him an habitation", and, thirdly, "Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the Sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established", (Exodus 15:17). You find that God has brought you to His own place - do not forget that bit.
No doubt the Lord knows where every one present is historically. I learn a great deal from the palsied man as recorded in Matthew 9. You say, The Lord cured him. He did cure him, but that was not the first thing, He forgave him his sins first, and He cured him afterwards. You do not know what you want, but God does, and when you get it you say, That was the very thing I needed.
We find in Mary of Magdala the leading trait of the assembly. Where is He? And in the two disciples following Jesus who ask, "Where dwellest thou?" The devoted heart says, Nothing will satisfy me but Himself. Why? Because He is everything to me. The moment Mary of Magdala saw and knew where He was, she left Him to do His bidding. She was content, for love delights to do the will of its object. Many here can say, I know Christ died for me; but do you know Him risen? It is a grand day when you first become acquainted with a risen Christ by the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit has come down, and I learn that the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. I know too I have a living link which connects my soul with that blessed Person who was here, but is not here now. It was consolation to Mary of Magdala's heart to know that He was risen. All is, so to speak, in pattern in the gospels, it is not fulfilled there. What I want to convey to you is that it is a wonderful moment when the soul knows that the Lord is risen. It gives unbounded joy to the heart, and like Jonathan I strip myself to give to David. I make much of the Lord, and when I know Him as my life (Romans 8), I can suffer for Him, because it is not only what He has done for me, but what He is to me. I take it as indicating stages: first, you know His work; secondly, you have found Himself and know He is risen; then you ask, Has He a place here? And you find Him in the
assembly. In the history of souls they must learn Him in priesthood before they know Him in the assembly. It is a most touching thing, and I see it set forth in Mary of Magdala. I know that He is risen and He is everything to me. I find pressure and grief and other things too that try me greatly down here, but what do I do? I turn to Him. For what? For sympathy. His sympathy has never been opened out to you and you have never known the effect in your heart of those two words, "Jesus wept", unless you have the sense in your soul that Christ in glory has an interest in you. He it is that bears me above all the pressure of circumstances and other things down here. He is near me and how does this affect me? It severs me from earth. Never till you have tasted the sympathy of Christ will your heart be drawn out of earth and that by a Person who is not on earth. Do you think Mary of Bethany ever forgot that walk when Jesus wept? Never! To have His sympathy you must come near to Him.
The highest thing God could say to an Old Testament saint was, "I will be with thee". Now the risen Lord says to you and me, You are to be with Me where I am. If you do not understand that, you can never know what His sympathy is. You may be devoted, but you have never tasted His sympathy. When I taste His sympathy in the history of my soul, I find myself personally outside this scene, and while in His company He endears Himself to my heart, and conducts me into the brightest spot - the holiest of all. I believe many are ready to go to the Lord, but I cannot see how any christian can understand the interests of Christ, unless he knows Him in the assembly. Every evangelist ought to come from the assembly. There were no missionaries in the Old Testament, the evangelist comes from the assembly. Nothing ought to delight our hearts more than to know that though the Lord has been refused and cast
out, still He has got a place here. I trust every heart here is like Mary of Magdala - set on finding Him, and like the two disciples, who asked Him, "Where dwellest thou?" It was an unusual question to ask a Man - a stranger too - where He dwelt.
What I desire to press upon you is that you must have to do with Christ risen, and that you cannot have to do with Him as Priest until you have had to do with Him as Saviour. He is outside of everything here.
In Matthew 14 when John Baptist was beheaded, the Lord accepts the crisis; it foretold His own rejection. What does He do? He educates His disciples for the new thing. He walked on the water above it all. Peter joins Him there outside everything here; in association with Himself and above all the power of evil. When He led captivity captive, He gave gifts unto men and these gifts from a risen Christ rise above all the power of evil. No power of evil can quench a gift bestowed by Christ in glory. The Lord walks on the sea; Peter sees Him and says, "If it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water", (verse 28). It is a question of affection. Can I join Him? To man it is superhuman, but affection carries the day. Peter says, "Bid me come unto thee". The Lord says, "Come." Let me ask each of you, Have you sufficient affection to want to join the Lord where He is? You see it in pattern in Elisha and Elijah. When Elisha asks for the double portion Elijah says, "If thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee", (2 Kings 2:10). Elisha never took his eyes off Elijah and what did he get? If the Lord said to you, What shall I do for you, what would you ask? Perhaps for your children to be converted? What does Elisha ask? - a double portion of Elijah's spirit, and he gets it. A double portion is a complete portion. The Lord was taken up into heaven; Acts 1. What Elisha asked for from Elijah, God gives us, "He shall give you another Comforter", (John 14:16).
Peter was not satisfied with seeing the Lord walking on the sea, but joined Him there. I would like to ask every young believer here, Have you affection for the Lord? He is the Stone, "disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious". "If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious", 1 Peter 2:3, 4. You have taken the first step and now you go on to the second step, "To whom coming", etc. To reach that point you must travel outside all that is of man. Perhaps you say, I am not prepared for the consequences; then let me say that I never saw a man who calculated about taking a right step, that ever took it. The true heart says, "Bid me come unto thee". What we have in John 6 occurs evidently at the same time as that in Matthew 14.
In Exodus 25 the great point is that all the people are interested in God's place. I go to a place and the numbers may be small, but I find all thinking about the assembly; everyone is interested and concerned about it. I go to another place and I find it quite different; it seems there as if what was everybody's business is no one's business. Why? Because they were never in their soul's history in assembly, for the effect of being in assembly is that you are taken up with Christ's interests, you have got a new class of interests. In Exodus 25 all are contributors to God's house, all are interested in it. There was the golden box and the mercy-seat above upon the ark, and there it was that Moses got the mind of God. We have to do with Christ now both as Moses and Aaron. We listen to Him as Moses and we accompany Him into the holy place as Aaron, and let me say that you will never understand the holiness of that place until you are brought there. Do not refuse to accept what I say, but do as the Bereans did - search the Scriptures and see if these things are so. You will never know what holiness is till you are where holiness is. The spot that no Jew on earth ever reached, the believer
reaches now. "Whom God has set forth a mercy-seat", (Romans 3:25). You must know what the blood does for you before you have boldness to enter into the holiest of all, and when there, beholding the Lord's glory, you become changed into His image. No amount of reading will do this, you must go in and know a Person there, and when there the first effect is you get an impression. There is an impression made upon you which makes you shrink from everything that would interrupt your enjoyment of Him, and therefore what comes out in you practically is found in Romans 6 - you die to sin. "Always bearing about in the body the dying" (not death) "of the Lord Jesus", 2 Corinthians 4: 10. When you reach that spot, beholding Christ in glory, you are so entranced with the blessedness of it you are lost and you say, Now I should like to have everything that interferes with my enjoyment of Christ where He is - removed. You only arrive at this through death. You may not like the way to it, but God knows when you are set for it and therefore He rolls in death upon you, that is, He disciplines you. You arrive at it by a peculiar road. If I may so say, in order to help your progress, God removes the stone that is before the wheel. Once you are set for it, you feel everything that hinders and God removes the hindrance for you.
Rebekah's nurse dies when Jacob gets to Bethel. Many a man is saved and perhaps goes on nicely and quietly for years. Then he builds a house, and his eyes, like Lot's, rest upon the long grass and he sees nothing beyond. While he is there he is of no use to anyone else; he has easy times of it while others are enduring hardship and serving the Lord. Well, all we can say to him is, We do not envy you.
Let me repeat, that it is an immense thing to get the impression in His presence of what the house of God is. There I learn that He has got a place on earth while I know and enjoy Him in the place where He is.
We need to know what the church is to Christ, and you cannot know that until you understand union. You may look at it from God's side and see that in His purpose you are united to Christ, but I desire to look a little at our side. You may see where this epistle 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". Paul 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. How can you have suitability to the position if you do not understand this? The church is the fulness of Christ. The holy city, new Jerusalem, gives us a thought of the magnitude and magnificence of the church. The first man as set here for God failed, not so the second Man. He did so much for God while down here that the world itself is too small to contain the record. Is it all to be lost? Never. All is to come out in the church as the fulness of Christ.
I desire to say a few words on that which is seldom spoken or written about - the great object of God as to the church. Do not say it is too high for me. It is very simple and came out at Saul's conversion. 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. 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. Are you looking for it? 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 that I am part of Himself; the Lord leaves His mark on each of those who know Him thus. God is set on accomplishing all His counsels as to Christ, and here the church comes in. It was God that brought Eve to Adam. Are our hearts set on what God's heart is set upon?
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 you are to be descriptive of Christ as united to Him. His interests are yours. I am not now speaking of service, but what I seek to impress upon you is the wonderful nature of our union with Christ. Some of us know what we passed through before having peace, now I want you to go on to union. I do not think any soul ever got peace until he wanted it, and no one realises union until they are set for it. The one thing that Abraham's steward was sworn to was that Isaac's wife must be of Abraham's kindred, and you cannot realise union till you know that you are of the same order as Christ - there must be moral conformity. You cannot conduct every christian into conscious union because there must be moral fitness, you must know that you are "accepted in the beloved", that you are of the same stock, "all of one". Abraham's steward asked God to give him a sign that he might know the right person, that she might be so gracious when he asked her for a drink, that she would not only give it to him, but offer to draw water for his camels also. This showed the grace she had, and you must be in grace before you can know union. "Grow in grace". We are made partakers of the divine nature.
When the steward makes known to Rebekah her
destiny, he unfolds counsel, she is to be the wife of Isaac. Then all kinds of difficulties arise. First, she has to break with her family, but she shows decision. She says, "I will go". Then there is the wilderness, but she shows continuance. She went all the way till she reached the spot where Isaac was. She came to him. No one can take the whole journey who has not by the Spirit realised union.
In the first type I have referred to, 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 show her to the world as God's city - new Jerusalem. What do you expect to find in man's city? The march of intellect, refinement, science and art. Babylon sits as a queen, but her end is in Revelation 18. 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 be 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. What is the prominent thought here? The "heavenly places". The place is the prominent idea.
The first thing that you learn when you know union is that you have a new interest. Christ is your interest, as Isaac was Rebekah's 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 Colossians I am outside the world, and Christ is my life, so that I get the sensibilities which suit Him. I put on bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering. I am no longer under law. You may make a law of anything, even of the Bible, in order to correct the old man, but if you are by the Spirit in heaven, you will come out here as a new and heavenly man. You have a Head in heaven and that takes you outside of everything here. All will be completed by and by, but now the apostle prays that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. Rebekah was a changed person when she learned her destiny, then all her thoughts and acts connected themselves with Isaac; so with us, when we are conscious of union with Christ we are taken up with the concerns of Christ; and we get in chapter 3 the great and present endowments that belong to union. First, Christ dwells in your heart by faith. Second, 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. It is a great thing to get clearly before one's soul that I am here for Christ.
Now we come to testimony. There are two circles of testimony, the gospel and the mystery; and there are three spheres where your activity can display itself - the church, your family, and then you confront the power of Satan in the world. You begin with the church - keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. If all the members are not acting in unison with the Head there is a moral paralysis manifested in the body. When Christ ascended up He gave gifts unto men, that every member might grow up "unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ", (Ephesians 4:13). The church is the first circle. People generally begin with evangelising, but the evangelist goes out from the church; he cannot bring his converts to the assembly unless he goes out from it. He goes from the heart of the assembly to "sweep the house, and seek diligently", and to find all that belongs to Christ. He searches for the treasure and the pearl, but he has also to sit down and select from the fish he has caught.
The second sphere is the family circle. In the law there was no word as to the family circle, and not even in Romans do you find direction as to it, but in Colossians and Ephesians you do find it. Every ordinance of God is to be taken up in a new way; a man is to love his wife as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it; fathers are not to provoke their children, and so forth. Then when the purpose of the heart is to be here for Christ, we find ourselves confronted by all the power of Satan, for Satan hates the one who is set for Christ, and you cannot resist him unless you put on the whole armour of God. You put on the armour against Satan, and you pray to God; then you can be bold as a lion. When Satan comes and finds Christ in you he flees. He tries hard to get you off heavenly ground; he first throws you a bait, and if you take it, that will do for him. If you refuse to take the bait then he will try and crush you. You never
see a saint prospering on the earth who is not in danger. Satan may crush you, but you will be like the leaves of certain plants, the more they are crushed, the more fragrance they give forth. Far better to be crushed than to be allured. When a man makes headway in the world he is in great danger. You know when Peter was invited into the high priest's house what it led to; he might have been cold outside, but he was far safer there than he was inside. It was a sad invitation for Peter. I conclude with the desire that each may know the blessedness of conscious union with Christ, and that the Lord may impress upon each heart what suits those who are united to Christ.
Romans 5:1 - 11
Our subject is, "the Holy Spirit". Christians do not make enough of the fact that the Holy Spirit is given. In verse 5 we read that "the Holy Spirit ... has been given to us": but the first question is, Have we received Him? In Acts 19 Paul came to Ephesus, and found there a company of believers (about twelve men - the number has, perhaps, a significance), who had not heard that the Holy Spirit was come. Now we know that He has come, consequent on the exaltation of Christ as Man to the right hand of God. Christ is rejected by the world; if He were not, He would be reigning; but God has said to Him, "Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thy foes thy footstool", (Psalm 110:1). When He comes again He comes to reign, and will subdue all His foes. (See 1 Corinthians 15:23 - 28.)
To return: the point before us is that the Holy Spirit is given. These Ephesian believers were only as far on in the state of their souls as the ministry they had heard; the preaching of Apollos that Jesus was the Christ, that He had come into the world, and was presented to the Jewish nation. They had, therefore, like those in Matthew 3, been baptised unto John's baptism, which pointed forward to the One who was about to come; to the One who, as John said, "cometh after me". But when Paul pointed out to them that "John verily baptised with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus", (Acts 19:4) they were baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus (His resurrection name), and, having been thus committed to His death, and Paul, having laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them. Acts 10:40 - 44 makes it clear that it is when the testimony
to Christ risen is believed that the Holy Spirit is received. He came on those who "heard the word" (a gentile company), as He had already on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) come on the Jewish company.
The end of Romans 4 establishes the fact that not only was Christ delivered for our offences, but that He was raised again for our justification; and we, believing what God has done, are justified by faith, and have "peace towards God through our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom we have also access by faith into this favour in which we stand [acceptance] and we boast in hope of the glory of God;" and, "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us", (Romans 5:1, 2). Then in verse 11, "we are making our boast in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom now we have received the reconciliation". (Properly speaking, the word 'atonement' does not appear in the New Testament.)
Christ having borne the judgment due to man on the cross, the judgment is now removed from every believer; and, on the ground of the work which was there accomplished (by the One who was Himself ever a sweet savour to God, and in whom, therefore, God always found His pleasure) God is free to receive the one who believes into the greatest favour, as is opened out to us in the case of the prodigal when he came to his father. You are received on the ground of the glorified Man, not on the ground of the moral man; the latter was the ground that the elder brother claimed. God has got a Man to His own satisfaction before Him, at the other side of death and judgment, and He works downward from that Man to us. Christ in glory is the Mercy-seat: the place where God begins with us, and where we really begin with God. We receive the Holy Spirit when we believe on Christ risen. The first evidence of this is "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts". God has laid help upon
One that is mighty; when there was no man, and none to help, He has done everything for us Himself.
In Luke 15 we have three things set forth in one parable. (1) The Shepherd's work. Christ went out to the most distant spot to find the sheep that He might bring it into His own place - "to the house". (This we see perfectly fulfilled in the case of the thief on the cross.) (2) The Spirit's work - searching with a light (the word of God) in the darkest spot, on purpose to find the lost piece of silver; and (3) the Father's grace in receiving from the most degraded condition the one who repented and returned to Him.
Our acceptance with God on the ground of the work which has been done for us is perfect, and therefore unimprovable. It never alters: never varies. And it is very important for us not to mix the acceptance itself with our enjoyment of it. The acceptance is "in Christ", and therefore unchangeable; the enjoyment is "by the Spirit", and therefore (because of the working of the flesh) often hindered.
In Romans 5 we have the truth presented on God's side: the terms He is on with us. Now there is another important point for us to consider, namely, how we are before Him. This we get in chapter 8. The prodigal could have no doubt as to his father's feelings towards him, when he covered him with kisses. His trouble was his own unfitness for the place - his unsuitability. He says, "I am no longer worthy to be called thy son". It is at this point that serious and protracted troubles arise in souls. The knowledge of grace and forgiveness is an assured reality; and then, too often, the effort is to make the flesh subject to the law of God, which (we read) it "neither indeed can be", Romans 8:7. The prodigal had the grace of forgiveness when his father embraced him; but he had to be made fit to enjoy this grace, and this also is effected for him. The best robe is put on him; he is no longer in his rags. In Christ there is no condemnation;
everything of man is renounced. "If any one be in Christ, there is a new creation", 2 Corinthians 5:17.
It is of all importance for us to learn that there is a change of man. Christ is now before God and not Adam. In order to be in liberty we must change from Adam to Christ. Romans 5:12 - 21 instructs us as to this. By Adam's one act of sin death entered into the world; and, he being the head of the human family, all his posterity are involved in the consequences of his disobedience. "Sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned". Death is God's pronounced judgment on man (Adam), and the man under judgment must go in judgment. Christ was obedient unto death. Christ's act of righteousness gave God His right place, and those who believe in Him are connected with Him instead of being connected with Adam. This truth is set forth from verse 12 to 21; ending with, "That, even as sin has reigned in the power of death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord". Death is the consequence of being in Adam; eternal life of being in Christ. This is the superabounding of grace. This makes clear the necessity for the believer to put off the old man for Christ. How blessed to know that you are not connected in God's sight with the man under judgment, but with the Man who bore the judgment, and who has been raised from the dead by the glory of the Father! What a blessed utterance for you in Romans 8:2: "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death". You have changed from Adam to Christ. As before God we are clear by faith through Christ (this is Romans 4 and 5), but as to yourself it is not by faith that you are clear, but by the Spirit of God. This is exceedingly important. No one is in liberty who is trying to improve the old man. He cannot be improved; you must be apart from him
altogether. In the end of Romans 7 you get experimentally clear of him, and in the beginning of chapter 8 you are set free "in Christ". In Romans 5 we have the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given unto us; but in Romans 8:2 it is not love but life. By the Spirit we are free of sin and death; we are in Him.
In Romans 5 you have the terms on which God is with you. Now in Romans 8 it is that you are free from the law of sin and death; God has another Man before Him, and you in Christ are free from the old man; you have come over to God's side; and that is different from His coming to my side. In grace He came to my side, but with the view of bringing me over to his side. (See Luke 10 and 15). In the parable of the good Samaritan He comes to my side; in that of the prodigal He brings me to His side.
It is very interesting and instructive to compare John 3 to Romans 10:14 with this, as showing the work done in you - not that done for you. John 3 - man is gone, the Son of man is lifted up; in chapter 4 the Spirit is given, and you will never thirst; chapter 5 - the body is delivered from judgment; chapter 6 - by appropriating Christ's death you enter into life; chapter 7 - man's brightest day on earth cannot come up to Christ's gift - the Holy Spirit - rivers of living water flowing out; chapter 8 - light; chapter 9 - sight, and steps in light up to the knowledge of the Son of God, when you worship; and chapter 10: 14 - 15 - the intimacy that exists between the Shepherd and the sheep. A wonderful unfolding!
Well, we have considered two points in connection with our subject (the Holy Spirit); love and life; you are now in liberty; 2 Corinthians 3:17, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" - liberty to behold the Lord's glory. What a wonderful favour the gift of the Spirit is! The love of God shed abroad in the heart first: then life in Christ known and
enjoyed; ability by the Spirit to behold the Lord's glory - all God's satisfaction according to all His attributes expressed in Him; not as when He was here, the humbled and yet ever perfect and blessed Son of God, in grace; but where and as He is now: the Man whom God has in His own presence to the complete satisfaction of His heart. And the result of our thus beholding is that we are changed into the same image - not into equality, but similarity; we do not imitate, we appropriate the moral excellences which shine in Him, and while here we become the expression of Himself in the very place where He is refused. Stephen is the first bright example of this. The believer knows the love of God by the Spirit; he reaches life in Christ for enjoyment by the Spirit; and, beholding the Lord's glory by the Spirit, he becomes here descriptive of the risen and exalted heavenly Man, not of the fallen, dying, and earthly man - Adam.
Matthew 14; Hebrews 10
You can never find the church unless you see that Christ is rejected here. If He were not rejected He would be reigning; He is not reigning, but He is at God's right hand, and this is proof of His rejection. God says to Him, "Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thy foes thy footstool", Acts 2:34, 35. Everything in christendom is got up to deceive you, as they are deceived. Men wish to make out that Christ is well received here; and so, if I walk down the street, I see numerous so-called places of worship, erected professedly in honour of Him. But Christ is rejected: He is disallowed of men. One interesting thing in connection with this is that His power is just as great after His rejection as it was before it. In this chapter (14) we see Herod, the Edomite, ruling in what was really Christ's territory; and he puts John the baptist violently to death by beheading him. The Lord, when He heard of John's death, did not need anyone to say to Him, You are going to be rejected, too. He goes away Himself into a desert place. If the King's herald is murdered, what may the King Himself expect?
It has often been said that in these chapters the Lord is educating His disciples for the assembly - the new structure that He was about to set up on earth. In this chapter He feeds the multitude with the five loaves and two fishes, using His disciples as the administrators of His bountiful grace. Then He sends the disciples across the sea, while He goes on high to pray - His present place and service in intercession. Wind (Satan's power) and waves (man's power, as acted on by Satan) are contrary; and their own efforts are unavailing against the opposing elements - true picture of the relative position of Christ and His
people all through the long dark night of His rejection. But He also comes to them. They are in the boat (a figure of the Jewish system really); but Peter, seeing the Lord as One supreme above all power (wind and waves), and having the affection for the Lord that would lead him out to face every difficulty, says - "Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, Come. And ... he walked on the water, to go to Jesus". Peter had the affection; we have the power. If you have the affection you will soon find out you have got the power. The Spirit is the power. We were seeing in the last reading that what characterises the christian is having the Spirit. A very good illustration may be found in the case of a nest of young fledglings. The mother bird hovers over the nest just sufficiently near to make the young ones wish to reach her. They begin to flutter, and find that they have not only the affection for the parent bird, but they have wings - the power - to rise to her. Depend on it, if you have the affection you will find you have the power. Christ is in an out-of-the-world condition, and the point is for us to reach Him there by the Spirit.
This chapter sets before us the value of knowing His priesthood - His present service for His own which are in the world. The One who has saved you, now Himself becomes endeared and indispensable to you. We have His sympathy, intercession, succour, salvation (see Hebrews 2:18; 4: 15; 7: 25; also Romans 8:34). Why were those disciples not swamped? How are saints upheld and comforted under the most pressing and crushing things such as are man's common lot in this scene? Christ lives to make intercession for them! See how the truth of His priestly service comes out in connection with Peter in the moment of his need and infirmity (it is quite plain it was no question of sin). He had left every earthly and human thing on purpose to join the Lord, and though he failed, andCHRIST CRUCIFIED AND CHRIST GLORIFIED
GOD TOWARD US, AND WE BEFORE HIM IN CHRIST
NEARNESS TO CHRIST WHERE HE IS
A PLACE FOR CHRIST HERE
CHRIST KNOWN AS HEAD
THE OPPRESSOR AND THE SAVIOUR
THE GOSPEL OF GOD
THE RUIN AND THE REMEDY
RECONCILIATION AND ACCEPTANCE
ASSURANCE AND ACCEPTANCE
'Returning sons He kisses,
And with His robe invests;
His perfect love dismisses
All terror from our breasts'. (Hymn 184)GOD'S FESTIVAL
WHERE ABIDEST THOU?
UNION AND ITS EFFECTS
'And see! the Spirit's power
Has ope'd the Heavenly door.' (Hymn 74)THE HOLY SPIRIT
EDUCATION FOR THE ASSEMBLY