(Volume 1)
In Luke 15 the elder son stood on the ground of righteousness, and never got into the house at all.
In human science I learn what names of things and definitions mean, and then go and learn the things themselves; but in divine things, you must learn the things to understand the words.
God graciously gave miracles to confirm faith, but when they believed only through miracles, it was all no good.
In John 8 the eldest had more reputation to save. The writing on the ground was in a certain sense a dignified contempt of their hypocrisy.
Chapters 1, 2 and 3 of John are a preface. Christ had not come forth into His public ministry until John was cast into prison. (See John 3:24.)
Chapter 4 is worship in spirit and in truth.
Chapter 5 is the life-giving Son of God.
Chapter 6, Bread that came down from heaven.
Chapter 7, feast of tabernacles, and shewing to the world, closing the account of Christ personally.
Chapter 8, His words are rejected.
Chapter 9, His works are rejected.
Chapter 10, He will have His sheep in spite of everything.
Chapters 11 and 12, full testimony is given to Him by God when He is thus rejected.
Chapter 13 is He must depart out of this world unto the Father.
You get no forgiveness of sins in John's gospel, except administratively.
The work of Christ applies to my conscience, and His Person to my heart.
In John, the Lord does not say, "You are sinners", but "Ye shall die in your sins", treating them as reprobates.
John is almost entirely at Jerusalem, the other gospels chiefly in Galilee.
It was the people who came from Galilee, who did not know what the Jews were about, who asked, "Who goeth about to kill thee?"
Ques. What is the difference between hearing His voice and hearing His word?
In the former there is the additional attraction of His Person.
Metaphysics never can be right, because if they bring God in, it is religion; and if they leave Him out it is nothing but folly.
Ques. Do all Christians get all the rewards in the seven churches?
I suppose there will be a special sense of them given to those who have been faithful. All will sit upon His throne, though to me that is the lowest.
Reward is encouragement; if it is motive, it is wrong altogether. The crowns are all one to me, but different circumstances may bring out the characters; faithfulness to death has a crown of life, but all believers will get it.
In Isaiah 32:15, "Wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest", means the total change of the whole thing. Verse 14 is judgment on Jerusalem.
"Again a new commandment I write unto you", i.e., this loving one another; it is no new thing, and yet it is, because you have it now as "true in him and in you".
Apollos would not go to Corinth, when they had slighted Paul.
Christ has become not the light of angels, but the light of men.
Eternal life is what Christ is, as the risen Second Man.
The great subject of John's communication is eternal life downwards, not righteousness upwards.
People say they can pluck themselves out of Christ's hand; then I say, 'Very well, let them', but they can never perish if they do.
It is no question at all now, whether a man can stand in the Day of Judgment by a certain course of living.
We live under the revelation that he cannot; Christianity begins with that revelation. We cannot stand before God; all the world has become guilty.
The law put man on probation, but when Christ came, the full evil of man's heart was brought out; he crucified the Lord of glory. And now we get the deeper apprehension that we are not only guilty but lost; lost as a present state.
Guilt refers to the Day of Judgment, but there is, too, the actual condition. I am not only exposed to judgment but I am lost also.
Then at the cross, when man's sinfulness was fully proved, the love of God was shewn out in the accomplishment of the work of his salvation.
The whole question of good and evil, perfect evil in man and perfect goodness in God, all was brought out.
The consequence was that man has gone into the glory of God. Jesus Christ sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. That is where Christianity begins; it is with the full testimony of evil in man, and then I have another Man, who perfectly glorified God, and who is now glorified by God.
The mystery of the cross is this -- that in that place where sin came out absolutely in full light before God, there, too, was the place of perfect obedience and full love towards God.
But, this being accomplished, "if God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him", and the Son of man goes straight up into the glory of God.
There I get a new platform altogether, not with my responsibility in question, for on that ground I am lost as well as guilty; but there is a Man gone into the glory of God, so that I both know God in the perfectness of His love, and Man in the perfectness of God's righteousness. This is the starting point of Christianity; every thing is put on an entirely new basis.
Then at Pentecost the Holy Ghost came down, and His presence on earth is the consequence of Man in the glory of God. Every direct operation of God was by the Spirit; "By
his spirit he hath garnished the heavens"; prophets spake by the Holy Ghost; demons were cast out by the Spirit of God; but all that is a very different thing from the Spirit's coming.
Christ made everything; but He did not come until the incarnation. He was there in one sense, but there was also a distinct personal coming.
So the Holy Ghost has now come, and He dwells in a believer, and becomes the power of Christianity and characterises the Christian himself.
We now stand between the Holy Ghost sent down and the full result in glory. "He that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit", i.e., He has wrought us for the glory, and has given us the earnest of it. That is where the Christian stands, and he is thereby associated with Christ in heavenly glory.
How can I know that I have the Holy Ghost? Do you fancy that God dwells in me, and I shall not find it out? I may not be able to explain it, but that is another thing. We cannot have it without knowing it. You must have a knowledge of Scripture to explain it, but there will be a consciousness of the fact in one's self, and there will be true liberty, too.
But then the life of Jesus is to be manifested in me, and there I get my proper responsibility as a Christian.
Since Christ appears in the presence of God for us, we are to appear in the presence of the world for Christ.
If He dwells in you, then let us see Him in you.
The moment the law said, "Thou shalt not lust", why you might as well tell me not to be a man. Even if my will is right -- the case supposed here -- yet I am in such a state that I cannot succeed in mastering the flesh.
Then he learns that it is not he that does it, but the sin that dwells in him, and next he learns that it is too strong for him, and he cries, "Who shall deliver me?"
This is what a man must be brought to. Then he gets "in Christ Jesus", and that is a new place; the slave is free.
If I have a rogue in my house, and I trust him, he pilfers me at pleasure; but if I distrust him and lock things up, it may be unpleasant, but still, I am safe.
One word about forgiveness. There is what I should call an administrative forgiveness, but this was not known until Christ's coming.
They did spell out of old about eternal judgment. But the Lord says, "That ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins", etc., and He shews His competency to do it by saying, "Arise and take up thy bed and walk, go thy way into thine house".
You get no spiritual knowledge of what sin is in the Old Testament. I do not speak of sins, but of sin.
The keys of the church were not given to Peter; that is all a blind delusion. People say the kingdom of heaven and the church are the same thing, but it is all wrong.
There is a building which Christ is carrying on now, and which grows to a holy temple.
When you speak of succession, I see there is one, but then it is, "I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock".
Remember nobody else is Simon Bar-jonas but Simon Bar-jonas.
Two or three in Christ's name is God's succession; and no other is; apostolic if you like to call it, but God owns it.
I shall not want a conscience in heaven; it is positive infinite enjoyment there.
Priesthood is that they may behave well.
Advocacy is when they have not behaved well.
Priesthood is for mercy and grace to help.
The Advocate is, if any man sin, we have one.
Advocacy is one fruit of propitiation. Priesthood keeps the heart in constant dependence. But in neither of these is there any question of imputation. You never find that we go to the priest; a Jew of old might. We go boldly to the throne of grace, because Christ is there in heaven for us; but that is not intercession. It is the priest now who is there, and the priest is connected with intercession, but intercession is not the exercise of priesthood, properly speaking.
Ques. When does the Lord act as advocate, is it when a saint sins?
It does not say, if any man repent, and confess; but, if any man sin, we have an advocate.
Ques. Then does nothing begin with us?
Nothing but sin that I know of.
And confession is the effect of advocacy; but, remember, imputation is not in question.
Ques. What do you mean by that?
I mean the charge of guilt upon a man's conscience. Hebrews gives you your standing before God, and there is no more conscience of sins. That is the scriptural doctrine; whereas, nowadays, nine-tenths of Christians could not tell you what that passage means.
We are not Jews under law, or there would be imputation. If Christ has not put away all our sins totally and for ever, and absolutely, it never can be done.
Ques. Does Hebrews contemplate failure?
Apostasy it does, not failure strictly.
Ques. What is the difference between infirmities and sins?
Christ can be touched with the feeling of my infirmities, but He never had any sins, or any sympathy with them. I can get help for my infirmities, and in a sense can glory in them, but I could not in my sins.
There are two kinds of temptations; one is from without, all the difficulties of Christian life; Christ went through them and He has gone through more than any of us; but the other kind of temptation is when a man is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Christ, of course, never had that.
You want the hatchet of Scripture for these latter; the word of God discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart, and so helps us in that way to go through the wilderness.
Ques. How far ought unconfessed sin to affect a man's conscience?
He never can get a good one until he has confessed all to God.
The existence of the flesh in me does not give me a bad conscience; but the moment I let it act, that does. If you mingle the question of imputation with the sins of a saint, then it is no longer to you simply a question of holiness, but of righteousness and justification, and therefore you never judge sin really and thoroughly until you have got the certainty that nothing is imputed to you. The sense of sins and imputation is all quite right until you are justified -- the deeper you feel it the better.
But when I learn that Christ has borne all my sins in His own body on the tree, so that God must pass them over, and cannot impute them to me, for He sees the blood of Christ; then, if He were supposed to impute them to me, it would make Him disown that blood.
A person who raises the question of imputation does not know what it is to be justified.
Ques. What is the difference between non-imputation and forgiveness?
If nothing could be imputed to a sinner, then there is no need for forgiveness.
When guilty, you are justified; when you have offended, you are forgiven; and when you are defiled, you are washed. If I look at guilt, I want justification; at offence, forgiveness; at defilement, cleansing.
All is provided; God leaves no loophole for Satan.
There is no proper holy affection until a man is certain of his standing before God.
Ques. What is the difference between a bad conscience and "no more conscience of sins"?
I have no more conscience of sins in virtue of the blood of Christ, but then that gives me a conscience of sin in my failure of holiness. A person in a dirty condition generally would think little of another spot; but if he is spick and span clean, he would think a great deal of the first spot.
Ques. Is Numbers 19 connected with John's epistle?
In a particular case it may be, for there, taking death as the sign of sin, the man was defiled.
Ques. What of the third and seventh days?
The first effect is what I have just said, that after the sacrifice, or, rather, the bringing of the ashes, no question can be raised as to imputation, and when I get my soul fully right, then comes the sense of superiority of grace to sin, so that I get back into communion.
Only you must ever remember that ashes are not blood.
Ques. Is the third day resurrection?
Ques. Is it not rather abundant testimony?
Probably. He was not allowed to be sprinkled on the first day: there was no levity in dealing with sin. I think you lose the beauty of the truth, if you leave out the proper power of the seventh day.
Ques. What is the difference between imputation and substitution?
Substitution is that which takes away imputation.
Ques. In what way does confession come in with John 13?
John 13 produces uprightness of heart in the confession.
Ques. Is there any particular form for discipline to take?
No. All manner of forms, in your family circumstances, such as will meet the state of your heart. And it need not necessarily be for sins. It is God's wisdom to be able to unite what disciplines the new man with what also keeps the "old man" down.
Something that kept the old man down.
At the same time, he was suffering for Christ, for if he had not gone and preached, he would not have had the trouble at all.
Ques. "Ye have not yet resisted unto blood"what is that?
You are not killed yet; you must not be frightened. And so he says, too, don't you faint because God loves you; neither despise His chastening, for you need the rebuke.
Ques. What of the "holiness" in verse 10? (see footnote)
It shews what it is; it is God's nature, and a separation from evil that He is working out in us. We want some things checking that He may give us more light. It was the same in Job, before dispensations began, to "hide pride from man".
This is a more important question.
In Luke 24:47 you have that "repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem". There can be no question about that, but what has enfeebled preaching among ourselves and others is, there has been such a sense that repentance is preliminary to faith.
We are all apt to topple over from one side to another, and so the true place of repentance has become obscured, and its presentation enfeebled.
This is mischievous for the reason that the claim of God is left out or enfeebled by it.
God is now gathering His own in haste, if I may so speak; the Lord is coming, and woe be to us if we say He delays His coming.
God is gathering out hurriedly the joint heirs, and, as of old, so now it is, "save yourselves from this untoward generation"; that was when Jerusalem was going to be destroyed.
He now calls upon "all men everywhere to repent: because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained".
Repentance is God's claim upon people, and if in preaching I merely say, 'God loves you, and you are a poor sinner, here is grace for you' (and that I surely would say), and then leave repentance out, it is leaving the man's conscience out.
The judgment we have passed upon ourselves, and all that we have done, and have been, in God's presence under grace.
Even now, as under grace, there may be a legal repentance.
But if it is put before faith, it unsettles the whole ground we stand upon before God; it is then something that I am doing in my own heart, and that won't do. When I preach repentance, therefore, I must preach it in Christ's name, and so I said, "under grace".
As I get to God, I see what I am in true light, more and more clearly every day. It is infinite love, that, where sin abounded, grace did much more abound; but if I carry God's message to others, I must carry God's claim, and I say, if you don't repent and turn to God, you will be lost.
Yet if I call on people to repent, in the name of Christ, they must believe in Christ in order to repent. As a man you have to say to God and what state are you in before God?
If your heart is not changed, what have you that is at all fit for God?
But if I call upon a man to be in God's presence with God's claim upon him, and that in grace -- perfect grace -- then if he returns, he returns to God. Repentance ought to be preached as God's claim upon man, but as putting in that claim in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
God calls on all men to repent, but if they do not, they must come under judgment.
You cannot have your eye open on the Lord Jesus Christ, and not hate yourself as a sinner.
Ques. Why is mention made of the "morning star", in Revelation 2:28?
It shows that Thyatira is at midnight.
In Thyatira there are two ways of judging; the one is what He begins with, and the other is the coming of the Lord. As in Isaiah 5, God asks, "What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it; wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?" So He will break down its wall, and it shall be trodden down.
Or, take up Adam, and say, is that what God made you? Have you answered to it?
Whether it is the world, or Jews, or the church as a dispensation for the time, it can be judged so.
But on the other hand I can say, Christ is coming, are you ready for Him?
In the three primary churches the Lord had spoken of the possibility of going back to the former condition, but to Thyatira (which I do not doubt gives us a true picture of Rome), He gives time to repent, and He says that she does not repent, so she is going to be punished, and therefore it is that this church is the first that goes down to the Lord's coming.
When you get the judgment of the whole body of the professing church as thus corrupt, then you have, "Hold fast till I come". The kingdom and the heavenly glory will then take the place of the corrupt church.
Ques. You get the morning star again at the end of the Revelation?
The end of the Revelation forms no part of the prophecy.
Before He enters on prophecy, you get the Lord's coming and then, "Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever". Although earthly things are going to be spoken about, Christ's coming in grace calls out the church's feelings towards Himself.
And again, at the close of the book, He calls out the affections of the church. In the beginning, by what He has done; at the end, by what He will do when He comes again.
Ques. Under what circumstances is confession made to man, as well as to God?
If I have wronged another, I confess it to him. If I go wrong and find someone more spiritual than myself, or if I get my heart engaged with anxieties and it is burdened, and I know a person who is really spiritual and has the mind of Christ, I may go and open my mind to him; but do not go to one not spiritually minded.
Ques. What is the difference between "crucified with Christ", and "I am crucified with Christ"?
None at all; because the "I" there is the old man.
You have three "I's" in Scripture, and, in terms, they are contradictory. "Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me". Then have I no flesh in me? Yes, indeed, and that is another "I". It is plain enough for people's consciousness.
There is no crucifying of the new life of Christ in me, but the crucifixion is of the flesh.
Ques. What does it mean by God repenting that He made man?
In speaking thus of God, it is just human language that is employed.
Ques. What of "repentance to salvation not to be repented of"?
That should be "not to be regretted".
Ques. Did any know that they were "lost" in the Old Testament?
God never told people they were lost, until Christ had died to save them.
There were two trees in the garden of Eden, the tree of life and the tree of responsibility; man took of the latter, and is lost. The law takes up the same question, but it puts the accomplishing of the responsibility before the enjoyment of life. But when I come to Christ, I find Christ has met all the responsibility; that is settled, and life is given.
In the Old Testament, wherever God wrought, the repentance was real, but they had no thought of asking, "What must I do to be saved?"
The young man asked, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" The Lord in His answer does not say "eternal life", but, "This do, and thou shalt live". The law referred to particular acts, and they could go and get their consciences cleared, by a lamb, or a kid, or a goat; it was a general clearance for a need. But repentance in the Old Testament referred to the same thing as in the New.
The judgment, too, of sin was according to the measure of the rule given.
The measure of sin is not the duty of man; but the measure of judgment is, for men will be judged according to their works.
The question now is not whether I have done what a man ought to do; but it is, am I such that I can go to where God is? and that is a very different thing.
Ques. Repentance could not occur until a soul was quickened, could it?
Or they may go together. If I believe, there is a reflex action and I repent. To be convicted is not the same; the law might convict. Sins and my state are two distinct things. The law may convict me of my sins. But suppose I go and preach to a person anything you please, the law or Christ, and suppose he does not believe what I say, will he be converted or anything else? Rather will he say, "Did you ever hear such nonsense?" and off he goes.
Ques. What of "Repent ye, and believe the gospel"?
If they did not repent they would not get into the kingdom, for it was the kingdom that was preached. And supposing he did not believe that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, he would not repent.
I have often said when preaching the gospel, God is now revealed. He never was revealed before. You might have thunderings and lightnings, but they were the signs of His
power, while He was behind a veil and would not be revealed, but sent out to man a rule of what man ought to be.
But now we have God revealed in Christ, abundantly in the cross, in every shape, but God revealed; and the moment I get that, I must have all that God is.
God is light, and God is love; and whenever a person is brought to God, the power of light and the power of love are both acting. In the poor woman in the city, that was a sinner, her whole heart is trusting Christ; the love has made the light precious to her, and she comes in, in that way.
Ques. What should be preached in order to produce repentance?
It is always preaching Christ, but the claim of God must come in; the law may come in; but the full thing would be Christ.
Ques. What of Paul's preaching at Athens?
He defends himself, and appeals to their consciences; but that was not his preaching, it was his defence or apology.
Ques. Sometimes there is a fear of urging repentance on souls, lest it might be regarded as leading them to do something for themselves?
Scripture is plain, "God commandeth all men everywhere to repent".
Ques. How would you define repentance?
The definition that it is merely change of mind is not enough; that would reduce it entirely to faith; but it is the soul judging itself before God -- the eye turned inward, not outward, by the Spirit of God.
Ques. What is God's repentance? How do you reconcile such scriptures as when it says: "It grieved him at his heart"?
I don't reconcile them; I believe them. If you speak about God, you must always speak imperfectly. But just because God had not changed He judges the state of the man who has. It is constantly used about God, in that sense, because God Himself does not change.
Ques. What did you mean by preaching the claims of God?
Preaching them in grace, of course, but God has perfect claim on my whole being in connection, now, with the cross of Christ.
Even as Creator He has, but, now, there is a double claim, through the gift of His Son.
I have broken away from God, and I have listened to the devil; and I must come to God and own it.
Ques. In what sense is Christ "head of every man"? Do they belong to Him?
Certainly; and He will judge them accordingly. Adam was the natural head of every man but Christ has bought "the field" or world.
In that verse (1 Corinthians 11:3), "the head of every man", man is a little distinct from the woman.
Ques. But the woman is to "guide the house"?
Ques. Would that verse authorise a mother in praying with her sons?
If they remain as children under her hand, of course, she may; but if they are emancipated, in my judgment she had better let it alone.
It may require spiritual judgment in any given case.
Ques. Is the anointing in contrast with the sealing?
In contrast! The anointing is the sealing. The gift of the Holy Ghost is the anointing, and is the sealing, and is the earnest. You may distinguish them a little as to effects, but not as facts. Christ was anointed with the Holy Ghost, and "him hath God the Father sealed". The Holy Ghost gives me the knowledge of all these things.
Ques. May a wife pray with her husband?
That is just as the husband likes when they are alone with God.
Ques. What is the difference between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven?
When the King was here, the kingdom of God could be said to be present, but, for that very reason, the kingdom of heaven was not come; the kingdom of heaven could not come until He went away. When the kingdom of God shall be set up in power, it will still be the kingdom of heaven. When He comes again, it will be the kingdom of God according to Mark and Luke, and will be the kingdom of heaven according to Matthew. The moral force of it is the great point of difference.
Ques. How is it different from the church?
The church is God's assembly, and, viewed in its heavenly place of association with Christ, it is the body of the Head. The kingdom is the sphere of government. The church is very distinct as God's house, the Spirit of God makes it His
habitation; but it is the body of Christ, united to Him, the Head, in heaven; a wholly different thing. Government is the great thought in the kingdom; but grace is the thought in the church; that which God calls, that which He elects.
Ques. The kingdom of heaven and the great house, are they co-extensive now? Could they be applied to the same sphere?
They are distinct thoughts. The great house is a comparison drawn from the ruin of that which professes to be the church of God; all kinds of corruption and wickedness have been brought in where God's Spirit is, where God dwells.
Ques. Does the sphere of the kingdom of the heavens now go beyond the professing church in its present state?
When you compare things, you must have something to compare with; what is there to compare between a kingdom and a house?
The kingdom of heaven is the kingdom of God when the Ring is in heaven; it is, too, the kingdom of God even in His absence. Kingdom of God is the universal form, but it may be in different states and shapes, because the King is in heaven, but it is all the kingdom of God.
Ques. Could you speak of the kingdom of God, before Christ came?
Ques. Could you say that any of old were in the kingdom of God?
Certainly not, that would lose the idea of a kingdom that God would set up.
Ques. Can the kingdom of God get wrong?
I believe antichrist is the second beast.
There are the three characters of Christ -- prophet, priest, and king. When Satan is cast down from heaven, his anti-priestly character is gone, he cannot accuse any more.
The second beast has two horns, and is an anti-king. The anti-prophet character, the prophet, is seen in the other beast, and this anti-prophet character abides, when the two others are given up.
Ques. Do you find the first half-week in the Revelation?
What goes on then, you do; until you come to the little book, you get a certain time elapsing, which is before the half-week.
Ques. What is "that good thing" Paul committed to Timothy?
The truth of the gospel, I suppose.
Ques. How is it, He says, "the world seeth me no more", when every eye shall see Him?
That is, looked at in His then character, as come in grace.
Christ met all that was needed, when He came into this world; sin was there, and He was "made sin"; death was there, and He died; judgment and condemnation were outstanding against man, and Christ drank that dreadful cup, so that God has anticipated the day of judgment in the cross.
Death, the curse, sin, judgment, the power of Satan -- all are over; and, as man heard from the horns of the unicorns, Christ has entered in and sat down in the glory of God. There you get the one blessed foundation for all that is new.
Whoever hinders the direct authority of the word of God upon the heart is meddling with God's rights. If I send a message to my servant, and someone prevents his getting it properly, it is not merely hindering my servant, but it is meddling with me. We are told to read the fathers, but they were not "from the beginning"; that would be what God said and taught, and then I know from whom I have learned it. To say the fathers were "very early" is more or less true, but that is not the "beginning".
I have God's warning about it, and I must stick to that, or I shall not "abide in the Father and in the Son". Men want you to lean upon failure, for the last times were already come, while the apostles were there to shew it. Take the last thing we have about the church of God, and what do you get there? Is it that you are to hear the church? No; it is just the contrary; it is, "hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches". How can I hear the Spirit judging the churches, and listen to the churches as my authority and rule? It is all flying in the face of what God has taught us for these last days.
Whatever has been ruined in the first man will be gloriously established in the Second Man.
Adam fell, and was ruined. Christ is in the glory of God.
The law was broken. It shall presently be written on men's hearts.
The priests failed. Our Great High Priest can never fail.
The kingdom failed. His throne is for ever and ever.
It will all be a thousand times more glorious than what was lost -- infinitely more so.
And so with the church. He will have it for His bride, He will be "glorified in his saints, and ... admired in all them that have (see footnote) believed, ... in that day".
Just as the Son came down in the incarnation, though He was God upon the earth before, upholding all things by the word of His power; so the Holy Ghost came at Pentecost, though, at the beginning of Genesis, He, too, moved upon the face of the waters.
No one can hinder there being "one body", but when you come to keeping "the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace", you get that power of the Spirit of God that makes me practically realise the unity of the body in the path down here. God alone can carry it out, but that is what I get down here.
In the house are false brethren crept in unawares; but there is no such thing as false members in the body. If you strike my hand, I say, why are you striking me? But I do not speak thus of a house. Failure does not destroy the character of the house as such; if badly built, it is still a house. Just as the Lord says of the temple, "My Father's house", though they had made it a den of thieves.
I believe we all ought to be on our faces for what has become to Christ's beautiful flock.
Paul tells them in 2 Corinthians 3 they are the epistle of Christ; but look and see what they are now doing -- all going to the theatre and getting money! Why they can do that in China, without Christianity. How different to see the power of the Spirit of God, which associates the hearts so completely with Christ, so that He says, "They are not of the world even as I am not of the world". Are we then epistles of Christ?
Do we not owe it to Christ -- to His love that kept back nothing but gave Himself for us, that we should be as such, "known and read of all men"?
There are no keys to the church; that, is just traditional nonsense; people do not build with keys; but Christ builds His church.
If people really heeded the word of God, and took simply from Scripture what Scripture states, such things would never; be said.
Nor do I talk about private judgment on such things; between man and man that is all very well, reasonable enough, but do you think if God has spoken to me, I am to talk of private judgment on what He has said?
I can understand an unbeliever not knowing what is God's mind, and reasoning about what is written; but man by reasoning never got faith at all; and man's reason is perfectly incompetent to judge about God and His words.
If my mind could judge about God, then God is the subject matter, and my mind is the master of the subject matter.
It is a mistake altogether. You want a word from God to reach conscience, that is the first thing. I grant you man's mind is the measure of all the truth he can have, but the first thing I want is a hammer upon conscience.
Suppose I knock you down, does it not make an impression upon you? You are acted upon. This is what conscience needs. But people think it must be the activity of their own minds.
I do not take a candle out to see if the sun is shining! But if I do not see the sunshine, everybody who has eyes will say to me, "You are blind".
My "flesh" belongs to the old creation, and for that reason the Christian is in a mixed condition; his spirit belongs to Christ in heaven, and his body is still part of the old creation, so that we groan being burdened. There is sin, too, but Christ has borne my guilt, and I have nothing to do now but to judge the evil.
Where a person is in earnest, he is really more concerned at finding sin working in him, than he is about things done in the past.
The only perfection put before the Christian is conformity to Christ in glory. I have got Christ in glory as my life, and I am never satisfied until I am in that glory. The only perfection presented to the Christian is a glorified Christ in heaven, and you will be conformed to that when the time comes, but now, meanwhile, I must be as much like Him as I can; 2 Corinthians 3:18.
You will never find such a thing in Scripture as our having to die with Christ. We have died. So he who is alive in sin is dead to God. But Christ came down to where I was, dead in my sins, and put my sins away, and then God takes me, and puts me in the place where Christ now is.
As to flesh, I am no debtor to it, nor can be, for it ruined me.
Are you part of My bride -- My body -- and you won't take the cross here with Me? What is crown up there is cross down here.
If we want real spiritual understanding, it is to be found in clinging to Christ.
The highest privilege we have as Christians is in the Lord's message, "I ascend unto my Father and your Father; and to my God, and your God".
But was it the disciples who carried it? No, they went to the sepulchre, and saw, and went back; but it was Mary Magdalene who took it to the disciples; for she clung to an empty sepulchre.
Verse 2 is as to priests "taken from among men", but the Irvingites took all this, and applied it to Christ.
It is not strictly priestly work, though it is what the high priest did. In the end of Hebrews 2 you get Christ making reconciliation, and, in that sense, He was High Priest on the cross. It was not intercession there, but it laid the foundation of all subsequent priesthood.
On the day of atonement, the high priest stood, not as priest between man and God, but as representing the whole people.
Ques. Would the scapegoat come in, as in resurrection afterwards?
No, certainly not. The second bird in Leviticus 14 was more in resurrection.
On the day of atonement the high priest did everything, carrying in incense, and then the blood within the vail. Nobody could go in but himself, and he did all the work; but he was not there as a go-between, which a priest is, but as a representative. It was not, therefore, properly priestly work, though he did it.
The people stood on the ground of this day of atonement throughout the year.
Ques. What are the "gifts" in our first verse?
Gifts were not for sins; they were the firstfruits and all kinds of things.
Ques. How far could you speak of Christ as High Priest on the cross?
Only as in the end of chapter 2. But Christ confessing my sins on His own head, is not as priest but as substitute. It is a mere expression to say He confessed them, but He stood there under them. I said "confessing" because the high priest of old did so.
Ques. When do you connect the calling of God a high priest, with Christ?
It is "saluted". Calling there means just as you would salute a king, "Long live the king!"
Ques. When do you put the moment of His appointment?
It was really on the cross that He first acted in a high-priestly character.
As to the question of time, you get two steps; though first, in Psalm 110, you have testimony as to His appointment.
He becomes a man to be able to take that place, and then it is, "Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee". You must carry this thought with you in Hebrews that the order according to which He is addressed is not the order according to which He is exercising His priesthood now. His order is that of Melchisedec, but His priestly service is after the analogy of Aaron. He is a priest on the throne in the order He belongs to, and, as long as I get Him a living Man, He is a living priest.
Ques. What of the second Psalm?
There you get the counsels of God as to Christ. At the same time the kings stand up, and for the moment, it was -- one can hardly say, frustrated, and yet in a certain sense it was so. But "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh, the Lord shall have them in derision".
In Psalm 110 it is, "Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec". Afterwards, when He says, "Sit at my right hand", you have the person glorified. This Man, who was going to be the priest, is the Son of God; He did not glorify Himself, but God did so who said to Him, in Psalm 2, "Thou art my Son".
Nathaniel owns Him, Son of God and King of Israel, in these characters of Psalm 2. Psalm 8 goes beyond what we are now speaking of.
Ques. Was He not glorified on the day of His baptism?
Yes, in a certain way, and publicly so.
The Jews could have no confidence in a person who was not called of God; and this was not lacking in the One whom the Spirit of God was now presenting to them.
Ques. What was the moment of the official calling or saluting?
He was a competent Person in His incarnation, but His baptism was His public inauguration. He could not enter upon His functions until He had something to offer, and He did not actually take His place as a priest before. And now, having passed through the heavens up to the third heavens, He is as Aaron.
Ques. Is that the force of rending the vail?
Not His going through it, but His opening the way into the holiest. The blow that fell on Him rent the vail, but that is quite a different thing.
On the cross, He is victim as well as priest. He dies; and then the great day of atonement is carried out. He is now priest at God's right hand, just as Aaron went in, only He has not yet come out again.
After His baptism, He goes through the processes that try Him; "Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered".
And then He becomes both victim and also priest.
Ques. Does Psalm 110 only apply to Him in resurrection?
Yes, and also when He comes back again.
Ques. But Psalm 110 commences with His going up?
No, clearly not. That is what we see in Hebrews: "We Have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens". The Melchisedec priesthood is not yet come. He is sitting upon His Father's throne, not upon His own throne.
Ques. Then we are instructed by Aaron as to what a priest is?
Yes. Melchisedec is of a different character. In Genesis 14 it is blessing up and blessing down, after triumph. But bearing us through the wilderness is not Melchisedec at all.
Ques. Yet that comes nearest home to us now?
Of course it does. He is not viewed here as priest for our sins, except, as we have seen, to make reconciliation for them (Hebrews 2:17), and that work is finished.
Ques. I have heard some expressions such as, He ever lives to plead His blood?
I have nothing to do with a bad conscience in Hebrews. I have a conscience perfected for ever, and so no more conscience of sins.
And so I can't have a priest for my sins in Hebrews; I have for my infirmities, but not for my sins. The work He has done on the cross has perfected me for ever. But in the evangelical world the habit is to have a priest for my sins, and to go to a priest -- Christ -- to get to God. I get an absolutely perfect conscience as regards my sins, so He cannot be pleading in that respect. The question is, can I come into the holiest?
In 1 John 2, "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous", it is a question not of imputation, but of communion. If I let sin in to my mind, communion is interrupted, and then it is not that I go to the Advocate, but the Advocate goes for me. That is for the restoration of the soul to communion which has been interrupted as the consequence of sin; but in Hebrews I have nothing to do with that; here I want grace in time of need.
Ques. But is there, then, restoration of communion the moment I have sinned?
No, indeed, there is not. Take Peter's case. The Lord, after His resurrection, goes to the root of the mischief with him, and says, "Lovest thou me more than these?" There is no practical restoration to communion with God, until I have judged the sin, and confessed it. But then it is advocacy for that, and not the priesthood.
Ques. What would you say were infirmities, as distinguished from sins?
Well, even Christ could say, "Reproach hath broken my heart", and could look for someone to have compassion, and He can now, be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. That is very distinct from sins. In Hebrews 12 it says that He "endured such contradiction of sinners against himself". Am I to shrink back as Peter did?
Ques. That would be sin, would it not?
It turned into sin, for he cursed and swore he did not know the Lord, when he did.
Ques. Would sorrow for sin committed in time past come under Christ's priesthood?
In one sense He sympathises with you in this. He delights at any rate to see godly sorrow. The troubles and trials He went through in the path of obedience fitted Christ to be a priest. We have to learn to be obedient, and what obedience is; but Christ was always obedient, and He learned what it is in the place of obedience. Christ was not like Jewish priests, compassed with infirmity while a priest, but He learned the lesson while here, and now uses it in favour of us while He is there. Such a high priest became us because we belong there; therefore He has to be a priest there, yet knowing everything here.
I want a high priest where I go in, worshipping, and so now Christ has gone into the true holy place in heaven. But
the fact is, I find the difficulties are down here; in spirit I go into the holy of holies, but I want the help of the high priest, in my walk down here, as well as His maintenance there, where, in spirit, I enter.
Ques. Why does it say "eternal salvation"?
You find that word in Hebrews in contrast with what Jews had. The Lord has been thoroughly consecrated; He has got His anointing, and is completely fitted for His priesthood, and therefore it is eternal salvation.
Ques. But we are not seated in the heavens in Hebrews?
Just so, we only go in as worshippers. Viewed as seated in Christ in the heavens we don't want a priest. But down here we do. Now Christ has learned the difficulties, and I am to walk in the path where they are, while He helps me.
Ques. There is a parenthesis to the end of verse 10 in chapter 6?
Yes, He is anxious to take the Hebrews out of the earthly things into the heavenly things.
It is "the principles of the doctrine of Christ", i.e., the doctrinal beginning of Christ. A godly Jew might have had all that he names, but he says, 'I can't go back to that; it is all true, and had its place in the Jewish system, but I cannot go back to it'; though they were in danger of doing so. But if you have what Christianity gives you, you can't fall back on Judaism.
"It is impossible for those who were once enlightened, etc". The nation had crucified the Lord, but they were guilty of that when they had only the doctrine of the beginning of Christ; but now, after they have got all that Christianity has brought, if they reject that, then they have crucified Him individually; just the very thing they were guilty of nationally; and there remains no other gospel for them.
There were two gospels, the one which, so far as it went, the Jews had before Christ rose, and that which was announced when the Holy Ghost came down from heaven and revealed the powers of the world to come. Well, then, the apostle says, if a man gives up all that, there is no other gospel. Such an one is not converted. The illustration in the verses 7 and 8 shews us that. Verses 9 and 10 are a contrast; the moment I get the fruits of life I know life is there.
Ques. Why does he say, "Renew them again"?
They had been professedly brought in before and might
have been speaking with the tongues of men and of angels.
Yes, the apostle says so in 1 Corinthians 13, that is why I quoted it; they had been brought into the presence of the whole power of the Holy Ghost.
Ques. Would it apply to any in Christendom now?
Well, many in Christendom hardly own the Holy Ghost; they have more John Baptist's teaching and truth. In this passage it is the Holy Ghost, and what is showered down from heaven; while in chapter 10 it is the same reasoning as regards sacrifice. If you are not converted by all this immense blessing, there is nothing else for you except judgment. The danger of falling back was there, though God keeps His own.
Ques. Is it anything like "anon with joy receiveth it"?
Perhaps so; but that is a bad sign, unless consciences have been reached before. The passage here speaks of the sin of apostasy; they confess the thing and then turn away.
Just so. It is doing it deliberately. It is the giving up Christ and going back to Judaism.
Ques. Is it a present professing of Christianity and then going into infidelity?
Only you must see if such an one is snared by the devil.
Again, there is power to be thought of, and the way in which I preach the gospel to such a person. Paul could say, "If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them", but I could not say that, because I could not say that I preach it so.
You may, too, get the understanding convinced, and the affections moved, but nothing done at all. Man's understanding was convinced at the end of John 2, but it was merely a rational conviction that God must be with Christ. Not one of them went to Christ, for there was no divine life.
Ques. What of those in John 12?
I don't know. It says many believed on Him, but at the same time they did not confess Him, though they got their minds convinced.
Ques. Are not these in Hebrews 6 in the place of Cain?
The great thing is, I have got Christianity which has brought the Holy Ghost. He is come, and these professors have been
made partakers of it like Balaam; or like the many who say, "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?" But He shall say He never knew them.
People have forgotten that the Holy Ghost is come. All recognition of Him is so utterly gone. To my mind, the very principle of "the clergy" involves that; and if you look at 2 Corinthians 11:13 - 15, you will find you have now to watch that you do not mistake a demon for the Holy Ghost. "False apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ; and no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light; therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness".
In Galatians 3:5, Paul speaks of him "that ministereth to you the Spirit". Ask any ordinary person what ministering the Spirit is, and he does not know what you mean by it. But to the Galatians who in their minds were falling from grace, he could say, "How did you get the Holy Ghost?"
Ques. Was not the receiving of the Holy Ghost in the Galatians deeper than an outward thing?
I have no doubt it was really, for he says, "I have confidence in you through the Lord"; but they were going on so badly, that he did not know what to make of them.
Ques. You would make the gift of the Holy Ghost distinct from the gifts given by Him?
Ques. What is the difference between 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4?
In 1 Corinthians 12 you have gifts in power, and the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets, so that in the case of the gift of a tongue, one may have to hold his tongue. That is power.
In Ephesians I get Christ going on high, and carrying the church on to the end; it is no question of the Spirit and power, but of Christ caring for His own body. A person having a gift is a very different thing from its exercise. People were not used as mere machines.
There is a difference, too, between a revelation and my
spiritual apprehension of the mind of Christ in what is already revealed.
The doctrine of Irvingism was that the Holy Ghost had come back again. But the Lord said, "that he may abide with you for ever". None of their apostles ever got the gifts. Gifts of healing I think nothing of, because if we had the faith, they would be seen now. I have seen them at Plymouth.
Ques. Is "salvation" in verse 9 future? (Hebrews 6.)
In one sense salvation is future, for there is a waiting for "salvation ready to be revealed", and yet you have salvation; it is so with eternal life, and even justification, for Paul says, "And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law"that refers to the display of it all.
Here he is speaking of the things that accompany salvation.
Ques. Would you say more about a person being led by the Spirit in power to speak or not?
What we see here is, that a man may be a partaker of the Holy Ghost, and yet not be saved. Remember, the most glorious prophecy that you can find in Scripture was uttered by Balaam, the wickedest man that ever was. But a divine person come down from heaven with power is what people don't believe.
Ques. Would Christ give power to anyone now to cast out devils?
I think the church ought always to be able to turn a devil out.
Ques. Do you think persons are ever possessed in that way now?
Ques. What is the manifestation of it?
That is a question of discerning of spirits; I believe I have seen it; but that is a question of my discernment.
Ques. Do you think any believer may have power to turn a devil out?
Prince(see footnote) -- of the Agapemone -- once said he could do nothing at all while brethren were in the town.
The great point here is the total change of the whole system and order of everything. It is in contrast with the law founded on the priesthood. In shewing this, he takes up this mysterious person who appeared to Abram in the character of priest of the Most High God, not of Jehovah.
In putting Himself into relationship with man, God has taken four distinct names, viz -
He protects Abram in the character of Almighty. In the bush He takes this name Jehovah -- one who never gives up His promises.
To us, He is Father. The Lord says, "I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world". The name of "Father", carries with it eternal life.
Life and incorruptibility were not brought to light before the Lord came; not that they were not there, for as Son of God, He quickened from Adam, but there was no revelation of eternal life. Eternal life came down in the Person of Christ. "In him was life; and the life was the light of men", "that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us", so that, "he that hath the Son hath life"; and "this is life eternal that they might know thee (the Father), the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent".
The fourth name is "Most High", possessor of heaven and earth, that will be when He takes to Himself His great power and reigns -- all the earth taken into possession.
Ques. Was not the name of "Father" in the Lord's prayer?
It was there, but they could not cry it, though He taught it them and was the Revealer of the Father. Of old the name was used in a very vague way, but there was no individual knowledge of God as such.
We, however, are already the sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus. God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son, that we might receive the adoption of sons. Of old, no one ever really got into the place of a son. But the Lord was teaching the disciples
according to the revelation of the Son down here, while as yet they had not the Spirit of adoption. It was a transitional time with them.
Merely, "Father, Father". The Lord revealed the name of the Father, but, until He had accomplished redemption, He could not put them into the place of sons, so that they might have the conscious knowledge of it.
The same kind of thing runs right through the gospels. The disciples were utterly incapable of entering into what He told them. They had no idea of redemption, nor of the place into which redemption would bring them; but still Christ revealed the Father. "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father". They ought to have seen this, but they did not.
"Most High" is the name revealed to Abram when he had conquered. (Notice there is no intercession by Melchisedec.) In Zechariah, Christ takes that character as priest upon His throne, and the counsel of peace will be between them both, i.e., between Jehovah and Christ upon earth.
The revelation of God at each particular period was what faith had to go upon. That makes these names so important; while as for our names they merely distinguish us from one another. So when He wrestled with Jacob, He would not give him His name. In Deuteronomy you find, "Thou shalt be perfect with Jehovah, thy God"; but to us, it is not said, "with", but "be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect".
"Most High" is when all things are headed up in one, and He has taken possession. It comes out here, but it is not fulfilled yet.
Though Christ is priest after the order of Melchisedec, His priestly service is analogous to that of Aaron. Melchisedec is a mysterious person, a king, too, on earth, both king of righteousness and king of peace. But as to the present condition of things, the Lord says, "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth, but a sword".
No; because he was "made like unto the Son of God". He is purposely made mysterious.
I do not know. He is put there, and that is all I know, with neither beginning of days, nor end of life as to priesthood. The sons of Aaron were limited and began at twenty-five or thirty years old, as they may have been initiated for five years. But that is the contrast.
Ques. What is the normal idea of priesthood?
"To offer gifts and sacrifices", it says in Hebrews.
Up to Sinai the head of the family seems to have acted as priest both for himself and for his family, but not for other people. Aaron and his sons were mediators. In Exodus, sacrifices were offered by "young men"; but there is no statement of their institution.
Ques. Would Exodus 19:22 and Exodus 24:5 be the same thing?
It is not quite the same occasion, but the "young men" acted as priests.
Melchisedec has nothing to do with all that; he does not offer sacrifices at all, he blesses up, and he blesses down. After the victory of Abram is complete, he blesses him from the Most High God and then he blesses the Most High God.
And Christ abides a priest "continually". It is important to notice that word all through the epistle; it means uninterruptedly -- for a continuance.
It is the same in chapter 10: 12 for Christ sitting at the right hand of God. He is King of righteousness, and King of peace, but He does not talk about the throne yet. He is constantly a priest and does not give that up to anybody else, and that is the reason it is intransmissible.
Aaron's sons were obliged to transmit their priesthood by reason of death, but Christ's is unchanging and unchangeable.
All this argument is most effectual with a Jew. Great as Aaron was, Melchisedec was greater. And Levi paid tithes in Abram. What he is seeking to shew is that the whole Jewish system must go; it is superseded so that there must be another priest. There would not have been any disannulling of the old thing, if it were to continue. But the priesthood being changed, you must have the whole system changed.
None but the sons of Aaron could be priests, but now another priest having arisen, all must be changed.
He is addressing Jews. They would admit the teaching of Psalm 110. Then what becomes of your Aaronic priesthood?
At this moment the new Priest is sitting at the right hand of the Father until His foes be made His footstool. And it is left at that, so that no one can tell when He will come forth fully as Melchisedec. But the Aaronic priesthood is set on one side; and people could not offer anything themselves -- could have nothing to say to God, except through the priesthood.
Now in that we have been speaking of God was dealing with man upon the earth; He "spake on earth", He came down here into the tabernacle; God was on the earth and man looked at as living and responsible; therefore God says, "You cannot come near me". He placed a barrier round Sinai, and a vail in the tabernacle.
Most interesting figures there were of things now revealed in Christianity, but man could not then draw near to God. God gave a law of ten commandments, and it was a perfect rule to man as alive in the flesh in this world. He took up the Jewish people for the purpose, but the whole nation turned to idolatry. What more could God have done for that nation than He did?
Nothing. Thus it was with God Himself on the earth, and a priesthood on the earth; and God says, "I will bless you if you behave well".
All this supposes man to be alive on the earth -- the cross supposes man to be dead, while in another sense it brings in death to him. And it rends the vail as well. The law treated man as alive and responsible, but never as dead.
Then God came into the world in Christ, and man would not have Him, but crucified Him. And in the death of Christ God was no longer a hidden God. Now death comes and says two things to me: if you are not a believer, you are dead; and, if you are a believer, you have died in Christ, and are now alive unto God in Christ.
So when, in death, Christ had by Himself purged our sins, He "sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high", and the vail of the temple was rent in twain.
Ques. You say man was alive and responsible under law, is he not so still?
The history of man in responsibility goes on up to the cross; but, since the cross, a man, though individually he goes through the discovery of what he is, is not in a state of probation at all; responsibility in that sense is over. Here is a man who, say, has been trading, and has not a farthing left. It is of no use saying to him, "Take care of your money". He could only say, "I have no money to take care of".
So, as a present thing, when I have really found out my state, I find I am lost. Christ came to seek and to save the lost, not those who are in a state of probation. Still, I personally must go through the learning process.
I see I am lost already, my state is enmity against God; that is a present fact, i.e., in my unconverted state.
Now, when in my enmity I rejected Christ, God gave Christ to cleanse me from it, and I am brought to own this. As a man, I am done with, and I am no more in the flesh, for it was condemned in the cross; but I am clear now, and through the rent vail I go into the holiest as white as snow.
But to return to the Melchisedec priesthood. Christ is not yet acting in that character; His title to it is all clear, but He has not entered upon its exercise; He is exercising His priesthood according to Aaron.
Ques. Is there nothing for us of heavenly blessing through the Melchisedec character?
I know nothing of it. There is nothing now in connection with Melchisedec except patience. Melchisedec is king as well as priest, but he has not yet taken to Him His great power and reigned. The object here is to shew Jews how completely Judaism is set aside. That part of it that contains instruction for us is the Aaronic comparison. When the temple comes, it will be Melchisedec; but in Hebrews it is tabernacle, not temple.
Ques. Does the latter part of verse 19 follow on from verse 18?
The parenthesis is in the words, "For the law made nothing perfect".
Ques. What is the "better hope"?
Christianity. Coming to God by Christ. Confidence in the grace manifested in Christ.
Ques. What is the difference between "law" and "commandments"?
None here. None anywhere, except Christ's commandments. Commandments involves not merely doing right, but obedience.
But I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. And then I get another responsibility as a Christian; if I say, I abide in Him, I ought also so to walk, even as He walked. Christ ever manifested God in grace, in all His ways through this world. I am responsible in the place I am set in; but as a man I was totally lost; now, I am in Christ.
Ques. As lost, am I responsible to repent, and believe the gospel?
Oh yes. But such a one has not to walk so as to see whether he can stand in judgment, and he is not under law to Christ.
In 1 Corinthians 9 they have put out of that verse the positive declaration that we are not under law at all. In verse 21 of that chapter it is, "To those without law, as without law, (not as without law to God, but as legitimately subject to Christ), in order that I might gain those without law". There they have kept the saving clause as to himself actually, but in the twentieth verse they have omitted it: "To those under law, as under law, not being myself under law, in order that I might gain those under law".
So it should be without a doubt. I suppose they thought it might do mischief, and so left it out?
Copyists left it out. But the Sinaitic, Alexandrine and Vatican MSS. have it with C. D. E. F. G., i.e., pretty much all of them. For our version they had not many MSS. Stephens in 1550 had only thirteen at Paris, and perhaps the Beza at Cambridge, though that is doubtful. The Elzevirs in 1635 made some additions to the text, saying it was received by everybody. They made the two Lord's prayers alike in Luke and Matthew, because they did not like two Lord's prayers.
The English Authorised Version was made in 1611, but the "Textus Receptus" was not issued until 1665.
Ques. Why "Under law to Christ"?
Well, the term should be, "Rightly subject to Christ".
Do not be afraid of the word 'commandment', only remember it is not mere doing right that is wanted; if we did everything right, nothing would be right, if it was not obedience.
But the moment you put a man under law you put him under condemnation, i.e., if you talk of it as a rule of life. I
say it is a rule of death. Have you loved God with all your heart today? No. Then either the law must lose its power, or you are damned.
The seventh of Romans is clear enough that you cannot have two husbands at a time. If you are under law, you have not got Christ risen; but if you are in Christ risen, you are not under law. It is important to see clearly that the law has power over a man so long as he lives.
Nor is God's law a merely arbitrary thing. Neither is the Sabbath, for that was instituted when man was created; the law put God's sanction on man's various duties, duties which flowed from his relationships. All these duties had existed prior to the law, but the law was the perfect rule of those duties; on that ground I am lost for ever.
Worse! When Christ came, I would not have Him either.
So now, in the end of the world, the end of all God's moral dealings with the world, Christ did a work which places us on a totally new ground. But then, that is the work which is done -- a work by which God is both just and a justifier.
So the question now is, To which MAN do I belong?
I belong to the MAN that is in heaven.
On earth lawless sin was found in the Gentiles; law-breaking, in Israel; added to this, grace has been refused in Christ; so that now all is over. Only, I have to find this out for myself.
"In the end of the world", i.e., in the end of the dispensations -- not dispensation -- "in the completion of the ages, Christ hath appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself". Consequently I get Christ's work as the ground upon which I already am with God.
Instead of going to the judgment-seat to find it out, I know that I am damned before I go there.
Ques. It says in 1 Peter 4:1, "He that hath suffered in the flesh". What is that?
It is the same in principle as Paul; you cannot get on to the true ground of practice except by reckoning yourself dead. "Ye are dead", because Christ has died, "and your life is hid with Christ in God". I am dead; that is not suffering. If you come to practice, it is "always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus". If I constantly carry the cross, the flesh never can stir, and nothing but the life of Christ flows out.
Peter's is the experimental reckoning self to be dead. There, I arm myself with the same mind. If I always reckoned myself absolutely dead, Satan could do nothing with me whatever.
In 1 John 1, verse 7 is absolute. I am walking in the light, as God is in the light. We have fellowship one with another. And the blood cleanses from all sin. These are the three parts of Christian standing.
The law takes up the conduct fitting for man as man; but, now the vail is rent, the question is, can I stand in God's presence in the full light, without any vail at all? This is quite another thing. If I can stand there, then I can have to say to God. And I have boldness to enter into the holiest, and the effect of the light is to show me that I am as white as snow.
Ques. Then would you say that every Christian is walking in the light?
Yes, he is walking in it, but I would not say according to it; he may not even know his privileges.
Ques. Would you say that a Christian is walking in darkness when he commits sin?
He would be walking according to darkness.
Ques. Does not John suppose a Christian walking in darkness?
No, never. I get no uncertainty; as being a Christian my walk is in God's light, according to His nature. The passage does not contemplate failure or otherwise.
If any one cannot view such statements abstractly, he will never understand them at all.
Ques. But in Galatians 5:17 it says, "Ye cannot do the things that ye would"?
That is really nonsense, and abominable doctrine, too; the flesh tries to hinder me from walking spiritually; the true reading should be, "So that ye should not do".
Ques. Is being "in Christ" the same thing as having the Holy Ghost?
It is not the same thing, but I know it by the Holy Ghost. "In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you", that is when the Holy Ghost is given.
Ques. It says that Christ as High Priest is "made higher than the heavens"?
Yes, because that is where I must go.
Ques. What would be looked for rightly in a person who was seeking fellowship?
Taking it on simple ground, it is that he should have the Spirit of Christ and be walking according to it.
Ques. Being a member of Christ's body?
Well, that is having the Spirit of Christ.
I have these two great principles to get hold of, the original principle of the unity of the body; and, then again, that we are outside the camp; or at least, I am; I don't know if everybody is.
Forty years ago there was nothing but the recognised systems, and so far the path was simple; but now, the idea of liberty to meet together is spread all over the country. Indeed, what they call the universal freedom of Christians as in the evangelical alliance is just on that ground, only they accept, in practice, the camp.
One has to reconcile these two principles, which I believe is simple in practice, where there is singleness of eye. There is no difficulty if people are but real.
It was an arrangement of religion for the world. In Israel, God raised that question for man as he was, and it could not be carried through. Then, as we know, God brought in His Son but He was rejected, and was taken up to heaven. God did spare the Jews, but as they rejected the testimony of Stephen, heavenly things were brought in; there was thus an end of the camp, i.e., of God's owning it, for the cross had already put an end to it; then the supplementary grace through Stephen was refused, and he was put to death. This put an end to the camp, and you get the church formed with a heavenly character.
Gradually it gave up its heavenly character, and settled down to the earth, and became a camp.
It still pretended to be the body.
But now in God's mercy, we turn back to the heavenly character of it, the heavenly calling, and the unity of the body; and maintain that, and go outside the camp, i.e., the worldly system of religion.
And that is where the difficulty comes in.
Here is a person who is a member of the body, but who stays in the camp, now we have carefully to maintain the unity of the body, or we have no ground of fellowship at all.
Whoever has the Spirit of Christ is a member of the body, and that we own; though if one be walking inconsistently, and in some actual thing that calls for it, he must be put out. For fellowship, therefore, he must be not only a member of the body, but also a member of the body walking uprightly.
Ques. How would you define the camp?
It is an earthly religious system, connecting the name of God with it; whatever does that, has the character of the camp. It is a matter of spiritual discernment and judgment. The word 'camp', of course, refers to Israel, and to Moses, pitching a tent far off from the camp. He, himself, went back into the camp in testimony, but Joshua did not.
Ques. You said the true thing became the camp?
Yes, that which had been the true thing in the first instance. One great thing that characterises it is, de facto, the clergy. I do not say this constitutes it; but that is its flag.
Ques. Then would you have anything to do with one of them?
I should not go habitually with clergymen. I could associate with any Christian on grounds that are scriptural; but where there is openly that which is not scriptural, it must make a restraint as to communion. But if I meet a saint in a train, I do not ask him who he is.
Ques. Then could you acknowledge a church?
I should not go into one at all. But as to individuals, you find various perceptions of principles, and must discern.
Here was a good man with meetings at his house, and he asked me to go; I did not refuse to go down to a reading meeting in his basement; but, I said, if I stand up there so, I should be standing up as a clergyman. But he stuck to his system, and would not alter his way.
Ques. Then is it wrong or not to go on with Christians in denominations for the furtherance of the Lord's work?
Well, I did for a little while, but I found the trumpet gave an uncertain sound.
Ques. If a clergyman were to ask you, would you go into a fair, and stand up with him to speak?
It might be, but that would depend. If I saw him hooted,
I might stand by him as a Christian, though I could not as a clergyman.
I should say, keep your feet in the narrow way, and your heart as large as you can.
It is of no use trying to make fellowship; it is not real; you can't shake oil and water together, and not find that they will soon separate again.
[Reference was here made to much connected with 'Bethesda', and is omitted.]
There are cases where you could do nothing. For ten years I did not go to Italy, because they were half Newtonians, and so I left it with the Lord. Then they all got into such a bad state, that I could go clearly, and no difficulty be raised by it.
If I found that any one's manner of work was not right, I could not go with it or them.
There is a large system that recognises the camp, and that I could not do.
Ques. If you owned them in any way, they would want you next Lord's day to break bread with them as well?
Ques. Do you not find that most of them are holding some bad doctrine such as that Christ bore the sins of all?
Ques. Is there not sufficient work to be done among those who are true, without going to seek it elsewhere?
I believe there is plenty. We are often charged with narrowness in not going on with others, but that I don't mind. It is a narrow way that we have to walk in, but it is the narrow way that is objected to.
Ques. To go back; if you receive a person to the breaking of bread, it is on the ground of his being a member of the body of Christ?
Ques. Could you work with every one who is breaking bread?
Oh dear, no; I break bread constantly with some with whom I could not go to preach at all.
Ques. What about those whom you sometimes hear of who wish to break bread as Christians?
I should insist that such should put no condition on the church of God, any more than the church should put a condition upon them.
Ques. Should not a person be baptised to be received at the table?
As to order, he should be baptised first. If any one refused intelligently and deliberately to be baptised, I think he should not be received.
Both as to reception and as to fellowship in work, specially the latter, there are plenty of difficulties, which nothing but spirituality or communion with the Lord can solve. And the difficulties grow.
Remember you put ships into quarantine from ports where it is known that disease is raging; and that is done in ports where otherwise all ships would be received. When I met T. I did not ask him whether he were a thief or not, because I had not the remotest idea of such a thing; but if he had come from a thieves' home I should have liked to know if he were clear.
Ques. What are the evidences of a soul being really a member of the body of Christ?
Ques. What would you judge as unmistakable proof of a person being sealed?
Does he say, "Abba, Father", really?
Ques. But then a person may get into darkness after that?
Ah! but I don't think such would have the consciousness of the relationship. And therefore I said "really". You may find "Father" said from habit of training as to words.
Ques. Do you think a person sealed ever does get into the seventh chapter of Romans?
I do not believe that a person who has got hold of the redemption that brings him out of Romans 7 ever gets into Romans 7 again.
There is a distinction between the person and the work of Christ. A man may believe that Jesus is the Christ through God's work in his soul, and then he is a child of God. He may believe that, and not know that Christ's work has put all his sins away. That may happen, and it did happen when they said, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" It was because they believed that Jesus is the Christ, and that they had crucified their Messiah and all was over with them, and they were lost, that they said so.
Ques. Then do you connect the sealing with the knowledge of forgiveness?
I do. But I should not dogmatise upon it.
The Scripture order is, washed with water, sprinkled with blood, anointed with oil.
Ques. In Romans 8, "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ"is that the Holy Ghost?
Yes, certainly. Only in applying it, it is necessary to make allowance for all the bad teaching people get.
Ques. But every quickened person is a child of God?
Ques. Can one be a child of God and not be washed?
Yes; that is to say, he has not got it in his own conscience, though he has it all in God's mind for him; but then he has the glory in God's mind, though, clearly, he has not got that yet.
Ques. And "dead with Christ", too?
Yes; but many of those breaking bread -- and who are rightly doing so -- do not know what it is to be dead with Christ.
The resurrection is the seal God has put upon the value of Christ's blood.
Ques. What is the earnest of the Spirit?
The Holy Ghost dwelling in me is the earnest of all the glory which I have not got yet.
Ques. What is the difference between the earnest and the sealing?
The earnest is a particular operation in my heart of the seal.
It is all the same thing. Christ anoints us with the Holy Ghost, and that is putting the seal upon us, which is the earnest.
Read John 11:28 and on.
In verse 25, "Resurrection and the life" is the power of life come into the world, in the Person of Christ.
It was a new thing. The Jews could all understand healing the sick, so Martha says (and Mary too), "Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died".
Ques. In what sense does Martha own Him to be the Son of God?
As born into the world. And, as Son of God, they were bound to own Him to be the Messiah.
This Gospel does not give us a genealogy to Abraham or to Adam. John presents Jesus as "Son of God", and as "The Word" which "was God".
We now get God's final testimony to Christ's three characters. Here, it is Son of God; in chapter 12: 12 - 15, it is Son of David; and in chapter 12: 20 - 23, it is Son of man; and as such He was rejected as come into the world. The Psalms open so. Psalm 1 gives you a remnant separated; it is not the nation publicly, but a remnant; that is the first principle of the book. In Psalm 2 you get Messiah's place in God's counsels, and then in man's heart (not redemption at all) but in spite of man, He is set King in Zion. Next, out from that you get troubles, the result of Christ's rejection by man. Then in Psalm 8 you get the Son of man crowned with glory and honour -- God's full intention accomplished in Christ. These three Psalms form a basis.
So in John. He was Son of God and King of Israel, but He says He must die for that.
The remnant will be looking for deliverance from Jehovah, but will not know Him as Redeemer until they see Him.
Christ entered into all the sorrow round Him at the grave; He groaned and was troubled; He saw the power of death over all these poor things; He enters thoroughly into it, and it presses upon Him. But He comes into the scene of death in the power of life.
Although He was One who could raise the dead, yet He does it only in service, because He had taken the place of a servant, and so He asks for it, "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me".
Ques. Would you pray for everything you wanted?
The prayer of want is all right. "In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God".
But the prayer of faith is always answered.
Christ did die for the nation, that all the promises of God might be fulfilled in a double way. He had promised under law, "if ye shall", i.e., upon condition; but to Abraham He had promised without condition; and, as to that, God was bound to perform.
At Sinai they took up the promises on condition of their own obedience, and they lost them all. They are to have all ultimately in another way, and so the apostle says, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!" etc.
Losing the promises under the law did not go the whole way, but it threw them upon absolute mercy, just like the Gentile; yet God fulfils His promises.
Ques. What is the connection between the promises and the new covenant in Hebrews 8?
In that passage it is that they must be born again, and then the law is written upon their hearts.
The new covenant is the shape in which it is to be done.
Ques. In Romans 15 Christ confirms the promises made unto the fathers, and yet the Gentiles glorify God for His mercy?
Yes. It was for the truth of God that Christ confirms the promises. But the Jews were sinners as well as the Gentiles, and they would not have the promises. So the promises were fulfilled righteously to this rebellious people through the cross, for Christ died for the nation, it having rejected Him as a living Messiah, and thus lost title to them. God will fulfil them, only the Jews have to come in on the ground of mercy, not on that of promise.
So the Lord told Nicodemus, you can't have these promises until you are born again, not even the earthly thing. But God will carry out all His purposes.
Ques. All!!? It says, "That the world through him might be saved"?
That is not a purpose of God at all.
Ques. What is "the everlasting covenant"?
That is the whole thing, between the Father and the Son, I suppose you may say, "A body hast thou prepared me",
and, "Lo, I come to do thy will". We are not under the new covenant, though we do get the good of it, and a great deal more.
Ques. Is the difference between the old and new covenants this, that the old is conditional, and the new is unconditional?
Precisely so. In the old you have "two", and it came to nothing, but "a mediator is not of one", and in the new, "God is one", and so God is bound and He says, "I will write".
Terms on which God prescribes for His people.
Ques. If we are not under the new covenant, how is Paul an able minister of it?
There would not be a ministry if we were under it.
Ques. Has a Christian a new heart?
Yes. But that is not a cleansing of the old one, just as if this table, say, was very dirty, and then the mahogany was well cleaned. That is the Wesleyan or Arminian idea of a new heart.
Ques. Then instead of mahogany, you would have rosewood?
Only the mahogany is there still. While, of course, new creation does effect cleansing.
Ques. If that is the everlasting covenant, what is the "counsel of peace"?
That was between Melchisedec and Jehovah, and is for blessing upon the earth.
"Gather together in one", is not church unity, but fallible unity.
John never touches the question of the church, it is all individual with him.
Ques. What was it that had scattered them?
It does not say that they had been scattered as by a single act, but only that they were then in that state.
Chapter 12
Mary's heart had been touched, and she was in spirit and in heart associated with Christ's death. That was a new place altogether.
I suppose her heart had gone beyond her knowledge -- "Here is the One I love going to die". Mary entered into that and gave it a voice. The Lord knew what she meant. She was no prophet, but her heart had the intuitive sense of what was coming on. They say that this Mary never went to the grave, and it does not appear that she did.
Ques. In Mark 14:3, she anointed His head; here, it is His feet; while in Luke 7 the woman of the city only anointed His feet?
It was not as a sinner that Mary came, so she anointed His head as well as His feet.
It is striking how the disciples came out at the end; Judas led, and they all chimed in with him, that it was "waste". Mary's is the one single instance of any one entering into the mind of Christ. You never get that among the disciples; they never understood Him; and, on that account, I take it, it is to be told for a memorial of her.
In verse 10 you get the dreadful hardness of the chief priests.
They consult to put Lazarus to death, because he had been raised up by the power of God.
In verse 20 it is true Greeks, not Hellenists.
He could not have had joint heirs, if He had not died to redeem them.
A living Messiah was a Jewish Messiah, but a crucified Messiah became the attractive point for the whole world.
"If any man serve me, let him follow me"; that recalls a line I read many years ago, "It is harder to live a Christian than to die a martyr".
There are two things which I should like to touch upon -- Salvation, and separation from the world.
The two practically run into one another: "Who gave himself for our sins, so that he should deliver us out of this present evil world". And these connect themselves, too, with deliverance from self.
Flesh has its religion as well as its lusts and pleasures.
As to Salvation; it is important we should know ourselves lost; but I think you will find many that have not got the simple plain consciousness that they are lost -- not really got it, I mean.
But if they are alive in this world, they are lost to God. I do not say "guilty" now, that is true, of course; but, lost. If I am lost, now I am; and there is nothing to judge.
I do not mean, shall be lost finally, but that now am lost, as to my state.
People don't believe it. They believe that they have sinned, and that Christ has died for their sins; but that does not touch this question of being lost.
But if I get the consciousness of being lost now already, and that Christ dealt with that on the cross also; I then get saved, and that now, and that is just what people have not got thoroughly. They know neither what it is to be lost, nor what it is to be saved.
It is not the first thing we get hold of, my conscience takes knowledge of my sins, and that must be settled, but there is this other thing.
As in the case of the prodigal son, he was just as much a sinner when he crossed his father's threshold, as when he was eating the husks with the swine. He had not degraded himself with the riotous living, but he had just as much turned his back upon God, and in that sense was lost just as much.
Now the world tries to check the evils of sin, and seeks to put down drunkenness and the like, and that is right so far. That is the difference between the old world before the flood, and after the flood.
It was corrupt and God had to destroy it, as it had become intolerable to God and man; after the flood, God put the power of the sword into the hand of man. That was not a
restoration of man to God. Man was the same after as he was before. But then, what was the first thing God did after He had put outward restraint upon man?
It was to call a person clean out of the world, saying, "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee". And connected with that, there was the promise of a seed, i.e., Christ, of course.
There I get a second man, another man, much more than a man, but still a man. And now the question is, What is my place? Is it in the second man, or is it in the first?
The world's place is in the first, i.e., the old creation; but the Christian's place is not in that at all. We are in it outwardly, and, as regards the body, we are "waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption" of it; but this we shall not get until the glory. But as regards our spiritual condition, we belong to the new creation entirely, and this is of immense moment. The change is total.
Look at all the human ordinances of the day we live in. Do you think we are going to have that kind of thing in heaven?
No. The first man -- Adam -- is done with for ever, as unchangeably evil, and the death of Christ has, to faith, closed this scene for ever. The moment God's Son was rejected, all that belonged to the first Adam was set aside, and God's dealings with it, as such, ended.
The world may try to imitate the new thing which God has set up, and get a religion in the flesh; it may have some sense of the church as in nominal Christendom, an outward thing to shew; but that will be instead of having it in heaven.
And then, too, there is a practical worldliness that sticks, more or less, to us all, even if we do not stick to it.
It all hangs on the one question: Am I alive in this world, or am I not? I mean, of course, looked at as in relation to God. I say, I am God's, and then, I have to go through this world. Christ had, but He said, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world". That makes all the difference.
Before God, can you mend the first Adam? Will you educate him, and get any good out of him? You will not. God tried it, and it ended in the death of His Son. The very world we are living in is the world that had God in it, but it
turned Him out. The flesh that I have got in me has had that Christ presented to it, and it rejected Him -- morally, that is. We cannot now, of course, kill Him outwardly.
But people put this flesh under law, and they fancy they can school it. Do you think they would insist so upon law, if they were sure and certain that the only thing it can do is to damn them?
For God, the world's history has been gone through and finished; and it has proved this, that no matter what man is, his church and all else, as having to say to God, man is found utterly bad and lost.
When God has set up anything good, the first thing man has always done has been to spoil it. Adam, Noah, Aaron, Nebuchadnezzar. The mind of the flesh is enmity against God.
And have not we got that nature?
Are you then going to educate and improve, and cultivate enmity against God?
It is lost, as to all connection with God.
The death of Christ was the moment of putting flesh to the test. It was not merely that men had sinned lawlessly, and then broke the law; but when God Himself came into the world in goodness, healing all that were oppressed of the devil, bearing their sicknesses, and carrying their sorrows, in the Person of Christ, then, because God was with Him, they would not have Him. That is what the cross of Christ tells me, and tells me about myself, and therefore I say that I am lost.
And we must learn that, if we are to get clear and straight; but you will find many a Christian that has not yet learnt it.
I quite admit that the first question we have before us is our guilt. Conscience must be reached, and that ought to be the first question for the soul. But if I want to get understanding in the path of the Christian, and get clear from the delusions of Satan, as well as from religiousness in the flesh, then I must get hold of the truth that I am lost already.
You will never know what it is to be saved until you know what it is to be lost.
It is a totally new thing brought out by God.
And now look at the cross in that aspect; you will see it is God cast out of the world, i.e., God in Christ.
Flesh's religion was Judaism, and people are very fond of it now, but God says, "I will not dwell in a house made with hands".
If I were to go into a church nowadays, I may have to take off my hat, but what to? What does doing so say? That it is God's house. Then I won't go into a temple and say that.
I won't take my hat off, to say that that is God's house.
I merely give that as an illustration, not that I would offend anybody, of course not, not even a Turk.
But God has judged all that; He tried it, and it utterly failed, and finally it rejected Himself.
Yet now, wise man will go back to flesh's religion and says, you must get the temple, and the vestments, and the music.
They come of man's mind, and what are they all?
Only flesh. Then I say, it is wrong altogether.
As a Christian I am not in the flesh, for that is outside Christianity. I am sure if anybody could delight in religious music, it was myself, even as a schoolboy, but then, what was that?
Now the cross was God's testing-place of it all.
I know there was supplementary grace, God responding to the prayer of Christ on the cross, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do". The Jews were led away by Satan to crucify Him, and the Lord interceded for them, so that Peter said, "I wot that through ignorance ye did it; repent, and Christ will come back again; if you will believe now in a glorified Christ, you shall have him back, though you would not believe in a humbled One".
But they would not. And so you get by Stephen, this testimony which I called supplementary; recounting the past history of the nation, he convicts them of having rejected Him whom God had sent. They had received the law by the disposition of angels, and had not kept it; they had persecuted the prophets, and they had slain those who shewed before the coming of the Just One; and of Him they had now become the betrayers and the murderers. But they gnashed their teeth upon him, stopped their ears, and stoned him.
There is the history of man, and of the testimony of God in the world; there is the end of religion for man in the world; and also, in a certain connection, with it as the object of promise, Christ rejected entirely, and man left simply and solely a lost sinner in this world. Not that he could not be saved, but such was his condition -- lost.
The life of Christ only brought out the state of man's heart as to God; while He Himself shewed what God was.
At the beginning, Satan tempted Him by the privileges that belonged to the Son of God, and at the close, Satan came with all the terrors he could bring upon His path. So the Lord says, "This is your hour, and the power of darkness".
And death and judgment stood in the road, too.
But there was love enough in Christ to go through it all. He saw what the cup was, as none of us can, and in His own infinite and blessed love, He accepted it in full.
And man's history as man, was thus ended in the cross. It was not historically, but morally "the end of the world".
And now, He who has accomplished that work is set by God Himself at His own right hand, for the display of God's own righteousness.
The first man rejected Christ, and was the instrument of His death; the second Man, in the perfectness of His ways before God, is taken out of this world, and is set at God's right hand; so that now the testimony of the Holy Ghost -- His special work -- is to convince the world of righteousness, because Christ has gone to the Father, and they see Him no more.
There is now a Man in heaven. True Christianity is founded on that. We learn by degrees; but there was in the cross, the total, entire, complete condemnation of man, and in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, a totally new place is taken (which is the foundation of all blessedness), where Adam innocent was not, any more than Adam guilty.
It is a new thing altogether, and "if any one be in Christ, there is a new creation".
We are not as yet fully in the new scene founded on the cross, but, in Christ, I am a new creation; and so now we have to manifest the life of Jesus in this mortal flesh, while we walk by faith, not by sight.
The Christian has to go through things down here, but now they are no longer his object; it is not merely that certain things will do him harm; of course they will; but he is looking at things not seen and eternal. He groans, too, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with his house from heaven. The apostle adds, "He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God". God hath not only prepared a place there, but hath wrought us for that selfsame thing, which is glory with Christ there. That is what God has wrought you and me for. The
world comes to chain me down, but God has wrought me for that which is inside the vail, and the vail is rent. I can talk of it therefore as having it, because God has so wrought me for it, and prepared it for me, and though as yet I have not actually got it, yet I have the earnest of the Spirit.
The Christian is born again, and is not in the flesh before God; he is a renewed man, but a renewed man without salvation of body, and there comes the connection between two distinct points. The law has power over a man as long as he lives; but, in Christ, I have died away from under it; the cross has finished that. Law was God's rule for a child of Adam, and now I am not a child of Adam. What am I then? A child of God. What is that? A new creation. The epistle to the Romans treats of our responsibility in the old creation, but in the Ephesians it is the new creation, we are God's "workmanship created in Christ Jesus", and so on.
Now the law was very useful to kill me; it came, and required certain things of me, and I could not give them. It has a right therefore to kill me. But it is written, "Ye are dead".
Now, where did I die? In Christ's cross.
Suppose a policeman had apprehended me and that I had died while in his charge, what can he do with me but give me up to be buried? So now, "the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God". We "are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit". When I began to try to do good, I found there was none in me, and it was "when we were yet without strength, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly".
I recognise my want of strength, and that Christ has come and taken me totally out of that condition, and put me in Himself, so that in Ephesians it is, "According to the power that worketh in us" and "According to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead", etc.
Forgiveness, cleansing, and justifying apply to a child of Adam, but I am in the Christ, the last Adam, in whom alone I stand before God, for I cannot stand in both. In the first man I was helpless; in the second Man, I have the power of God. But until you have got into the thorough consciousness that you could not succeed in the first Adam, you can never get free from it, because you are trying to mend it.
You get a crab-tree, and you say the fruit is sour; but put it in your garden and do your best with it, and what do you
get? More crabs and bigger ones. The change has not made the tree good.
Then what would you do if you had a crab-tree? You would cut it down and graft it. So God has sentenced the "old man" in the cross of Christ, and brought in a totally new thing.
God has gone through the whole probation of man, his whole moral history, and has sentenced his entire state.
"There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable".
That shews God's view of the whole situation.
But He came in grace and sought after them, and now I can go to every poor sinner in the wide world with that grace.
But more than that. I find Christ has risen again into a totally new place as man, and the place He has brought me into is His own present place. God has given me the earnest of the Spirit until I come into that place in full, but it is mine now. That is salvation. So that I do not own the flesh, nor the world, nor its religion. I have the consciousness of the death of Christ, which has closed the whole thing for me. He has so settled all for God's glory, that God has set Him at His own right hand, and that is where I am.
That is the blessed condition into which I am brought as to salvation, and then consequent upon that, all the counsels of God come out "according to his own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began". Not according to my responsibility at all -- I was lost according to that -- and I shall be judged according to it if I do not escape by grace.
I am saved solely by the cross.
What part had you in that cross?
Shall I tell you? If you are saved by it, your part in it was your sins. Had you nothing else in the cross? The enmity that put Christ to death. What else? Nothing.
Nothing. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
I am brought then to the cross, with the consciousness of guilt and sins, and of the enmity of my heart. But then, there, there was a death which on the one hand clears my sins away, and which on the other hand redeems me out of the condition I am in, and there I find salvation.
And, mark, the whole of this was God's work -- a work done alone between Him and Christ.
All was darkness around, a mere outward testimony, but real -- Christ was left alone with God. The disciples had run away, and the whole world was contrary to Him; divine power not screening Him from the cup, but enabling Him to drink it.
And all was finished, finished for ever and righteously, and God's righteousness made known, because Christ went to the Father, and the world sees Him no more.
It will see Him as Judge, but not as a Saviour.
But life and incorruptibility were brought to light by the gospel.
It was this purpose of God to bring us into the second Man that was never made manifest until the cross; the ground of it was not laid. Promises and prophecies there had been; though, remember, there were no promises to flesh -- none to the first Adam. There was that which Adam's faith could lay hold of; but it was not a promise to Adam. The seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head truly, but then Adam was not the seed of the woman. The seed of the woman was the man that was not. The promise really went clean outside the whole existing thing. It was to Christ.
And then you get God dealing with fallen man, up to the cross, and there proving what he was.
But there, too, God works His own work, whilst His purpose which existed before the world should be accomplished by it.
And then we get blessed fruits.
Not from man's works, but God's works.
Just as was said of Israel, "What hath God wrought?" Not, what hath man wrought? That was all to condemnation; but, what hath God wrought?
He has raised His Son from the dead, after He had been "made sin", and, in that, He has raised us too. We have our place with God in Christ after death, after judgment of sin, after the power of Satan is broken, and, as being raised out from the dead, in Christ.
We are saved -- not our bodies -- but we have got salvation, not simply forgiveness (which we do have, of course, but that applies to the old condition); we have a new condition; we are in Christ the second Man, the last Adam; we are not in the flesh; and you will never know what salvation is -- what it
really means -- until you understand that you are not in the flesh, but are in Christ.
I am anxious that this should rest on your minds.
God alone can teach us. He must be worshipped in spirit and in truth -- so we are brought back to the Father, and we have the ring, the best robe, and the shoes. The very best thing God had in heaven to give He has given us.
Most surely there was repentance in the prodigal; he says, "Make me as one of thy hired servants"; but there was no such thought in God's heart at all, though it is what the experiences of the prodigal bring him to. But his father meets him in all his rags -- the proofs of his profligacy are upon him; but until he met his father, he did not know his father's heart.
So we have nothing else to put on, we are all in rags. And after that you do not get one single word about what the prodigal son did at all. It is the Father says, "Let us ... be merry", "Bring forth the best robe", and so on. That is just where we are with God.
Of course, we look for good fruit from all this; we ought to manifest the life of Christ in everything -- buying, selling, the counting-house, dress, everything.
Do you do all things in the name of the Lord Jesus?
If not, you are giving up Christ for some folly or other. If you cannot do the thing in that name, do not do it at all. The way the Lord walked was by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God.
The fact is, I am not alive in this world at all. (I don't mean physically, of course.) But Paul asks, "If ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?" As to my place in Christ, "The body is dead because of sin"; and again, I am "dead to the law by the body of Christ". I have no more to do with the world or its religion, for I have died. I have, of course, to go through what is of the world; Christ Himself did that.
The Lord Himself give us to see the connection between living by faith and the clear apprehension of what salvation is; that it is not merely forgiveness, though that is the first thing, but also, the taking the believer out of the place he was in, in the first Adam, and the putting him into Christ the second Man, and seating him in the heavenly places in Him.
Two questions have been put into my hand, one as to preaching repentance, and the other as to preaching the kingdom.
Nobody questions as to whether people ought to repent; and as to the kingdom, Paul says to the elders from Ephesus in Acts 20"Ye all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God"; and you will find it elsewhere as well.
You have it in John 3, which is often overlooked, "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God".
I have no doubt it is an important point, too. Other things were preached, but it was testified by the prophet that God was going to set up a kingdom. When the Lord came, He, in a certain sense, preached nothing else.
As to that point, at least, John Baptist and the Lord exercised the same ministry. It was testified then, and ought to be so still.
Another thing has come out -- the gospel of our salvation -- a thing that was not promised or spoken of before the cross; while there were the prophecies that Christ should come, the grace that should be brought had not appeared. There was a testimony to its appearing from Adam on, but the importance of the statement of the kingdom lies in this, that it is not simply persons must have a change in them in order to be happy, but that God was setting up something. God did not own the world at all, but was setting up a kingdom, into which a man could not enter, if he was not born again.
Nowadays, Christianity is so reduced to the idea of being safe -- leading people to look into their own hearts to see if they are -- that the object of testimony is gone.
It has come down to this, a certain few outward things, and then there is nothing positive and substantial at all.
But there were two testimonies; the Lord's own upon which He was condemned (He was not condemned on the testimony brought against Him, for the two false witnesses did not agree), and which before Pilate was that He was a King -- "Thou sayest that I am", that was the "good confession" that He witnessed; and the other testimony was that God was setting up a kingdom.
There are other things, the church, and so on -- one of the great mischiefs done is the confounding of the kingdom and
the church of God -- but still, the kingdom is there as the subject of preaching.
In Matthew you get things brought out more in order, and there you get the rejection of Christ, and upon that, three things are substituted for what He was down here -- founded though upon His work -- the kingdom of heaven in chapter 13, the church in chapter 16, and the coming in glory, i.e., the transfiguration, in chapter 17.
These are very distinct. You could not call the kingdom "the bride", or "the body of Christ"; there would be no sense in it. The setting up of a kingdom is seen in the authority of a king, and he has his subjects; but in the idea of a body, or of a bride, you can't talk of a king. If you do, you lose the whole idea.
The kingdom had been spoken of, and the Messiah was to come, but the church never at all. That was hidden from ages and from generations, but is now revealed. We have now the key to it.
We may understand certain things, but it is declared that there was no kind of revelation of the church in the smallest degree, until Christ had come and died.
It would have upset all that God had revealed, for the wall of partition was not taken down before.
But the kingdom was testified of; only, when the King came in Person -- Christ -- He was rejected, and so the personal thing was not set up, for the King was gone away to heaven.
He was rejected and taken up to heaven, nor does He sit upon His throne yet, but He says, "To him that overcometh will I give to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne", as had been said to Him, "Sit thou on my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool".
And presently in the Revelation it says, "We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned". And so He will reign, but those who are faithful to Christ own Him now as the true King, of course. There are other and better things for those who have believed, but His kingdom will be set up openly.
Say, as when Charles II was not in the country, those who were loyal owned him as the king, though he was in France.
So now, the King is sitting at the right hand of God, until His enemies be made His footstool.
When the time comes He will leave His Father's throne, and His kingdom will be set up.
Meanwhile you get the parables of Matthew 13, giving the state of the kingdom during the absence of the King.
It does not look a bit like a kingdom to the natural eye now for it is not yet manifest.
The devil is able to sow tares -- not in the church but in the world. It is clearly said, "the field is the world", and there the tares are sown; that is the devil's work, and he has done it plentifully. In the last three parables you get God's intention about it.
He took the world for the sake of the treasure; then, He is seen seeking goodly pearls; and lastly you come to that which has a certain analogy to the thought of the tares; they take a net and cast it into the sea, and it gathers of every kind; they put the good into vessels and cast the bad away. All that is the kingdom, while the King is no longer here.
The actual establishment of the kingdom in power is yet to come, but meanwhile, let Him at least gather those who are to reign with Him.
It is not yet the setting up of the kingdom, save in a mysterious way; but when He comes we shall be with Him upon thrones, for we are made kings and priests unto God and His Father.
In Revelation 4 it is said that the elders have twenty-four "seats"; the translators were afraid to say "thrones", it looked strange to put twenty-four symbols of saints on thrones, and so they put the word 'seats' instead, but it really is "thrones".
Well, if you want the kingdom in its manifestation in glory (which is not the highest thing), you get that in chapter 17.
In all three gospels, it is the next week that the Lord takes the three disciples up and shews them Moses and Elias in the same glory with Himself upon the mount.
He had said, "Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom", and thereupon the account of the transfiguration follows.
Now refer to 2 Peter 1:16: "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the
power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount". There we get Peter's account of Matthew 17. The "Son of man coming in his kingdom" is "the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ".
Three disciples went up, but they are not allowed to tell it until after He had been raised from the dead.
If you look at Luke 9 it comes out even clearer, with a blessed testimony to the Lord's grace.
But in Matthew 16 Peter had said He was the Christ, the Son of the living God, i.e., the King, of course, and the Lord charges them to tell no man that, but began to shew them that He must suffer, and be killed, and rise again the third day; and adds, that we must take up our cross and suffer with Him.
Six days after, He takes them up into the mountain; and of that, Peter tells us that it was the "power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ".
In Luke there is a difference. The cloud which came was, according to Peter, the excellent glory, and then the Father's voice came out of the excellent glory, and Moses and Elias go into it. Now that is not the kingdom, it is the better part, the Father's house. There was the revelation of the kingdom; and then glorified saints with and like Christ; and lastly those living on the earth.
The kingdom is set up in glory, in this vision of it, after the declaration that He could not be received as Christ. He ought to have been, but that was all over, and the Son of man must suffer. When ultimately He does come, and the kingdom is set up openly, He will gather out of it all things that do offend; and the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. That is, I get the upper or heavenly part of the kingdom, separated like Luke's cloud; and the Son of man setting this earth right in the power of the kingdom.
When the Jews were taken captive to Babylon, the great fact that took place then was, that God's throne went away from the earth. He had had a throne -- sitting between the cherubim, and when the Jews' captivity took place, that was over. (When I say God's throne went away, I am not speaking
of providence, there is providence in a sparrow that falls; that is another thing.) But when the Lord came He said, "The kingdom of God is in the midst of you"; here it is, if you will have it, but they rejected Him the King.
When Babylon -- the golden head -- was set up, God's throne was taken from the earth. Nebuchadnezzar took Jerusalem. God had been there in the cloud of glory between the cherubim, but that arises, goes to Mount Olives, and finally went away. Then the thrones of the four beasts were set up; and ever since that, it has been the government of the last beast. In His providence God has been working (I do not now speak of that or forget it), but all the beasts had already been brought out before the Lord Jesus Christ appeared on the earth.
The Roman beast was then ruling in Jerusalem, and was joined with the Jews against Christ. "The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together" (as Herod and Pontius Pilate) "against the Lord, and against his anointed". They joined hands to reject God's King, and Christ testified to Pilate, that He Himself was God's King. So it has come about that the establishment of the kingdom in power is put off until the Lord comes again. When next He comes He will be "King of kings and Lord of lords".
Meanwhile, between Babylon and Infidelity all is now going on to judgment, as rapidly as ever it can. The will of man and the power of the beast are gathering strength every moment. But when Christ comes and establishes His kingdom, He will put down everything else; and He will have, if you look at Psalm 2 and Psalm 8, a much wider dominion than anything Jewish. Those who repent when they see Him will be reigned over, but we shall reign with Him, because we own Him when He is not seen, and we get more than that, for we shall be with Him and like Him. The kingdom had been lost sight of, but it has begun to be preached again within my memory; meanwhile, God is gathering the joint heirs, and when all are gathered, the kingdom will come and the scene around us will be brought directly under the judgment of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In Peter you have a "more sure word of prophecy", but it is literally "the word of prophecy confirmed", i.e., they had seen Christ in the glory, and that confirmed the prophetic word. And, he says, ye do well to take heed unto it, "as unto a light that shineth in a dark place", which shews what all around us is going on to.
If you have got a heavenly Christ, it is much better to be drawn up to Him there than to be driven out of the things that disappoint here.
The world itself has become afraid as to what is coming. All is going on to the judgment of the beast -- France, Italy, Spain, and, I am afraid, we must bring in England, too.
But for us, Christians, the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is the bright and morning star, and when the Sun of Righteousness arises, it will be judgment on the earth.
If you look at the end of Malachi, you will find it is not the gospel that is there spoken of at all, but He discerns between the righteous and the wicked, for the day cometh that will burn as an oven; and the rising of the Sun of Righteousness is Christ appearing in this world, and putting down the wicked under the soles of His people's feet.
Before that, we get the morning star -- a heavenly Christ -- that weans us out of this world; and that is our own proper portion, and when He appears afterwards we shall appear with Him.
Our privilege is that of complete, thorough association with the Lord Jesus Christ -- the First Born amongst many brethren, and He takes nothing for Himself that He does not bring us into.
If He is a Son, we are sons;
If He comes in glory, we come;
If He makes peace -- My peace I give unto you;
Has He joy? He would have it fulfilled in us;
The words God gave to Him, He has given us;
And, He has declared the Father's name, "that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them". All this is to bring us into the same thing with Himself.
The coming of the Lord is still preached, and wherever this is set out, it is still the kingdom. Sinners need surely to know what forgiveness is, but it is well that there should be positive testimony to the coming of the Lord.
God is not slack concerning His promises as some men count slackness, and the Lord will come. We cannot tell the moment, but He will not come while there is a joint heir to be gathered in. When He does come, as we saw in Luke, we shall go into the cloud where the Father is.
I trust I have made the kingdom plain.
Galatians 2:14 to the end.
This epistle, generally, deals with the fundamental principles of the gospel, i.e., justification by faith, and another which I will speak of.
The Galatians had received Judaism, and it was that which made the apostle stand in doubt about them.
But Christianity is the fullest revelation of God, first in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ -- "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father"and in the work of the Lord Jesus, and then in the gift of the Holy Ghost which followed; the full revelation of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, i.e., the Godhead fully revealed. And, now, "through him [i.e., Christ] we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father". These are things which the angels desire to look into, elementary to Christianity though they are.
But the world into which God has sent salvation is utter vanity; and the Lord Jesus Christ "gave himself for our sins, so that he should deliver us out of this present evil world"; a world indeed whose true character is brought out by Christ's coming into it, as He says, "O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me", and again, "Now is the judgment of this world". Our place is this, we are in a world which is in utter darkness from Christ having gone out of it ("The night is far spent"); it is here that we are, and it is here that we have this revelation of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. While Christ was in the world, He was the light of it, but the Light has now gone to a much brighter and more blessed scene.
In Galatia, Judaising teachers had brought in the law, and it seemed plausible to insist upon it. But the law had power over a man only so long as he lived. Judaism belonged to this world, it was set up to try if man could walk with God in it.
Only God could not then reveal Himself to man. He dwelt in the thick darkness. Quite true His cloud filled the tabernacle, but what was the effect? Just this, that man could not
go in. That was under law, i.e., the rule for man here, but not for heaven and a heavenly people; you do not talk of "killing" in heaven, or about stealing or false witness.
The Lord could pick out two words in it which went beyond this, but it was more contrast than likeness after all, shewing still that man could not be with God. It dealt with man on the earth, God saying, as it were, "I am behind the vail, and nobody must come near Me". Indeed that was so.
The law was provisional with its washings and carnal ordinances that enabled a man to have to say to God, while He was still behind a vail. Had God displayed His glory, they would all have been cut off in their sins. By means of sacrifices certain legal failures were met, so that the people might go on; but they were still in the world.
Under it there was a continual memorial of sins. Sins were not absolutely put away. It was thus a provision that intimated something better was to come; but the vail was unrent and the repetition of the sacrifices showed that the work was not done. It was grace in a provisional way only.
Looked at simply and purely, the law is condemnation to everybody, for the blood of bulls and goats could not take away sins. It was a dealing with man as man down here, testing him. That was the great point of the law. It did not say that men were lost; it turned out they were, when they found it was spiritual, and they came to judge themselves; but they were under probation for our instruction while God was testing them.
And then another step was taken. Christ came, and God was in Christ; and there at last, God comes out, though that is only half the truth.
He clothed Himself with humiliation and dwelt with men in perfect goodness and in perfect love, removing every outward evil that sin had brought in; the Holy and the Blessed One passed through this world, manifesting the Father Himself amongst men where they were.
This was no law sent to men to require them to be something in order to come up to God and answer for themselves. It was grace.
And in it all, I find God sovereign above evil. He did not come to seek righteous men but sinners, and just because they were sinners; if the heart has found redemption, it is blessed to turn back and take the gospels and see all that He was
there. The perfect goodness and love of God brought down even lower, in a sense, than men, that men might learn what God in goodness is.
Yet the Lord must say, "I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain".
If He came into a world that was sinful, for His love He had hatred; His presentation among men was the last thing God could attempt, and, by itself, it only increased the sinfulness of man. All that passed in the midst of Judaism. By itself, His presentation would never have made a basis for Christianity, because there was no atonement made. In John 12, directly He takes the place of the Son of man, His widest title, He says, I must die or else I must abide alone.
In His dying for us the foundation of Christianity was laid. He was "lifted up", not crucified on the earth, as He says, "Lifted up from the earth". He must be an entirely rejected Christ, and that unto death, or there could be no point of attraction for men.
There were promises to the Jews and He was "minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers"; but man's sin must be thoroughly brought out; not merely his sins, but the state he is in. Sins were there, no doubt, plenty; and as God looks down upon the world, what does He see but corruption and violence?
Now that the whole world has rejected the Son of God, its day of probation is over, so that it is said, "Once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself".
And yet in another sense, the end of the world has not come; but when you talk of God's dealings with man, as man in this world, it had come to an end. He could do no more for His vineyard than He had done, it was all of no use. Whether as without law, or as under law, or with Christ Himself among them, they would have God upon no terms whatever.
Then I see in the cross that man, in Christ, is gone from the world; on the other hand, He says Himself, "As the Father gave me commandment, even so I do", and there you have man glorifying God in the place of sin.
So the whole thing is morally settled.
I get perfect sin in man, if I may use such an expression, because it was hatred against God acting in love, and I get this
Blessed One perfect in His love to His Father, and perfect in obedience in the very place where He is "made sin".
Therefore, you see, the whole work as regards God's judgment, and what glorified God as the ground of God's dealings, was complete and finished; and what is the consequence?
Man goes right up into the glory of God.
The hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father; but the world was done with. "All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world". All was at an end before God.
People say, "But did not God create these things?" To be sure He did, but the devil makes people use them to reject Christ. You can't have them in connection with the Father, because they are of the world which rejected the Son; "The friendship of the world is enmity with God".
Since the rending of the vail, there can no longer be any religion for the world as such. Christ "gave himself for our sins, so that he should deliver us out of this present evil world"; and so He sends the Holy Ghost down to those who believe on Him, to connect them with Himself in heaven.
A real Christian, then, is a man who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, and is sealed with the Holy Ghost. He is thus entirely connected with the Lord in heaven.
Just as the Lord came out of heaven to the earth, so now man has gone in to the glory of God; that is the other side of the truth; and it is as our Forerunner, too.
This is the complete salvation that I get when I get Christianity.
There is nothing of the flesh in Christianity, and nothing for the flesh. The apostle had been a Hebrew of the Hebrews, but now he does not know even Christ after the flesh; and therefore he asks the Colossians, "Why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?" They that are after the flesh mind the things of the flesh; and the law applies to all that; but I have died in Christ, and the whole question now is one of connection with Him. We are passing through the world which rejected Him, but we are connected with Him in glory. He came in love, and is gone in righteousness, and we are "made the righteousness of God in him" -- that which is fit for heaven, and nothing else is. Sealed with the Holy Ghost, I stand between the first
coming of that Blessed One, and His second coming to put me into the full place that He has earned for me. My sins are totally gone for ever. I have not merely forgiveness at any given moment for what I have done; blessedly true though that is, it is only half the truth. But Christ has offered one sacrifice for sin, one only, and that, at the end of the world; if that has not wrought for me a perfect acceptance and justification, I shall never have one, because He cannot die again, "for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world". If there is any sin left for Christ to clear me of, He must die again and shed His blood again to do it, and that cannot be.
But, having made propitiation by His blood, Christ is in the presence of God for us, and therefore, when I go to God at any time, imputation is impossible, or God would deny both the Christ who is before Him, and what He has done.
I have to humble myself for my faults, and the deeper the better, but if I allow imputation, I am denying the efficacy of Christ's work.
Anything less is nothing better than mere priestly absolution; but that cannot be now, because God has accepted this one offering, and Christ is sitting. Sitting is an emphatic word. "Sit!" The priests of old never did, but Christ does; He has sat down in continuity from henceforth expecting until His enemies be made His footstool.
Then, He will rise up for judgment.
Now, for His friends He is sitting there.
Other blessed truths come in in their place; but as regards our standing, God never remembers our sins and iniquities any more; and the worshipper once purged has no more conscience of sins.
I insist upon this because it is most vital.
If your sins -- I speak as to the work done for them, I am not talking about your feelings as to them -- if your sins are not put away by the blood of Christ -- I speak to Christians -- they never can be. But He has borne my sins in His own body on the tree, and I am as white as snow.
Then another thing. There is the nature -- the flesh. What about that? That is not sin committed. Nor does its existence in me give me a bad conscience; if it did, I never should have a good one. But how have I to deal with it? I am crucified with Christ. I, through the law, am dead to the law, that I
might live unto God. But under the law you cannot live unto God; I am crucified with Christ; it is not merely that Christ has died -- been crucified, but I have died -- been crucified with Him. So in Romans 8, "What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, [for sin, not for sins] condemned sin in the flesh".
Where did God condemn sin in the flesh? On the cross. Thank God! It is all condemned and done with; where it was condemned it died. Ah! then the condemnation is over, gone, and I, as in the flesh before God, am gone, and now have nothing more to say to it.
If I look at myself as a child of God, I say, I died as a child of Adam on the cross.
I am God's child, and I do not own the flesh any more. So he says, "Yield yourselves unto God as those who are alive from the dead".
I accept death unto sin also, and I do not belong to this world, or its religion; no, nor would I have it for I have Christ in the glory of God.
The apostle does not talk of sin in Philippians, because, though going through the world, he has passed out of that condition entirely, and is there simply seen as running through the world towards the prize.
So now, we know God revealed, not hidden behind a vail, and our place is with Christ where He is.
In Romans the Christian is always viewed upon earth; he has died to sin, is alive in Christ, and is perfectly justified; he is walking through the world in that condition, and has to yield himself up to God.
In Colossians you get him dead, as in Romans, but also risen with Christ, and he has a hope laid up for him in heaven.
In Ephesians you get a step further, as there he is sitting in the heavenly places.
Each of these three is a Christian state, so far.
And now let us see how the Christian lives. You cannot live in this world without an object before you; so he says, "I live by the faith of the Son of God". How far can we say that we live by the faith of the Son of God? "Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus", that will be by the faith of the Son of God.
I may fail, but here he speaks as a Christian.
And mark how this acts upon the heart and the affections, it is He "who loved me and gave himself for me".
You get two things connected together: Christ lives in me, and is this blessed object, and I have the certainty of His deep affection for me. He has laid down His life for me, and I live by the faith of Him. How far can we say that?
His death has closed the whole history of man in the flesh. He loved us and gave Himself for our sins, and now He is the Firstborn among many brethren. Then are we living for Christ, or has the world got hold of our hearts? It is possible to live like Lot for a time. Are we living in association of faith with Christ in heaven or are we living in this world?
The time is short; it is the time of God's longsuffering now, and Peter says, He "is readyto judge the quick and the dead".
God knows the moment when grace will cease to gather souls to Christ in glory. Be assured there is reality with God; "We walk by faith, not by sight". Which are we living by? Faith or sight?
Things to attract are stretched out on every hand. Shops are full of things everywhere; we know well what that is, but do we allow all that? Or are we so living by the faith of the Son of God, who loved us, and gave Himself for us, that the world and the devil cannot distract us? We are liable to it, all of us. But can we say, "This one thing I do"?
The Lord is patient in His love, but are we with purpose of heart living to Him who died for us and rose again? We know how far short we come, but still, is there a perfect heart with us so that our conscience is good? Conscience is purged and made perfect before God, by the blood of Christ, but I speak of it now in a practical sense.
There is for us the present joy of having Christ in our hearts, by the power of the Holy Ghost, until we reach that blessed day, when He shall come and take us to be with Himself.
The great truth and essence of Christianity is that it takes the heart out of this world, and fixes it on Christ. It makes us live by Christ, on Christ, and to Christ.
Titus 2:11 - 15
It is a great thing for us, beloved friends, in all our path, to know where we are, and then to know the mind of God, not only as to where we are, but as to our own place in the path in which we find ourselves.
Not only has God visited us in grace, but we have to take into our own mind what the present actual result of the grace is that has reached us, so that we hold fast the great principles under which God has set us as Christians, and at the same time be able to apply those principles to the circumstances in which we find ourselves. These circumstances may vary according to our actual position, but the principles never vary. Their application to the path of faith may vary, and does.
I mean such a thing as this:
In Hezekiah's time, they were told that "in quietness and confidence shall be your strength", and that the Assyrian should not even cast a mount before Jerusalem; they were to stay perfectly calm and firm. And the host of Assyria was destroyed.
But when, in Jeremiah's time, the moment of judgment had come, then he that went out of the city to their enemies, the Chaldees, should save himself.
They were still God's people as much as before, though He was saying for the time (in judgment), "not my people", and that made the difference.
It was not that God's mind was altered, or His relationship to His people changed; that never will be. Yet in the latter instance the conduct of the people was to be exactly the opposite. Under Hezekiah they were protected; under Zedekiah they were to bow to the judgment.
I refer to these circumstances as a testimony that while the relationship of God with Israel in this world is immutable, yet their conduct had to be the opposite at one time to that at another.
And so we have to know where we are, and, at the same time, to learn what the path of God is in the position in which we find ourselves.
Look at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, as regards the church, God's assembly in the world. There I find the
full display of power; all had one heart and one mind; they had all things in common; and the very place was shaken where they were.
But suppose I take the professing church now, including the Roman Catholic system and all else; if we look at that sort of thing and own it, at once we bow down to every thing that is evil.
Although God's thoughts never change and He knows His people, yet we need spiritual discernment to see where we are, and what the ways of God are in the circumstances, while never departing from the first great principles which He has laid down for us in His word.
We have, too, to take account of another thing as a fact of Scripture: Wherever God has set man, the first thing man does is to spoil his position; we must ever take that into account.
Look at Adam, Noah, Aaron, Solomon, and Nebuchadnezzar.
God goes on in patient mercy; yet the uniform way of man, as we read in Scripture, has been at once to upset and destroy the thing which God set up as good. Consequently, it is impossible that there can be any walking with a true knowledge of our position, if this is not considered.
But God is faithful, and goes on in patient love.
Thus, in Isaiah we find, "Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes", and so on; but it was not fulfilled till eight hundred years after; and when Christ came they rejected Him.
God waited in patience; individual souls were converted; various testimonies were rendered by the prophets, and a remnant was preserved still.
But if we should plead the faithfulness of God, which is invariable, in order to put a positive sanction upon the evil that man has brought in, our whole principle is false.
That is exactly what they did in Jeremiah's time, when judgment was coming, and what Christendom is doing now. They said: "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are these"; and, "The law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise", when they were all going to Babylon.
The faithfulness of God was invariable, but the moment they applied that to sustain them in the place of evil, it became the very ground of their ruin. If we lose the sense of where we
are, the very principles which would be our security become our ruin.
We get the word, "Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged. Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him" -- a passage constantly misapplied. God is saying there, "Abraham was alone, and I called him". Israel, to whom God spake this, was then but a little remnant -- "Don't let that make you uneasy, I called Abraham alone". Their being little was of no consequence; God would bless them alone, as He had blessed Abraham.
Now, in Ezekiel, that is denounced as iniquity. There they said, "We are many"; "Abraham was one, and he inherited the land", God blessed him, and so He will bless us still more.
From want of conscience, really, they misapprehended the condition in which they were, and with which God was dealing.
So now, if we have not the sense of our own condition, I speak of the whole professing thing in the midst of which we find ourselves, we shall be marked by an utter lack of spiritual intelligence.
I think we are in the last days, but sometimes I think people do not weigh the full force of that.
I think I can shew you from Scripture that from the very outset, the church as a responsible system down here has got into the condition of judgment, and that the state of it is such as to require individual faith to judge it.
Many seek to find a kind of resource from the present confusion in the doctrine that the church teaches and judges, and does this and that.
But, on the contrary, God is judging the church.
He does shew patience and grace, calling souls to Himself as He did in Israel; but what we have to look in the face is that the church has not escaped the effect of that principle in poor human nature that the first thing it does is to depart from God, and ruin what He has set up.
When we speak of the last times, it is not a new thing, but one which we have in Scripture, one which God in sovereign goodness has given us before the closing of the canon of Scripture.
He allowed the evil to come up so that He could give us the judgment of Scripture upon it.
If you look at Jude -- and I take now merely some of those principles which the church of God want -- she says, "Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered to the saints". The faith was in danger already; they were obliged to contend for that which was slipping from them, so to say, "for there were certain men crept in unawares", etc., so that you must look at judgment now. As God saved the people out of Egypt, and then had to destroy them that believed not. So, too, with the angels in like manner.
Enoch prophesied of those of whom he speaks as having come in, as those upon whom the Lord will execute judgment when He comes again.
These were there then, and the starting point of the evil in the apostles' days was sufficient to give the revelation of God's mind by His word; the ground of the judgment when the Lord comes again was there present already.
If you take John's first epistle, chapter 2: 18, he says, "Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time".
So that it is not a new thing that is developed, but it began at the first, just as in Israel they made the calf at the outset; yet God bore with them for centuries, but the state of the people was that which a spiritual man judged.
John says, "We know it is the last time". I suppose the church of God has hardly improved since then. In verse 20 he adds, "Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things" -- you have got that which will enable you to judge in these circumstances.
Again, take the practical state of the church as seen by Paul in Philippians 2:20, 21: "I have no man like minded who will naturally care for your state. For all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's". That was in his days. What a testimony! It is not that they had given up being Christians.
He tells Timothy, "At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me; I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge", 2 Timothy 4:16. Not one stayed by him.
Peter tells us, "The time is come, that judgment must begin at the house of God".
I name these as the authority of the word of God, shewing that even then, at the very beginning, there was that going on outwardly which the Spirit of God could discern and testify that it was the ground of final judgment. It was already manifest in the church of God.
There is another thing that shews this principle strongly, and that is the ground of action in the circumstances portrayed in the seven churches of the Revelation.
I do not doubt that that is the history of the church of God; but the point is, "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches". The churches could neither guide nor have authority, nor anything else of the kind; but whoever had an ear to hear God's word had to judge their state. That, very evidently, is an important principle, and a very solemn thing it is. He is speaking to the churches, not as Head of the body, though He is that for ever and ever, but He is looking at them as responsible down here on the earth.
It is not the Father sending messages to the church, as in the different epistles; but it is Christ walking in the midst of the churches, to judge them. He is, therefore, seen here, neither as the Head of the body, nor as the Servant. He has His garment down to the feet, but if I want to serve, I tuck my garment up. He is walking in their midst to judge their state. That is a new thing.
It is a question of responsibility. So you find some approved and some disapproved. Their condition is the subject of judgment on the part of Christ; and they are here called to listen to what He has to say. It is not, properly speaking, the blessings of God which you get here in the churches, though they had many blessings, but the condition of these churches, when these blessings had been put into their hands -- what use had they made of them?
Look at the Thessalonians; in their freshness, the work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope were manifest. But in the first epistle to the churches, that to Ephesus, you get: "I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience". Where were the faith and the love? The spring was wanting. Ah! I will take your candlestick away if you do not repent. They were put in a place of responsibility, and He deals with them according to it. And the first thing is, you have left your first love; so the time was come that judgment should begin at the house of God.
Peter's words allude to Ezekiel, when he says, "Begin at my sanctuary" -- God's house at Jerusalem; for that is where God looks first for what is right -- to His own house.
I feel it is an exceedingly solemn thing, and one that should bow our hearts before God.
The church has failed in being the epistle of Christ -- it was set as such in the world; but now, is it anything like it at all? Can a heathen -- that is the way to look at it -- see anything of it?
Individuals may be walking blessedly, yet where do we get faith like Elijah's, though he knew no one in Israel who was true, while God knew seven thousand? Blessed man as he was, even his faith failed, and God asks him, "What doest thou here, Elijah?"
This should not be discouragement either, for Christ is sufficient for us. Nothing reaches up to the full perfect faithfulness of God's own grace, and our hearts ought to be thoroughly bowed as to that.
Neither is it the thought of attacking or blaming, for we are all in it in one sense, but our hearts should take note of that which was set up so beautiful in the power of God's Spirit -- what has it all come to?
It casts us on the strength of Him who can never fail.
When the spies returned to Israel, the faith of ten gave way. Caleb and Joshua say: Do not let us be afraid, these giants shall be bread for us.
It is the same now for us in view of difficulty or opposition.
We are called to see where we are, and to know what the path and the place are, in which we have to walk, and to have a consciousness of the state all around us is in.
Yet though the church has utterly failed, the Head never can fail. Christ is just as sufficient for us now, in the state of things in which we find ourselves, as He was when at the first He set up the church in beauty and blessedness. It may require us to look at His word, to see what His mind is, but we must not shut our eyes to the state of things in which we are.
In reading the Acts it is most striking to see that there is power in the midst of the evil.
When we get to heaven there will be no evil at all, and we shall not want faith or conscience in exercise then; but now we do, and when evil is dominant, the only thing we have is
the power of the Spirit of God, and, by it, we should be dominant over the evil in our path.
It does not say that every Christian will be persecuted, but it does say, all that will "live godly" in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. If a man shew the power of the Spirit of God, the world will not stand it -- that is the principle. In the Acts, when we get the power of the Spirit shewn in miracles, as it had been in Christ before, what did it draw out? The enmity that crucified the Lord.
What we now have is good in the midst of evil (that is what Christ was, perfect good in the midst of evil), but the effect of the display of God in Him (inasmuch as the carnal mind is enmity against God) was that it drew out hostility; and the more the display, the more the hostility drawn out; and so, for His love He had hatred.
As yet, we have not got evil done with, that will be the case when Christ comes again, and therein is the difference between this present time and that time; that time will be the coming in of good in power so as to bind Satan and put down evil.
But the presence of Christ in this world, and afterwards that of His saints, what is that but good in the midst of evil, while Satan is the god of this world?
Directly these got mixed up together, the good was swamped.
Take the wise and the foolish virgins, while they are asleep, they can all stay together, why should they not? But the moment they trim their lamps, there arises the question of the oil, and they do not go together any more. And we shall find it the same.
Again, in Joshua, it was a time of power. True, they fail at Jericho, and get beaten at Ai, but the general character is power; enemies are subdued and cities walled up to heaven are taken. Faith overcomes all -- a most blessed picture. Good in the midst of evil, power carrying on the good and putting down enemies.
In Judges, it is the contrary. God's power was there, but the power was manifested by the evil because the people were not faithful. They got at once to "Bochim", i.e., tears, weeping, whereas in Joshua they went to Gilgal, where the total separation of Israel from the world had taken place; they had crossed the Jordan, and that was death, and then the reproach of Egypt was rolled away. But the angel of the
Lord went to Bochim, he did not give Israel up, though they had left Gilgal. It was grace going after them.
And on our part, if we do not go to Gilgal, if we do not go back to the utter annihilation of self in God's presence, we cannot come out in power.
If a servant's intercourse with God does not surmount his testimony to men, he will break down and fail; he must renew his strength.
The great secret of Christian Life is, that our intercourse with God should make nothing of ourselves.
God did not, however, give Israel up, and they built an altar unto the Lord; but at the altar they were weeping, not triumphing; and they were constantly being triumphed over. But though the people had lost their place, God sent them judges, and He was with the judges.
That is what we have to consider in the same way. "All seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's"; was not that losing their place? (Not that such ceased to be in the church of God, I do not mean that.) And unless we do consider this, we too shall get to Bochim -- the place of tears. The whole state of the church of God has to be judged -- only the Head can never lose His power; and there is grace that fits the condition, too.
What I see in the beginning of the history of the church is, first, this blessed power converting three thousand in a day. Then came opposition: the world put them into prison, but God shews His power against that, and I do not doubt that now, if we were more faithful, there would be a great deal more of the intervention of God. The power of the Spirit of God was there and they were walking in a blessed unity, shewing that power, and that, too, in the midst of the power of evil; though we find, alas, evil working in that scene, as in the case of Ananias and Sapphira. They get credit for giving up their goods, falsely; the Spirit of God is there, and they fall down dead, and fear comes upon all, both inside and outside.
And that is the first display of it so.
Then before the history of Scripture closes, the time has come that judgment must begin at the house of God.
It is a most solemn thing characterising the present time until Christ comes, when His power will put down evil -- a different thing.
Next we get the testimony to the gross evil where the good ought to be: "In the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves", and so on.
There, the professing church -- for such it is -- has the same description given of it as that which the Apostle gives of the heathen in the beginning of Romans. It is a positive declaration that such times should come, and that the state of things would return back to what it had been in heathendom. And it goes on to say that evil men "shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived".
But he tells Timothy to continue in the things he had learned; 2 Timothy 3:14. People say now the church teaches these things, but I ask, what is that? The church? What do they mean? It is all something in the air; there is no inspired person in the church now to teach. I must go to Paul and to Peter, and then I know from whom I learn. Just as he says to the elders from Ephesus, "I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace".
Evil men and seducers had waxed worse and worse, but the apostle casts Timothy on the certainty of the knowledge he had got from particular persons; to us now, it is the Scriptures which are able to make us wise unto salvation.
We have to learn this when the professing church is a judged thing, and the form of godliness characterises it.
And this is what I think Christians must look in the face. Do we not see men now turning away who were once called Christians -- such turning infidels? A well-known person told me recently, "You would not find one young man in forty down in the South who is not turning infidel". That may be exaggerated, but mere formality is throwing people more and more into open infidelity or open superstition.
It is notorious how things are going, even in an outward way. In itself Christianity is Christianity as God gave it, but outwardly as seen around us, it is gone. And it is Christianity that we want, as it is in the word of God. Not that there is anything to fear; it is a blessed time, in a sense, casting us upon God.
Only we must look at things simply and steadily.
There is not a more blessed picture of lovely faith and godliness, before the gospel came in, than that which you find in the first two chapters of Luke, amidst the abounding iniquity
of the Jews, we see Zachariah, Mary, Simeon, Anna, and other likeminded ones.
And they knew each other, for Anna "spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem". Just as we ought to be doing in another way.
But I wanted to say that as regards the present state of things, viewing it from the side of man's responsibility, man has departed from what God set up; and then comes in a growing corruption, until judgment is necessary.
John spoke of the last days as being already come, because there were even then many antichrists; but God's patience has been going on, until at the close perilous times have come.
And now, I will add a word as to how we are to walk in the midst of such a state of things. It is clearly by the word of God, i.e., by immediate reference to it. Not that God does not use ministry. Ministry is His own ordinance. Still for authority we must turn to the Word of God itself. There is found direct authority of God, as determining everything. And we have the activity of His Spirit to communicate things.
It is an unhappy thing if a person only goes to the Scripture, refusing help from others; and so much the worse for him.
And again, it is a different thing for you to look at them as a direct guide, and deny the Spirit's place.
A mother ought to be blest in the care of her children, and so should a minister among saints; that is the activity of the Spirit of God in an individual -- he is an instrument of God. But while owning that fully, we must go to the Word of God, and to that directly; that is what we have to insist upon. We all say that the Word of God is the authority, but we have to insist that God speaks by the Word. A mother is not inspired; no man is inspired; but the Word of God is inspired, and it is direct: "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches". I never get the church teaching; the church is taught and does not teach; individuals teach. But the apostles and others whom God used in that way were the instruments of God to communicate directly from God to the saints. So it is, Let "the letter be read to all the holy brethren".
This is of all importance, because it is God's title to speak to souls directly. He may use any instrument He pleases, and you cannot object; "the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee"; but when you come to direct authority, it
is a most solemn thing to touch that. Neither do I talk of private judgment in the things of God, I do not admit it as a principle. You have to discern about many other things, but the moment I get into divine things, am I going to talk of judging the Word of God?
That is one sign of the evil of the times that are come in. When I own the Word of God brought by His Spirit, I sit down to hear what God will say to me. And then it judges me, not I it.
When the divine word is brought to my conscience and heart, who am I to judge God when God is speaking to me? It would be denying that He is speaking to me. To have real power, it must be the Word of God to my soul; and then I don't think of judging it, but I sit down before it to have my heart drawn out, and my conscience exercised.
But then I must have "that which was from the beginning". Why? Because God gave that. At the beginning we have the thing not as it was spoiled, but as that which God set up.
It will not do to speak to me of the primitive church. I must have that which was from the beginning. I then get the inspired Word, and the unity of the body.
But after the beginning, the very next thing in ecclesiastical history was all wretched division; whereas John says, "If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father". You lose your place in the Son and in the Father, if you go away from that which was from the beginning.
It is evident, then, in applying this, I must take notice of the circumstances we are in, for there I find, not what was set up from the beginning, but what man has made of that which God set up at the beginning. People say the church is this and that, but if I take what God has set up, I see the Unity of the Body, and Christ the Head, and this is what the church was manifested to be on the earth.
But do we get it so now? On the contrary we are warned. Paul, as a wise master builder, had laid the foundation, and when others would build he warns them not to build with wrong materials, wood, hay, stubble, all of which will be destroyed.
The work of building was put upon man's responsibility; as such it became the subject of judgment. "Upon this rock I will build my church" gives me Christ's building, and that
is going on building, it is not finished yet; and again in Peter, "To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house"; there too, the building is seen still going on; then, in Ephesians 2, it is described by Paul, as fitly framed together, and growing unto an holy temple in the Lord.
All that is Christ's work -- what men call the invisible church, and so it is.
On the other hand, "let every man take heed how he buildeth" (that is on the foundation laid by Paul), there you have man's work as a responsible instrument.
Now men have confounded these two things, they go on building with wood, hay, stubble, and then they speak of the gates of hell not prevailing against that, because they do not give heed to the word of God.
But we have to look at God's principles, and to the power of the Spirit of God; to hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches, and to discover truly where we are, so finding the path which God has marked out, and in which we are distinctly to walk.
We need also faith in the presence of the Spirit of God. The Spirit will use the Word, and make us take notice of the state of things, not confounding God's faithfulness with man's responsibility (what the superstitious world is doing), but owning that there is a living God, and that that living God is amongst us, in the Person and power of the Holy Ghost.
All is founded on the cross, surely, but the Comforter has come, and, by one Spirit, believers were all baptised into one body.
And now whether I take the individual or the church, the secret of power for good against evil, outside or inside; I find in this fact -- the word being the guide -- of the presence of the Spirit of God. "Know ye not", he says to people going on very badly to correct them, "that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God?" Do we believe, beloved friends, that our bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost? Then what kind of persons ought we to be?
In 1 Corinthians 3 the same thing is true of the church, "Ye are the temple of God".
The presence of the Spirit gives power, and practical power, too, for blessing, whether in the church or in the individual; and He alone can do anything for real blessing.
Again, it is only on the footing of redemption that God dwells with man. He did not dwell with Adam innocent, though He came down to Him; He did not dwell with Abraham, though He visited him and ate with him; but when Israel came out of Egypt, He says He brought them to himself "that I may dwell among them". At once the tabernacle was built, and there was God's presence in the midst of His people.
Of course, now, we have true and full redemption, and the Holy Ghost has come down to dwell in those who believe, that they might be the expression of what Christ was Himself when He was down here. "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God", and, "hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit".
Where a person is really a Christian, God dwells in him; not merely he has life, but he is sealed with the Holy Ghost, who is the power for all moral conduct.
If we believed that the Spirit of God dwells in us, what subjection there would be, and what manner of persons we should be, not grieving that Spirit!!
And further, in 1 Corinthians 2, I find, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit". "We have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God". Now the Spirit of God and the world are always in contrast.
But then I find the revelation is in contrast with what is our state. We have to say, "Eye hath not seen". These things are so great; we can't conceive them, but God hath revealed them by His Spirit.
Taking the state of the Old Testament saints, they could not find out or know these things. But with us it is just the opposite. We do know them and He has given us His Spirit that we might know them.
In this passage you get the Holy Ghost in three distinct steps: first, these things are revealed by the Spirit; next, they are communicated by words the Spirit taught; and then, they are received by the power of the Spirit, i.e., they are
"spiritually discerned"; all three are the operation of the power of the Spirit of God.
If I were to take the Word of God by itself, and say, I can judge of it and understand it, then I am a rationalist; it is man's mind judging the revelation.
But when we get God's mind communicated by the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Ghost the power to receive it, then I get God's mind.
There is just as much wisdom and power from God for us to meet the state of ruin in which we now are, as there was at the first when He set up His church.
And that is what we have to lean upon.
I would just say a word as to obedience and dependence.
These are the elements of the new man, and they are exhibited in Christ Himself.
But until we have individually learnt ourselves, and come to the end of ourselves, we cannot walk in them. Even when there is in Christians an honest spiritual intention to be right, if self is not fully given up, the energy of self will mix itself in it, and produce failure.
If self is at work, there is no true guard against Satan's power.
I will refer to one or two examples of what I mean. Take Moses. He gives up and refuses to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, taking his place with the people of God, slaves though they were. But he has no true self-knowledge, and so he kills the Egyptian; then he fears the first person that raises an outcry against him, and runs away.
Look again at Elijah. He takes true ground, owns the twelve tribes, is entrusted with full power by God, gathers the priests of Baal and has every one of them killed; but what then?
When Jezebel threatens him, he runs away and says, "Lord, they have slain thy prophets with the sword", when it was he himself who had been killing the others -- "and I am left alone". "Indeed you are not", says the Lord, "I have seven thousand left that have not bowed the knee to Baal".
Or take the case of Paul. You cannot find a more glorious example of grace than in him; but after having been taken up into the third heaven, Paul is in danger from the flesh, and is obliged to have a messenger of Satan to buffet him.
There must ever be the breakdown of self, not only the knowledge that we are sinners, but that we are without strength. Often we have not measured our weakness, and we go forward not thinking what it is, not suspecting it, but flesh is always weak in the things of God. The place of dependence is the place of power -- Christ's power. That is what we have to learn, and that, too, by a process that makes us find out what we are in ourselves, and thus divinely taught, it makes us sick of it also.
If you had put Paul into a fourth heaven, had there been one, it would only have been more dangerous still for him.
The revelation of grace does not help me if I am not in God's presence.
In 2 Corinthians you get two things put together; in chapter 1 Paul has the sentence of death written in himself; and in chapter 4 you have the way in which it was kept up, "Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh".
Paul was constantly acting in view of the cross, so that flesh could not stir, and, on the other hand, to test it, God puts Paul through circumstances which so tested it in his case, that he despaired even of life, the effect being he received such strength that he could do all things. "Everywhere and in all things I am instructed", etc.
Now this is not merely I am dead with Christ, but the positive learning that self will not do.
Another thing, too, I would mention with reference to the utter hopelessness of all that man has built up, and that is, that true succession -- apostolic, if you like -- is found in "two or three" gathered together in Christ's name.
The power of binding and loosing -- discipline practically -- is by the word of God, connected not with a clergy, but with the assembly, wherever two or three are gathered. Of course it is merely administrative power, God alone can forgive absolutely. But administrative power was given to Peter, and then it was given to those who come after him.
God has provided everything for the church for all ages, and we have it, if we only take the word of God for our authority and guide. There is apostolic succession in the two or three.
The more difficult the times are, the more you find the word of God meets every thing. All sorts of things are arising, in these days specially, but the word of God is ready for all.
Since I was first exercised, I never found it fail me in any difficulty or heresy. I have failed it, that is another thing; but it has never failed me.
One thing more. We have looked at the failure but the present power is, the living God is with us; MY strength is made perfect in weakness, that is the character of our strength.
Where was the strength that destroyed Satan's power? It was the weakness of death, Christ's death, of course; He was crucified through weakness.
And it is the same principle with us.
When you look at man as man, his is a false strength, because he has departed from God. It is only evil. Such strength has to be broken down. I am satisfied we never fully get the sense of this, until it is actually broken down in us.
You may be converted and know the forgiveness of your sins, but until you have gone through the breaking down itself, you never know what the true character of your own energy is, but you are liable to fall and slip into it.
You see there is something to be done -- what then? You must go and do it. Ah! did God send you? That is another thing.
The soul that has learnt itself refers to God as the first thing; it distrusts the activity of its own will. If that is there, it is not obedience and dependence, though the soul may be very sincere at the same time.
I will now say a word as to the present expectation of the Lord's coming at any moment.
People who attempt to fix time are wholly mistaken. The Father has kept that in His own power. Not that we may not discern the times; the Lord says, "How is it that ye do not discern this time?"
There are moral elements around us that a spiritual mind discerns at once; but the fixing of dates is a mistake.
It is no mistake to be always expecting the Lord to return.
The object of the conversion of the Thessalonians was to wait for God's Son from heaven.
People fancy that the truth of the Lord's return is a bit of knowledge at the top of the tree; but instead of that, it is what the Thessalonians were converted for, and meanwhile they are to serve God.
People say Paul made a mistake, but I can tell you he is going to get precious fruit from it when Christ comes again. He has to wait meanwhile, but that is no great loss, for "to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better". Yet the apostle himself did not know how to choose between the two, because if he went up there, he could not work for Christ down here.
The present constant expectation of Christ stamps its own character on the Christian: "Ye yourselves like unto men
that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding".
It is by this that the Christian, in his mind and thoughts, becomes associated with Christ Himself. You find this specially in the letter to the church at Philadelphia, for there, besides keeping His word, and not denying His name, you read, "Because thou hast kept the word of my patience". Whose patience?
Christ's. Christ is waiting; and He is waiting a great deal more truly and earnestly than we are. We are waiting for Him, and He is waiting for us, with all the love that the Bridegroom bears to the bride.
True, He is waiting until His enemies be made His footstool; but, for His friends, He has perfected His work; and He sits expecting as to His enemies, and then He will rise up to judgment. He does not know the time in that sense (of course, as God, He does) but it is not a revealed thing yet.
He is waiting, and we wait for Him, but so complete is the association, now in spirit, and then in glory, that save His personal glory, He cannot take any glory until He has us with Him for we are joint heirs with Him.
It is blessed association with Himself that we find in Revelation 3:8 - 11.
In the first four churches you find the ecclesiastical order of things in the world closing with Thyatira which goes on "till I come". Thyatira ends entirely the whole moral history of the church of God until Christ comes. Consequently, you get there both the kingdom and the heavenly part of the saints. "He that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father". That is the kingdom according to the second Psalm.
"And I will give him the morning star"that is Christ according to the New Testament ... . As soon as he says "morning star" in Revelation 22:16, "The Spirit and the bride say, Come".
In the first four churches, when Christ is spoken of, it is in the terms by which He is described when among the golden candlesticks, but this is not the case in the latter three.
"He that hath the key of David", has no place in that which John saw in Christ in Revelation 1.
But it is Christ's coming which is brought before us.
In Philadelphia we get, "I know thy works", but there is not a word said about them, the saints must be content to wait till the Lord comes.
"Because thou hast kept the word of my patience", that was Christ's own path down here, and we are to walk in it now -- now that we are at the end of a dispensation, which, as an outward system, has wholly departed from God.
Christ down here had none of the things that belonged to Him. As a man, He simply lived by every word of God. He did not take up the pretension of power, but He walked in obedience, and that is just our place. And mark, they should, consequently, be kept "from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth".
At, and from, the very beginning, the Lord's coming was presented as the immediate expectation and hope of the believer; while in no case is the thought of the coming of Christ put beyond the life of those who were living then.
The history of the church is not given as a thing that is to continue, but it is all brought out in churches that then existed.
So, "the virgins" that go to sleep are the same as those who wake up.
Do not treat the Lord's coming as a matter of prophecy -- prophecy concerns events in this world.
When once personal salvation is settled, then we delight in two things which are found in Scripture -- the government of the world, and the sovereign grace which has taken poor sinners like us, and set us with Christ before God.
Prophecy concerns the first; but the sovereign grace which puts us poor creatures in the glory of the Son of God is a distinct thing. Christ will come and take us there, but (save in the lips of Christ Himself) you never find the "assembly" nor the rapture, except in Paul. (The mere name is used in 2 John.) Others speak of his appearing, but that has to do with the government of this world.
Ques. May I ask you for a word about "the hour of temptation"?
There is an hour of temptation coming upon the whole earth. I do not mean the special tribulation of Matthew 24, for that is Jewish, and Jeremiah calls it "Jacob's trouble", but, beside
that, there is a time of trial which will pass over the whole world.
The "everlasting gospel" will announce that "the hour of his judgment is come", and God will not judge the nations of the earth until He has sent this message out to them.
Matthew gives you the judgment of the nations, according as "my brethren" have been received by them or not. That is here the only ground on which they will be judged.
Romans gives us the ground of the judgment of the heathen.
That is prophecy. It will be a time of trouble over the whole world, but those who are faithful to the word of Christ's patience will be kept from it, i.e., taken out of the way to the Lord
I would just pick up a little point or two.
And first how can we get rid of this power of self? The end of Galatians 2 will introduce what I mean.
I do not take up now the question of righteousness by the law, but the question of the power of sin and self, which is sin really. Life is here made dependent on this great principle that "I am crucified with Christ". People talk of this as if it were a lingering death, but that is false doctrine, though they may mean it well. Paul says, "I am crucified with Christ", and then he looks upon himself as dead.
And mark, too, what is very practical, that death comes before life here. You must die first.
It does not say life was not there. "Nevertheless I live", but it is not his own life, it is with Christ's life.
It is not merely that a man is born again, but there is an additional truth, viz., that he is dead as regards the old thing; "crucified", and "dead"both words are used.
This is not a question as to guilt; it is as to what I am, not what I have done.
We are not only quickened, but we are dead as regards Adam (not physically, of course), and it is that which gives us deliverance from the power of self.
Instead of this, you find men pulling off the fruits, and fancying they are mending the tree; or again, they are using all sorts of things to restrain the tree. Like the man they bound with fetters and chains, but still they could not hold him.
Now, God has dealt with the whole thing. Flesh is not subject to His law; and in grace He does not bring back the law to that which is not subject to it; but He cuts the tree down -- the nature -- kills it; "I through the law am dead to the law".
The law brought in death. Death of what? Death of this thing that was not subject to the law.
And the law has done its work in that way. In 2 Corinthians 3 it is called "the ministration of death" and "of condemnation". It has brought death on me, as in the flesh, a child of Adam, and it is just that -- self -- that I want to get rid of.
It will do other things, but it pronounces death upon me, upon "the old man". And if the law pronounces death upon me by itself, it further pronounces condemnation upon me. And thus it is a ministration of death and condemnation.
Now the real place where the work has been done is the cross, and that is the reason that faith accepts death for self. It was there, that what "the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh". And death, too, was in the cross.
I find now this horrid flesh in me, and I ask myself what am I to do with it? I can't get the better of it. Do with it? Look what has been done with it. Look at the cross. There God has condemned sin in the flesh, and by it I have got death brought to me. Christ being "made sin" on the cross for me, the condemnation is over and gone, and death is come, and that is just what I want.
God could not but condemn the state I was in, it could not be forgiven, but then it was condemned in death. Ah!! I see I am dead.
That's just what I want. So that I get, not merely life, eternal life, but the Christ I have for life is a risen Christ -- a Christ that has died. When once I get this new "I", I say, I died. This new "I" is now myself.
If I look at the flesh, I know I am utterly condemned. But Christ risen is now my life.
Romans 7 is the going through the processes to reach this point. There he finds out that there is no good in him; then he learns a second thing (one that people are often content with), but it is no deliverance. I hate it, well then, it is not I; and the third thing is, that flesh is too strong for me; the will is present, but how to perform he finds not.
He is brought to the knowledge that the flesh is absolutely bad, and in that state he finds the old man too strong for the new; but when God has taught him that he is not merely ungodly, but also without strength in the flesh, then he finds that Christ is power and deliverance; and so he sums it up in chapter 8: "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death".
I can then no longer excuse myself in the least degree.
The sin is still there in me; but I must learn what the flesh
is in that way, and that I have it judged, and then, through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, I find deliverance.
You will find, too, the way faith takes this up in the second part of Romans 6"Reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin". Do not say, you have to die to it, but reckon that you are dead to sin. If I keep the cross in mind, flesh has not a word to say. I may fail in doing it, but that is what I have to do; while God in His government puts us through circumstances to try us, and deals with us correctively where we need it.
Christ living in me is the deliverance from Romans 7. I want an object, and that is where law totally fails. The law does not give me life, it gives me death. It does not give me strength, and it does not give me an object. It tells me I am to love God. Why so? Not a word of explication about this does it give me.
But when I have Christ, I get life, strength, and an object. That is where deliverance is; that is the great principle upon which, as the word of God shews us, we are entirely delivered from the power of sin.
We died with Christ, and therefore (although in fact we are not dead), we get the judgment, and mind, and truth of the Spirit of God, and we so reckon ourselves dead.
We put off the old man and we put on the new, or else it had been a fight between the two, and a kind of even chance which should get the upper hand. Conflict there will be, but now it is of quite a different kind.
If a man be struggling with me, it is a very different thing for me to have him down with my knee on his chest, from his having me down with his knee on my chest.
Take the woman in the city that was a sinner. Christ is revealed to her, and she feels the horribleness of her sins, but she goes to Christ and touches Him. The love of Christ has got into her. If she cannot show her face to a decent person, she can shew herself to One who was the manifestation of the divine.
The Syrophenician woman owns that she has not a title to anything; but she says there is love enough in God's heart to give to dogs. She was a dog in the presence of the One who had come to the dogs. All is out before God, and all is out in her conscience, too.
God does not say, Come to Me because you are a sinner; but, I come to you because you are a sinner.
The first part of this chapter belongs to the former part of the epistle, and it expresses the joy of the forgiveness of sins.
Do you think Christ bore your sins up to the day when you were converted?
The believer has peace with God, but not by believing in his own acceptance of Christ's sacrifice. In preaching the gospel, I never say that the work is done if you accept it. God has accepted it, not you.
When you preach the death of Christ, you are preaching the good of the sinner, but when you preach the Son of God, Jesus Christ, you are preaching the value of His Person; to leave out the Person is to lose sight of the claim of that Person over one.
Ques. "As he is in the light", 1 John 1. What is this?
It means, as "completely revealed"; but mark, it is not there, according to the light.
"In Christ", is individual, in Romans; it is not unity. "He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit" is in individual unity, not in unity at large.
As we are all one with the Lord, it results in our unity. It is a fact that I have died with Christ, and that Christ is as really my life as when I had life from Adam. Faith appropriates it.
Ques. What is the "law of the Spirit of life"? It is the uniform principle of the Spirit of life, just as you speak of the law of gravity. In chapter 7 you have a quickened soul; and the more he is in the sense of that, the more miserable he is. In verses 2, 3 and 11 of our chapter, you have the same word, 'rejoice', in the Greek. You do learn by experiences, and when you have been well pulled to pieces by them, then you will be able to say, "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want". Man's spirit reasons from what we are upward to God, i.e.; from what I am, to what God will be. The Holy Ghost always reasons downwards from what God is. Suppose you and I had got up to the highest pitch of spirituality, the thing that we should then delight in in God, is His love as shown in His dealings with the vilest sinner that can been found. When you come to deal with individuals, you will find that there is a due time for dealing with each one. There is an old proverb that says the man who learns by another's experience is happy; but that the one who learns by his own, is wise.
Do you say, I ought to be holy, and that if I did but strive I should be so? Strive away then, and wretched you will be!
Ques. What of "the law", in chapter 7?
The article 'the' is the sign of abstraction, in Greek, as well as being definite when the thing has been spoken of before. I believe the law to be a perfect rule of life for man in the flesh, and with that I include the sabbath.
Ques. Why does Paul refer to the law in Ephesians 6?
Because he is calling attention to the importance God attaches to the obedience of children. When God is giving directions in this respect, the law comes in there, though now, we have a much higher motive. We know that the law is spiritual; but when the law says, you must not have a lust in your heart, you must not covet (the same word in Greek), well, then, I may as well give up,
for I have lust. You might as well say to me, I must not be a man.
The Jews thought the law was all outside, but when Paul's mind is opened by the Spirit of God, he says, "We know that the law is spiritual".
According to the doctrine of the Council of Trent, if lust is in you, and it is not yielded to, then it is not sin!
I want to do what is right, and I have found that the evil nature in me is not "I"; and if it is not "I", it is nevertheless too strong for "I". Then I must get some one to help me. Sin is not "I", and sin is too strong for "I".
Ques. Is not 1 John 5:16 connected with James 5?
It is the same kind of thing. Popery has turned governmental forgiveness into absolute forgiveness. Absolute forgiveness is so little known, even among Evangelicals.
Ques. Could such a case as in James 5 occur now?
Yes, it might happen; only you cannot call them elders of the church in any official sense now.
If they asked for it, not else. Oil was a sign, that is all. It is the prayer of faith that saves, not the oil; the faith of the elders.
Elias teaches us another thing; that was a public act, in faith, and there is not a word about praying in the narrative.
John 15 is connection with Christ on earth. Judas was a branch. It is not members of the body of Christ.
You cannot say that Ananias and Sapphira were not converted, for God came in.
Ques. What might he be "sick" for?
I do not know. Paul got his chastening to hinder him from sinning. It may be to correct carelessness, or a thousand things.
Once, flesh was the only I, and now I do not own it as "I". Then what is "I"? Christ is I.
"Keepeth himself" is, you must be living in the power of the new life objectively. You must have Christ for object.
In the Garden of Eden, there was nothing for Satan to act upon but the fact of man's obedience.
Man got turned out of Paradise into a world of sin; but Christ came out of Paradise into a world of sin.
The relationships in which God Himself has set people, He maintains; though sin has come in and spoiled it all; and natural affections have suffered, though they are all right. Still, it is only nature; and if I am with God He owns this, and He has brought in a power which lifts you above them; so that you cannot act rightly in them only when you are out of them.
With Christ before me, if anything would come in between me and Christ, the more horror I have of it.
Law is the measure of the responsibility of the first man.
"We know", is the expression of common Christian knowledge; we Christians know that as a part of Christianity.
Water, blood, and Spirit, in verse 6, are historical, and the water was shewn in His life; but "came by water" refers to His death.
(Volume 2)
The epistle to the Colossians was written more expressly to Gentiles; that to the Ephesians was, too, but Colossians exclusively so.
The saint is here viewed as risen, but still on earth, and his hope is laid up for him in heaven; that gives a character to the epistle. And inasmuch as he is on earth, he is still in the desert, and so there is an "if". You get no "ifs" in Ephesians, because you are there sitting in the heavenly places in Christ. But whenever you get the desert, you get "if". It is well to keep the two clear and distinct.
Ques. In the first epistle of John there are many "ifs"?
It is just another kind of way of speaking, in many cases. I might say to you, if you are an Englishman, I hope you will not dishonour your country; that is the way in 1 John as well as in Colossians 3. It has no reference to progress; but "if we say", "if we confess", is merely putting the case; it is not, "you will be in glory if you are faithful to the end".
God's chastening forms no part of His purpose, but it is part of His way.
Ques. Is it in God's ways, then, that we get priesthood?
Yes; priesthood, and "ifs", and all that. Only remember that along with the desert "if", you get God's certain faithfulness to bring us through. That is not simply salvation, but God's keeping. "No man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand". Then there is somebody who wants to pluck me, I suppose.
Ques. But at the end of Exodus 4 you get Aaron brought to Moses?
Yes, but that is more apostolic than priesthood.
Ques. As to what does "if" imply a doubt?
No doubt as to anything else but dependence, so that I may not doubt. God has delivered me out of Egypt, and I am not in the flesh; but now, how do I know that I am going to get into glory? God will keep me, and that is dependence.
Ques. But there cannot be real dependence, if there is a doubt?
Precisely so. Then I have every-day cares, and God chastens me and proves me. He puts us through a process which both exercises us and shews us His own constant love and care.
In Colossians 1 you get the fullest statement of not only our redemption, but also of our fitness for glory and of our being reconciled, and then we find an "if".
Ques. Is there any thought of communion in Colossians?
Yes; but that is not its subject. There is of the one body. The epistle to the Colossians treats of life; union is by the Holy Ghost, and He is not spoken of in Colossians save in the verse, "love in the Spirit", and that is only to shew the general character of the affection.
The presence of the Holy Ghost in us makes our bodies His temples; and if that was the same thing in itself as life, I should be an incarnation of the Holy Ghost.
If I am starting across the wilderness to reach Canaan for the blessing, I must get there before I can obtain the blessing.
Ques. Our place and title are in heaven, and we are not living in the world?
Yes, but we are living in the world.
Ques. Then why does he says, "Why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances"?
Because he is blaming them for acting in the world as if of it; but then that shews they are still here.
In Romans, the Christian is looked at as an actual living man in the world.
In Ephesians, it is as a man in Christ in heaven;
In Colossians, he is risen, but not yet in heaven;
In Philippians, you get the full character of faithfulness in the race, and the like. Even justification is put before Christ there: "That I may ... be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law", etc. Not that he doubted for himself a moment, for he says, "I am apprehended of Christ Jesus".
Philippians is not so much the certainty of the place I am in but that God's way, when He has redeemed me, is to bring me into a place of experiences through which I must go; only I have the certainty that He will keep me in it. Where people bring in this question of certainty, and connect it with their acceptance, all becomes uncertainty. And that is what systems do.
Ques. Would a servant be accepted in his work, if he has not the purpose of God?
Ques. Would he not be deficient?
Ques. Why, "if by any means I might attain"?
If it cost him his life. He did not mean to say that he had attained.
Ques. What is "walking worthy"?
Well, it is just having the same motives and principles as Christ. There are three such passages:
"Walk worthy of God who calls you to his own kingdom and glory", 1 Thessalonians 2:12;
"Walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing", Colossians 1;
"Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called", Ephesians 4:1.
They are all substantially the same thing, but different characters of it.
When you come to full Christianity, you see the Lord Jesus always walked and spake in this world as the Son of man who is in heaven; and though they made a great outcry about it, He was a heavenly Man. He was a true, real and heavenly Man down here.
Ques. But, "Who is in heaven", could not now be applied to a believer?
Ques. Would not, "in heaven", involve His omnipresence?
Ques. But in John is it not the existing thing on earth?
Yes, it is the divine presence. It proves the unity of the two natures. That verse is strongly quoted against those who deny the Deity of Christ.
You cannot separate the glory in which Christ is from the actual holiness in which we ought to walk down here. The character of holiness is always the reflection of Christ in the glory. So, "We all looking on the glory of the Lord with unveiled face are transformed according to the same image from glory to glory".
The end of the 1 Thessalonians 3 is almost nonsense, as man looks at things; if we had been writing, we should say, "stablish you unblamable in holiness down here"; but it is all made out, and manifested there. In John, I know I am going to be perfectly like Him in the glory, and so I purify myself according to that standard.
Ques. Is there any distinction between being in heaven and "in heavenly places"?
No; "heavenly places" is more general, that is all.
In Exodus 15:13, you find a difference which shews the thing, typically speaking: "Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation", i.e., to Himself. But in verse 17, it is, "Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance", and there you get typified the heavenly places.
God is sovereign in love, and it is nowhere said in Scripture that we are love. I cannot be love, nor can I say that I am it; but as to light, it is said, "Now are ye light in the Lord". Light is a pure nature. It shews the sovereign character of love.
Ques. "Preserved blameless". How do you understand that? Is it perfection?
It is a different thing from perfection. I am to be a babe in Christ, and I shall walk as a babe, but without tripping, as I lean on Him. Perfection is really being like Christ in glory. I have no standard but Christ in glory; and that is to be realised in my path down here, in thoughts, and motives, and feelings.
Ques. Then Christ's life down here is not the standard?
Yes, it is. Down here, He was the expression of what is divine and heavenly in heaven.
Suppose you have a motive that you could not enjoy in heaven, are you walking worthy of Christ? No.
There are, as to bodily necessities, a great many things I do here that I shall not do there.
But if I only eat because I am hungry, I eat in the same way a pig eats. Christ would not eat when hungry, because He had no word from God to do so. He walked down here as having motives and affections up in heaven. And we can never go rightly except so far as our mind and conversation are up in heaven.
Ques. Is that word 'conversation' a correct one?
It is not quite exact; it means the moral and the political life.
Ques. This makes a vast difference between the walk of a saint in the old dispensation, and the walk of a saint now?
Of course it does. Old Testament saints were not, as regards their actual faith, dead and risen at all, though of course they had life. And they soon found out that this world did not do for them.
But now, we have the Christian viewed as risen, with a hope
which is of great importance as regards this practical life: "Christ in you, the hope of glory".
Ques. Peter does not go so far as this?
No. Redemption, and born of the incorruptible seed of the word of God; that is the basis in Peter.
Ques. It is the moral effects of Christ's death, in Peter, rather than the death and resurrection?
Yes; Christ has suffered, and he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin. It is the same thing, but more the practical side of it.
Ques. He says, "being dead to sins"?
He does, but it is rather as "having done with sins".
Paul goes to the root of the whole thing.
It is not only in the fact of having life, but also in the associations of life, that we belong to there where Christ is.
Those who have not the hope of the Lord's return cannot apprehend what is the true path of a Christian; they may have life, of course, in one sense, but they have not the proper stamp of heavenly life in their daily practice down here.
I never would myself put forth the Lord's coming as a thing to be proved, but rather as being a substantive part of Christianity itself. You might have to prove it to an infidel.
Ques. Could a person walk "as he walked", who did not know it?
No. But it ought to give tone to every-day life in a Christian. The Lord's coming is an integral part of the gospel; it is put so here: "Whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel".
Ques. Might not people have it in their hearts?
Yes; but, for that, it must be a fact before them. "Love his appearing" is the affections of the heart.
Ques. Does not the general idea that people have about the Lord's coming give a certain character to them?
Well, it is more as taking place at the end of the world, in people's ideas; but that is not waiting for somebody.
If I am waiting for someone to come and take me up out of it, what then is the world to me? What comes of its plans, and its running after money, and all that kind of thing? A man may not know much about the rapture of the church, and yet be waiting for someone to come and take him out of this scene.
Before ever I knew about the Lord's coming, I think I loved
His appearing. I knew nothing about the doctrine, but the principle of loving His appearing was in my mind, though I could not define it. I do not talk now of the rapture, though it is most blessed to get that, too. What I delight in, is Christ's coming and setting aside the whole thing I am in.
Ques. Would that be more John 14?
Yes. But that brings in the full element of our place in heaven. John 13 and 14 are, that the Lord cannot stay with His disciples here, but as He is not going to give them up, He must take them there.
Ques. Is there any thought of the rapture in the parable of the ten virgins?
No. Matthew was to Israel, so you get no ascension there at all.
Ques. What is, "they ... went in with him"?
They have a part with Him down here; and the marriage is with Jerusalem on earth, not the Jerusalem above.
Ques. How does that apply to saints now?
Exactly; they went out to meet the Bridegroom. It is not the heavenly side and the rapture, though when the Bridegroom comes and they meet Him, that would be practically the rapture to us.
Ques. Is it connected with responsibility more than with grace?
Well, it is more a history of what will happen. The difficulty is as to the virgins. They were converted, you may say, to wait for God's Son, and they go out to meet Him. And while the Bridegroom tarried, they turned in to some place to rest; and then they went to sleep. They are heavenly saints, but not the bride, i.e., not viewed in that aspect. So they go in to the marriage.
Ques. But at the end of the chapter we have His coming in?
No; He sits on the throne of His glory, but it is not quite His coming in glory.
The kingdom of heaven, as we have it now, is without a king. When Christ comes it will not be so. The heavens rule in that general way after He comes, but then it will be the kingdom of the Father and of the Son of man.
Ques. Then the kingdom of heaven exists in three forms: first, in principles; next, in mystery; and lastly, in actual power at the end?
Quite so; but the mystery character is over when He comes in power.
Ques. What is the difference between the two terms "coming" and "appearing"?
"Coming" is a general word; you get the "appearing of his coming" in 2 Thessalonians 2. First He comes, and does not appear, and takes us up to be with Himself. But "when he shall appear", we shall appear with Him in glory.
Ques. What are the "saints of the most high places" in the seventh chapter of Daniel?
Those who are linked with God in heaven, during the time that earthly power is in the hands of His enemies. They are killed for their testimony, or by the beast when he is in power, and, being so killed, they would lose earthly blessing, so God takes them up to heaven, though it will be too late for them to be in the body of Christ.
Ques. What is the kingdom of the Father?
The heavenly part of the kingdom of heaven which will be our portion. That of the Son of man is the earthly part of it.
In Ephesians, we are seen sitting in the heavenly places in Christ, and therefore the inheritance is the inheritance of all things that Christ created. Creation is the inheritance. But in 1 Peter or in Colossians, the thing is in heaven, and you are down here; it is incorruptible and undefiled, reserved in heaven for you, or a hope that is laid up for you in heaven.
Ques. Then what is "the kingdom of the Son of his love"?
It is an expression only used here; we were under the power of darkness, i.e., of Satan; but now we have been brought not merely out of darkness into His marvellous light, but also into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in the oneness of the love.
In verses 9 and 10, our walk is connected with our spiritual state; God does not intend that these should be separated. To have simply the knowledge of God's will, in fact, without walking worthy, would be mischief to me, because I should then be without exercise as to being a spiritual saint. But the being "filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding", is in order "that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work". I must get divine wisdom and spiritual understanding; but then this acquaintance with His will is here connected with the state of soul. There might be something
in the state of my soul that hinders the full following of Christ. It is, "that ye might walk worthy of the Lord". How can I do that if I do not know what Christ is?
It should read, I think, "increasing by the knowledge of God"; that is its meaning.
Ques. You connect it all with knowing Christ in glory?
Yes; but I get also the knowledge of what God is in His nature. Christ as a man had perfect knowledge of God; and so perfect obedience and love to His Father flowed out in Him. He says: "If I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you".
Ques. "Saints in light", what is that?
The absolute purity of God's presence, and that is what I am made meet for.
Ques. Whose "power" is it in verse 11?
It is God's power. It is walk worthy of the Lord; but you get, "walk worthy of God" in 1 Thessalonians. If I am walking about in my Father's name, I ought at least to walk worthy of Him.
The revelation of the name of the Father brings eternal life with it; "the Father sent the Son that we might live through him". What brings eternal life is Christ Himself, who was with the Father and was manifested unto us; and if I get Christ, I get life.
But if the Son is my life, I cry Abba, Father, through the Spirit.
Ques. Do you mean to imply that the millennial revelation (Most High) does not give eternal life?
Certainly I do. Christ can quicken whom He will, but life and incorruptibility were brought to light by the gospel, not by the Most High as such.
Ques. Can you speak of that life as existing in the believer?
Certainly I can. It is not in me in an independent way, but He says, "ye in me and I in you"; and the life of Jesus should be manifested in our mortal bodies. If you talk of it existing in the believer, it is not communicated to him without his having the Son in him.
Ques. Had Old Testament saints eternal life?
It was not revealed to them; it is the same thing essentially. It says "brought ... to light", it does not say that they then only began to exist by it.
The intelligent Jew had a hope; but Peter says, "Unto
whom it was revealed that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister".
People tell you that Christianity is the accomplishment of the promises. It is no such thing. They have yet to be accomplished. We are living between the sufferings and the glory.
Ques. Would not a converted Jew see Christ in the types?
Partly so. They had prophets, too.
Ques. Then we have eternal life in us?
We have eternal life in us, because Christ is in us, its source; He is it. Scripture is very accurate. This is becoming to be of immense moment. If I say it is not me, as me, then it is my own state, and not Christ my life. Some are urging, 'How can you have a new me', but that is simply fighting Scripture.
The new me is Christ. "Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me". This is most important, because nowadays the setting human nature right is what they are all at.
When the prodigal son was converted and was going to meet his father, he says, "Make me as one of thy hired servants", which just shows he had not yet met his father.
Don't you say "Father" if you do not know that you are a child.
Where a man is still in the flesh, as regards the state of his soul, he always mixes up his state with his acceptance.
Ques. Where would you place, as to the body, those quickened souls which have not the Holy Ghost?
The moment redemption was accomplished and everything was finished, so that Christ went back to God, then the Holy Ghost came down on all them that believed. He had previously wrought in the prophets, and in creation, too, but He had not come till then.
Ques. "They that are in the flesh", does that contemplate a quickened soul?
Colossians 1 (continued)
"Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness". Patience is a wonderful thing; and it is a great thing to have patience that does not give way. You must wait until God has worked things out in people's souls. James insists upon it: "Let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing". Not that that touches the perfection of the work of grace. People fancy they reach holiness by enfeebling the work of grace. They talk about being justified, and then made meet; but you will never find that in Scripture. There are plenty of scriptures about progress, but not one of them is connected with our being meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.
Ques. Do you distinguish between justification and being made meet?
Justification is more the clearing us from the old thing. There are two things in my acceptance, like as in the fifth and the eighth of Romans. Christ was delivered for our offences, that is one thing.
Ques. In Romans 4 you get the imputation of righteousness?
Yes; in Romans 4 that is used as the same thing with forgiving sins. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus" is the eighth, and there I have a new thing -- positive acceptance -- I am fit for God in the life of Christ.
Ques. Then as to sanctification?
That depends; for we are sanctified to the blood of sprinkling, in 1 Peter 1. Whenever you get sanctifying and justifying put together, the sanctifying comes first, though that is very unorthodox.
But the clearing the believer from guilt, and the putting him in the positive place of acceptance, are two things. What is the measure of my acceptance? Is it only that my sins are put away?
Ques. What about "unto obedience" in 1 Peter 1?
The obedience of Christ is the character of our obedience. Suppose my child wanted to go into the town, and I said, "No, sit down and do your lesson", and he does; it would be very nice and right; but Christ never obeyed in that way.
The proper character of Christian obedience is that the motive for doing a thing is that it is God's will.
Ques. Does not justification include the imputation of righteousness in itself?
It is the same thing. Justification gives me title to stand in the presence of God; but it does not tell me what I am when there. There is the fact that my sins are cleared away, but I also get the acceptance of Christ Himself. I find Him sitting now at the right hand of God, and I am brought to God in all His value.
Ques. But in Romans 5 the believer is justified by faith, and has peace with God, and rejoices as well in hope of the glory of God?
Yes; you find the favour of God is towards us, but you do not get our new place before God. In the eighth chapter you do get this, and it is connected with seeing you are not in the flesh at all. Then where are you? You are in Christ. Heaps of dear people do not know that. They say they are poor sinners, and the cross of Christ just suits them; but let them put themselves before the judgment-seat, and are they sure they are perfectly saved? No, they are not. But what if I am the righteousness of God!!
It is one thing to say, I am clear from my sins as a child of Adam, and quite another thing to say, I am accepted in Christ as a child of God.
None of us values the cross as it ought to be valued by us, but the more we look at the cross, the more we shall see that every question of good and evil has been brought to an issue there.
Man in absolute wickedness, hating God come in goodness as a Man among them. The devil is there in all his power, and the rest are rejoicing in getting rid of God come in Christ. Then in Christ there is perfect Man in perfect goodness, and in perfect love and obedience towards God also. "That the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do". There, too, I see God in righteous judgment against sin, and nowhere else, but God in perfect goodness towards the sinner. What God is, and what man is, and what the devil is, all is alike brought out at the cross!
Then as to acceptance and judgment, when I am called to give an account of myself at the judgment-seat, I am perfectly like the Judge who is sitting upon it, raised in glory!! But
you will find a great many dear souls who have no idea of this. Bad teaching, and carelessness too, and going on with the world, have their sure effect; and so all is dim.
Ques. Is it not peculiar here, when it says the Father has made us meet?
Well, it is Christ, of course, who wrought the work.
Ques. Did the Israelites of old know the new place?
How could they? The brazen altar was justification from sins; and on the great day of atonement the blood was carried in to where God was. Now, in every sense, we have a totally new place.
Adam innocent had nothing at all to do with a risen Man. We are accepted in a Christ risen and glorified; we are in Him. And you must condemn Christ glorified if you are to condemn the man who is in Him.
In Romans 8 you have three characters of the same Spirit: the Spirit of God, which is in contrast with that which is of man; the Spirit of Christ, that is, as formative of what Christ was, and in whose power Christ acted and offered Himself to God; and then the Spirit of Him that raised up Christ from the dead, which includes the ultimate deliverance of the body itself.
Ques. It says in 1 Corinthians 2, "we have the mind of Christ". Is that the same thing?
No; that is another thing altogether.
As to fitness, the thief was as fit to go to paradise as Christ. He went; well, but he had no time to get ready.
Ques. Is it the inheritance, or the saints, in the light?
Both are in the light. And the man that is fit, is fit for that light. There is this also now, that we walk in the light as God is in the light.
The absence of the knowledge of God, and, as to that, it is not possible for any Christian to be in darkness.
As I get Christ, I get light. God is light, and if I know Him, I am not in darkness.
I could not be before God except through Christ; but He has let the light out, and has also put away my sins so that I should be as white as snow. In answer to Christ's work, the vail was rent from top to bottom, but the rending of the vail
has put me in the place of the light. I find love, too, as well as light. All God's love is exercised in forgiving me, and I get also a position and standing before Him in Christ.
Ques. Is there not a difference between redemption and forgiveness of sins?
They are the same thing here; elsewhere, redemption may include the body, but not here.
Ques. Does not redemption imply the deliverance from the state in which I was?
Yes, in its full sense it does, but not here.
Ques. "Meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light". Is that the Red Sea, or Jordan?
I should say it was the Red Sea, although in reality the Red Sea and Jordan coalesce.
In the Red Sea I get Christ's death and resurrection, and in this sense all is complete; but in Jordan I get my death and resurrection with Christ, and then you find the experimental sense of things, and also Gilgal.
Colossians is not quite in the land; it is a kind of in-between thing. Ephesians views a man dead in his sins, and then there is a new creation, quickened together with Christ.
Ques. In Colossians 2:11, is that circumcision after being in the land?
Yes; you are over Jordan, but without being seated in the heavenly places. In Ephesians we are; not of course with Christ, but in Him.
In Ephesians it is gross sins, and the highest privileges.
In Colossians, every part of the life of the Christian is developed. Verses 9, 10, and 11 give the foundation. Then follows the unfolding of the greatness and the glory of Christ, through whom we get all this. He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.
Ques. In what sense is God spoken of as invisible?
He dwells in the light unapproachable.
Ques. Will that be God Himself, or only in Christ?
In Christ is not there. I do not believe a creature can see God in His essence. But it is said that the pure in heart shall see God, and "in heaven ... angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven".
Ques. How, then, do we see Him, if not in His essence?
I cannot tell you; but I am not going to be in my Father's house, and have nothing to say to Him.
Ques. If God ceased to be invisible, would not Christ cease to be His image?
Yes, of course; we should not want Him then.
You never could separate the Son from the Father, nor the Father from the Son, whatever we may see. You must distinguish between abstract names which speak of a Being, and names which express relationships.
Ques. What of the "glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ" in 2 Corinthians 4?
It is seen there now, and it will still be. The Lord was the One who expressed this on earth, and He has not ceased to do so in heaven. He is God, and if I see Him, I see God.
Rem. "I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it".
The Lamb is a distinct object; and it was so when Stephen saw Him at the right hand of God.
But the Father was revealed in Christ, in His life here below. That is not the same thing as here in Colossians; that would confound the Father and God. There is all the difference between my speaking of someone as a man, and my speaking of him as my father. So you might see clouds and lightnings on Mount Sinai, but not the Father. John says, "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him"; it is not the love of God there, but the love of the Father, because He has a new creation now.
Ques. "I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God". What is that?
Well, just so; but it does not speak of seeing or not.
Ques. What is the force of James saying "likeness", and not "image"?
No particular force that I know of.
We know the Lord as the Word, and as Christ, and as Man.
Ques. How was Adam made in the likeness of God?
There was no sin in him, and death had no power over him; and other things, too; he was a centre, and everything around him was subject to him. An angel was not made a centre of anything. Although there was no evil in Adam, he was liable to fall, of course.
The reason the Firstborn takes this place is that He created all things, they were created by Him and for Him.
Ques. "Before all things"; was this as to time?
Not merely, I think, but as having pre-eminence. As
John says, "He is preferred before me, for he was before me".
Then everything consists by Him. People talk about general laws, but I do not admit any general law without constant power exercised.
God has blown on general laws in connection with Christian faith, for resurrection is certainly no general law. Christianity is based on resurrection, yet certainly resurrection is not the natural consequence of death. The general way in nature is all well, but Christianity is not nature. So science can neither explain nor contradict Christianity.
Then there is a second headship, that of the body. And another new thing: He created everything, and then went down into death, which is below everything. "A living dog is better than a dead lion". The first man went into death by disobedience, but the Second Man went into death in obedience. He could not be holden of it, and He rises up out of it. So the Second Man has passed death; passed sin; passed judgment; passed the power of Satan. He is a Man beyond it all. And we know Him thus, besides knowing the work of atonement. It is not like the first man, put to the test to see if he could glorify God or not, but Christ has been placed in the glory where He now is, after having glorified God, for His obedience was perfect.
God has been glorified, in His love, and majesty, and truth, and everything. This having been done, all now stands upon what is finished. As a Man, too, Christ is now Head of everything. "In him all the fulness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell"; ('Father' is in italics in the A.V.). He takes the first place because He has a title to it.
Ques. How is He the beginning?
Absolutely; He is the beginning of the whole thing.
Ques. It says, "head of every man" in Corinthians?
Yes, that is just the statement of the fact, as a question of order, but it does not go on to say there, why or how.
Ques. In Hebrews 1 (A.V.) it says, "When he bringeth in the first-begotten into the world". When is that?
Ques. Is there then no reference to Bethlehem, when it is said that the angels worship Him?
Then follows another very precious thing: "And you ... hath he reconciled". Not only I have forgiveness, and am made fit for God, and have been translated into the kingdom of the Son of His love, but also I am reconciled to God Himself.
All is sovereign love in Christ, and therefore the Apostle says, "We love him, because he first loved us"; but we do love Him.
If I realise what is in that passage, first, that God sent His Son the propitiation for our sins; next, that God dwells in me (which is by the Holy Ghost); and then, what about the day of judgment? "We ... have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world". I enter into His love; I enjoy it in my heart; and, when I think of judgment, I know I am already as He Himself is.
Ques. Why does it say, "in this world"?
Because I am in it now; I do not wait for the day of judgment to know this.
Reconciliation here means and involves relationship as well as forgiveness. I am quickened together with Him; and body and all are to be raised up. My life is up there in heaven, and my body is down here. I am identified with heaven, in a certain sense, while at the same time I am identified, in fact, with the old creation.
Ques. What does reconciliation mean as applied to sins and the world?
That every thing is brought into order before God.
Ques. How are things out of order now?
Why did the angel, in Daniel, stay three weeks on the road, when he had given him an answer to take? You do not call that in order, do you?
Ques. When it says, "the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these", what is that?
In the tabernacle you have God's throne where nobody went; then the other place where the priest went to the altar of incense, and so on. These figured the heavens; but Christ has passed through the heavens, and is sitting at the right hand of God. The reconciliation will be made good, and every knee shall bow to Christ, to His power and authority.
Ques. But not until after the millennium?
Not finally and fully, but as to the heavens, it will be so when Satan is cast out. Luke says, when Christ rides into Jerusalem, "Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord:
peace in heaven, and glory in the highest". Until you get peace in heaven, Christ cannot ride in; but when peace is in heaven, you cannot hinder it.
Ques. What is the difference between "made peace", and "you ... hath he reconciled"?
He made the peace, by Him to reconcile.
There are two things, the abstract and absolute. When God sees the blood of Christ, He sees the victory which that death is over sin and Satan; but the full effect of it is not yet produced; it has to be wrought out.
Ques. Why, "in the body of his flesh"?
It was in the death of His body on the cross. His body connected Him with the creation, and made Him a responsible Man. People think of reconciliation as only something done in their own minds. Here, it is reconciling things in heaven and things on earth.
Ques. They talk of universal reconciliation?
That denies atonement; both annihilationism and universalism deny atonement entirely. It is the state of things in heaven and earth that is referred to. Afterwards, angels will no longer be bothered and hindered by devils.
Ques. Is reconciliation, then, the state produced corresponding to the work by which the peace has been made?
Ques. But surely it is persons?
Yes, of course, it includes them. "You ... hath he reconciled".
Then comes, "if ye continue in the faith", etc.
Clearly, they are not sitting in heavenly places in Christ. If now you give up Christ, you won't get to heaven. We are kept by the power of God, but then we are kept because we are in danger.
Ques. But a good Wesleyan would say, You may fall away?
As a professor, I am liable to fall away, but I have the positive certainty that I never shall.
Ques. What, then, is the use and force of the liability?
To make me feel my dependence every minute on Him who keeps me. I do not want to weaken one atom these "ifs".
Ques. What does "castaway" mean?
Castaway means castaway. The thing Paul is there insisting
on is, that I may preach to other people, and be a castaway myself.
I believe that "anon with joy receiving it" is a very bad sign, if people have not been exercised before.
In Hebrews, you never get people falling into sin, except it is finally, fatally; there is no restoring. Esau found no place of repentance, though he sought it, i.e., the blessing, carefully with tears.
Ques. In Hebrews 6 we read, "crucify to themselves the Son of God". What is that?
The nation had already done it, but now if any still reject Him, they crucify Him again for themselves.
Ques. Will the sin against the Holy Ghost be a sin in the latter day?
I do not doubt it will be so, but still it was a sin in that day.
Ques. Could you take the gospel to a man who has given up Christianity?
You might; it might be a case of a man met and overcome by a cleverer man. One that has rejected Christ, as a man in humiliation, may be reached by knowing Him as a glorified Christ; but if he rejects that, there is nothing left.
God will keep to the end the one that is His own; but a man may make all sorts of profession, and he may even get his affections moved, without being converted.
To the Jews, Christ will be the crown of glory, but to us, He is the hope of glory now.
Ques. Does "perfect" here (verse 28) look on to the glory?
Here, he is looking at holiness; it is Christ revealed in my soul as the power of sanctification.
The first thing noticeable here is the distinction between the Church and the profession of Christianity, as shewn in the address of the epistle; it is, "unto the church of God, which is at Corinth, ... called ... saints" (not, called to be saints), "with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours".
In the latter part, you have the calling on the name of the Lord Jesus, which is the character of one who professes to be a Christian; that is profession; whereas you get others before, distinctly as the assembly, and set apart, as saints by calling.
Ques. Would that embrace the whole of profession?
Yes. He looks, no doubt, at all as sincere, and treats them as Christians, unless proved otherwise; still, you get these two characters, the church and the professing body; and I see that running all through the epistle.
Ques. Does that bring out the responsibility of profession then?
That will follow. As you go through the epistle, I think he makes the thing most distinct; only remember that he assumes them to be Christians, unless proved to be otherwise.
Ques. But he says, their Lord, and ours?
Precisely; that is the very thing.
Ques. Profession and the church of God were, then, coincident?
They were very nearly so. In the beginning, absolutely so; because the Lord added to the church such as should be saved, and He took care that it should be real.
Ques. Would not the expression, "sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints", apply to all?
No; or why should he make the difference?
Ques. Is this the only epistle where the expression occurs?
Ques. Is it not, then, very remarkable, considering the state of things at that time?
Yes; and nowhere is it so clearly brought out as in 1 Corinthians. If you look at verse 8, he says, "Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless" -- not merely safe,
but blameless -- "in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ"; and then he sets about to blame them for everything.
Ques. But what is the objection to considering the former part of the second verse as referring to the church at Corinth, and the latter part of it as extending to every true believer?
He does suppose all of them true, but He puts in another character besides that of the church, and "called saints". He addresses them not as the church, but as individuals. You get much the same distinction in Ephesians 4one body and one spirit; and then, one faith, one baptism. You get the one body clearly enough in our tenth chapter.
Ques. Would the salutation of verse 3 apply to those who called upon the name of the Lord?
Yes; still, he makes a difference, and that with another title.
There is one great point of instruction. Those who called upon the name of the Lord were, of course, in the assembly, as a general rule; yet the Spirit of God is providing for a day when the difference should be yet more developed, and so He uses that different title in Scripture in order to provide for the coming time, that the two things might be separate.
Ques. In Ephesians 1, it is to the "saints" and to the "faithful"; would you also see a difference there?
No; except as he gives a specific character to them, and so he does in Colossians; here it is "saints, with all that", etc. In Ephesians and Colossians they are the same class of people, but he gives them a specific character, it is only emphatic there, after all.
At Corinth, as a general rule, they are supposed to be real Christians; only, as was said just now, by separating the characters, he has left a statement which would apply wherever such characters went.
In Jude, you distinctly get false brethren creeping in. I do not think we have any idea how provisional everything is until the Lord comes.
The first man was provisional; but it was the Second Man in whom all was to be settled; and so it is, I believe, with the church.
There is another thing to notice, and that is, "Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father", (one Father), "and from the Lord Jesus Christ". Practically, the Lordship of Christ is overlooked; it is the common address of the epistles, only it is lost sight of in Christendom.
There is a vagueness that has not seized the difference between the relationship of God as our Father, and the Lordship of Jesus Christ over His people.
Ques. The two meanings of the term "Lord" have often led to dangerous confusion; as, for instance, in 'Smith's Bible Dictionary', "God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ" (Acts 2:36), where this is applied to making Jesus, Jehovah in resurrection!!
Wherever we have administration in a general way, we have the Lord.
Ques. Is that why, in 2 Timothy, it says, "them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart"?
Yes; and also in calling on the name of the Lord as sent to Israel; whosoever did so, should be saved.
Ques. And so it was in Genesis?
Yes, it was. I look on it now quite practically for us, not that there is anything special in the doctrine, but the Lordship of Christ is very little thought of -- that there is a Person ordering and directing everything. Paul besought the Lord thrice; and he asked, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?"
All administration is referred to the Lord.
Ques. So chastening, too, in the end of chapter 11, "chastened of the Lord"?
Just so. Whereas I am a child with God our Father; personally, I am a child.
Ques. Does not the Lordship of Jesus run all through this epistle?
Yes; you get it in the gifts; the power was by the Holy Ghost, but the administration was by the Lord. And, still, it is one God that works all in all.
Ques. But is not, "our Lord Jesus Christ" distinctly a church character?
If you put in "our", it is; but He is Lord of all, Lord both of the dead, and of the living. Again, "Every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father".
Ques. How is He the Lord of the dead?
Because He has gone down among the dead, and got a title over them, and He will bring them up, to judgment or to glory.
He is Lord of all. His Lordship extends over everything; all things shall bow to Him, things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth. "Under the earth", in
Philippians, should be "infernal"; it is not simply, "under the earth", as in Revelation 5:13.
Ques. What is the difference between Master and Lord?
Master, would be more intimate, I should say.
Ques. Is there a difference between Lord and despotes (despot)?
Yes, there is; despotes is more the master of a slave Despotes is used in Jude, where the one who bought them is denied. Christ has bought everybody, and they will not own His authority. The word is only used five times in reference to the Lord: Luke 2:29; Acts 4:24; 2 Peter 2:1; Jude 4; and Revelation 6:10.
Ques. How do you distinguish between Lord and Head?
They are two thoughts. Christ is Head over all things to the church; and He is, too, Lord of all. He is our Lord, and we own Him, Lord, for ourselves; while He is also Lord over everybody that will not own Him.
Ques. One of the great errors of the Corinthians was their reasoning from the possession of gifts, through the Holy Ghost, to claiming a freedom in the use of them without responsibility?
Yes; and I see moderns now taking the same ground, though the Holy Ghost set it aside long ago.
Ques. Is not the denial of Jesus as Lord the great root of the apostasy, while acknowledging Him as here?
Only it goes much further; that is the way of its coming in, but not the way of its going out.
You get the coming in of it in Jude, and its going out in John, and there they deny everything. John says, "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us". That is the full character of apostasy, openly leaving us; but that goes a long way beyond Jude.
Ques. What would answer to John now?
Ques. Socinians and such people?
Well, it is more open infidels. There are, nowadays, numbers who deny Christianity altogether.
Ques. But in John they had made a profession; and after they had owned Christ as Lord, they denied Him?
Just so; but in Jude they were still within, and they were practically denying authority, turning the grace of God into
lasciviousness. In John, you have the additional element of their going out, that is open apostasy.
Ques. What would you say, then, of those who "separate themselves, ... having not the Spirit"?
They did not absolutely separate themselves in an outward way, because they were "spots in your feasts of charity"; but they set up to be something like the Pharisees. Now in John, not only had they gone out, but they denied the Father and the Son, and also, that Jesus is the Christ.
That is public infidelity after profession. A Pharisee set up to be a superior kind of Christian, and then he shewed his superiority by licence; of course, among the Jews, it was to be a better kind of Jew.
Ques. At the agape, love-feast or feast of charity, was the Lord's supper taken, too?
Not necessarily; though very often they might have it at the end. In Corinthians, they brought their suppers, too, that poor and rich might be together at what we call a tea-meeting; a very nice thing in its proper place; only, in Corinth, we find they began to abuse it, and then the two were disconnected by authority; 1 Corinthians 11:33, 34.
Ques. In John, it is final; it is the "last time"?
Yes, he says so; whereas Jude takes in the whole time; when he thought to write to them of the common salvation, he had to turn and exhort them to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. And then he refers to these men t hat had slipped in, crept in unawares; they are those of whom Enoch testified, that such were to be judged at the coming of the Lord.
So you get in Cain, natural evil; in Balaam, ecclesiastical evil more; and in Core, rebellion; the three characters of evil; natural, ecclesiastical, and apostate; and in Korah's rebellion, they perish.
Ques. Would "having not the Spirit" refer to their denying the one body and one Spirit, or to their acting in their own will?
To their acting in their own will. They had come into the thing that was there, and in the judgment they are treated as still in. The final judgment is on them, but they had slipped in. In Jude these are treated as there, among them; the character of all of them is that they "kept not their first estate".
In Peter, it is more wickedness; he speaks of "angels that
sinned"; Jude, of "angels which kept not their first estate".
Ques. Is the separation in Jude a pretentiousness?
Ques. And in John, is it public?
Well, in John, they have actually gone out.
Ques. What, then, is the difference as to the angels?
In Jude, it is in their leaving where they were; and in Peter, it is just the fact of their sinning.
Ques. Would you make a distinction between the angels now in chains and those wicked spirits, devils, against whom we have to wrestle?
Yes, the latter are not in chains.
Then, in 1 Corinthians, we have the principles of the church as established here, just when the church was going wrong. "Ye come behind in no gift", and "the day of our Lord Jesus Christ", you get the Holy Ghost, and that they were waiting for Christ's coming. He puts them first of all in their distinct, positive place, acknowledging the good things that were in them; he always owns the good he can before he begins to reprove anything. We also ought to do so; it opens the heart to receive rebuke. It is interesting to see this in all his epistles, except the one to the Galatians.
This epistle is looking at developed evil, and it is very profitable to see how he settles things, while distinct principles remain unshaken. You have here the Holy Ghost, the waiting for the Lord, and the certainty of being blameless -- the whole Christian security and blessing. I do not say the enjoyment of communion, but the actual conferred blessing.
Ques. But that which he commends is all on God's side?
Ques. There is nothing like, as in 1 Thessalonians, "work of faith, and labour of love", etc.?
Ques. But the coming behind in no gift is seen in all its activity in chapter 14?
Yes; and a pretty mess they made of it, talking two at a time! The testimony of Christ was confirmed in them by these gifts being there. The testimony of Christ is abstract, but gifts were given as confirmation that they had received it. Only the bestowal of gift incurred responsibility.
Ques. Did it embrace their testimony in the world?
Ques. What is "all utterance"?
Ques. Would a person in a bad state of soul speak so?
Yes, he might. It is not what I should expect, but the Holy Ghost might take up such an one, in any given case -- like, say, that of Balaam, though this was an extreme case.
Ques. But could such praise at the Lord's supper?
I could not say they could not, though I should not expect it. I could understand such a case in a lecture or in a preaching, but at the Lord's supper there is a difficulty. If such a person represented the assembly, you could not tell what God might put in his heart, but the natural effect would be that he would express more what was in his own heart. At Corinth, they were speaking with tongues through vanity.
Ques. Is not verse 9 emphatic, "The fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord"; and does it not bear on that?
Yes, into what else are they called? It is the very essence of a Christian's place -- fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
That we are brought into the same place with Christ; only, adoring Him when we get there.
The nearer we are brought to God, the more we shall own that Christ is God. Still, that is what He has done; He has made man's place in His own Person, and we are brought into it, predestinated to be ultimately conformed to the image of His Son: "He that sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee". He is one of the company, only as the Head of it, He is pre-eminent in every thing. Remember that. Moses and Elias were in the same glory with Jesus, but when Peter would put them on a level, Moses and Elias disappear at once, and God says: "This is my beloved Son, hear him". That is what has been so lost.
Ques. Has the word 'called', in verse 9, a qualifying sense?
Just this, that God has given them communion with Christ, that is what God has called us to, to be in Christ's place, with Him. John 17 (except the first few verses, and the last three verses of the chapter) lays the ground of it; it puts Christians into the same place with Christ and with the Father, and then with the world.
Ques. Has not this "fellowship of his Son" an especial reference to the assembly?
It has to the individuals who compose the assembly.
Ques. I thought it had special reference to their communion as gathered to Him?
Yes; but you must take them up as individuals; they were called as such.
Ques. But is not the point here, to shew their responsibility to Christ as Lord?
Well, I do not think Christ is ever presented as Lord of an assembly.
Ques. Is it not the standard by which Paul is going to test their state at Corinth?
Yes; he is putting their place before them, and then judging them by it.
Ques. Will you enlarge a little on Christ not being the Lord of an assembly?
Well, He is the Head of the body -- the Church.
No. In Hebrews 3:6, it is, "Christ, as Son over his [God's] house", though I know you have "own" in the English version.
Ques. But we have "in the Lord", often?
That is another thing altogether.
Ques. May you not address Him as Lord when you are praying in the assembly?
Yes, because each individual may correspond with that. But it is not specific relation.
Ques. What is the title of authority for Christ in the assembly?
He is Lord of those who compose it.
The first thing is to ascertain whether this is a fact or not.
I was led to notice the difference gradually, and I found there was no such thing in the Word, as "Lord" of the assembly.
Ques. There is the Lord's table?
I know there is; but there it is used just in the very way to shut out communion. In chapter 10, when he speaks of communion, it is the communion of the blood of Christ; but when he speaks of jealousy, he says, "Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy", there it is changed to Lord. We have fellowship with God's Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, and every Christian owns Him Lord, or he is not a Christian. The word 'Lord' never
has the character of communion: communion with the Lord is a wrong idea, it is a confusion of mind. The moment I say Lord, I am looking up to somebody above me.
Headship is of Christ, and it is a much more intimate thing.
Ques. I should be glad if you would define a little more the difference between, "all that ... call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ", and others. You said that was profession, and yet might include real Christians?
It is profession, and there might be hypocrites. I have no objection to putting them all on their responsibility. Take anybody who says he is a Christian, and ask him, Are you dead to sin? I affirm the responsibility distinctly, and the professing body will be judged according to its profession as the house of God.
Ques. Might we say that this epistle gives us the ordering of the assembly everywhere?
Remember, profession is not the church; calling on the Lord might be where there is no assembly at all. Profession at that time was a most excellent thing, but now it has become a very base thing.
Ques. Is this written with a view to the latter-day condition of things?
It provides for it, a priori, though left in that way.
Ques. Then it would not be separate instruction?
No. Principles are always applicable, but if you confound the then state of the church, with its condition now, you make a difficulty. To separate then from the professing body was wrong; but now I am to separate from very much that is there. In Isaiah 51, Abram was alone, and God called him, and blessed him, and increased him; but in Ezekiel 33:21, etc., God judges Israel because they take that ground, and say, "Abraham was one, and he inherited the land", etc.
Ques. It says, "with all that in every place"?
Yes; it takes in everybody that calls himself a Christian.
Ques. But the Holy Ghost wrote it for these days as well as for those, did He not?
It was written as a principle that embraces these days as well as those days, only you must look elsewhere for guidance as to the right use of it.
Ques. But are you called upon now to go out of the house?
No; you cannot go out of the house, if you try.
Ques. What introduced the actual state of profession?
It gradually grew up. It began quite early, and the instant the apostles went, the whole thing went totally. It is just so with everything that God originally set up right. In every instance, the first thing man has done, has been to ruin it altogether. Adam fell. Noah got drunk.
A law was given, and they made a golden calf.
Priests were appointed, and they offered strange fire.
Solomon's royalty was established in peace, but he loved many strange women, and the kingdom was broken up. Nebuchadnezzar was made supreme, and he cast three faithful children into the fire. God's patience has gone on with His saints, but I believe it is just the same thing in the church of God. As soon as the apostles were gone, the whole thing became corrupted. People are writing books to shew how others have departed from the truth; but the ground I have taken is, it is not that the church has departed, but that the church is the departure. I mean, of course, what is commonly called the church -- the professing church.
Ques. I suppose Paul hindered it for a while?
Yes; but you must remember that the Pope is the successor of Peter, not of Paul.
I mean the church, so-called, always was the departure. If you want to get a history of villainy, violence, and corruption, you must go to the professing church for it, not to heathenism. And it became so intolerable that natural conscience rose up against it. It went on, and on, and on, i.e., what is called the church historically; and that itself was the departure from Christianity. And that is true of all that you get recorded from the apostles' time.
As Paul said, "after my decease" this and that shall happen. The mystery of iniquity was already at work, but there was then spiritual energy to make head against it; when Paul was gone, there was not.
Ques. Did you mean that the church corrupted everything?
No; but the so-called church was the corruption. It was in the church itself that the clergy were substituted for the Spirit as the power of ministry; and the sacraments for absolute acceptance by God. I mean the historical church after Paul had gone.
Ques. Is that what those became who called upon the name of the Lord?
Quite so. The apostle had sacraments, and elders, too, and
they are very serviceable in their place; but while they may constitute an outward thing, they are not my place before God, and my place is not in virtue of them, though they are right in themselves. They are institutions from Christ; but I am in Christ, and that as down here. What is essential to my existence as a Christian is, that I am in Christ and Christ is in me.
But in the historical church, they got the forgiveness of sins by baptism (and baptism is all right in itself), and they had nothing after; they had no idea of a man being perfected in Christ.
Nowadays, take, say, the Evangelical Alliance; it makes the clergy and sacraments to be the essence of Christianity, and therefore it will not receive Quakers, and so-called Plymouth Brethren, because they reject both clergy and sacraments.
Ques. Is there not also a positive work of Satan going on by imitation, as well as by the departure and the corruption of what is really good, and is not all this shewn by the "tares", and by the "foolish virgins", and finally, by the "great whore"?
I fully admit that; heresies had, and have, their part, ending one way in antichrist, and otherwise in Babylon.
Ques. You mean Revelation 13 and Revelation 17?
Ques. Is there, in any of the fathers, any trace to be found of our being "perfected for ever"?
No; not a bit; and I have gone all through them. They got forgiveness through baptism, and then were at their wits' end to know what to do with sins committed afterwards.
Ques. But if the very essence of Christianity was lost with the passing away of the apostles, what an absurdity it must be to talk about the bulwarks of the Reformation?
Well, the Reformers brought out justification by faith, but as to the church, they knew nothing about it.
There are three distinct positions in which Christ is viewed: on the cross, working redemption; then, at the Father's right hand, sending the Holy Ghost; and lastly, He is coming again. At the Reformation, the first was owned, and justification by faith was declared, giving the value of what Christ had done on the cross, and that much clearer than is now done by most of the evangelical people; but the other two positions of Christ were unknown. His coming again the Reformers rejected as heresy. In reality, this last truth makes the first all the clearer.
Of course, everybody owns that Christ will come again in some way or other, even if it is only to judge the quick and the dead; but Protestants at large, as well as Rome, ridicule the idea that the Lord will come as we are now expecting Him.
The thing the church of Rome is faulty in, is not so much foundation truth, as the application of it, and that is as faulty for us as if it were in itself wrong. They own the Trinity, and Christ's humanity, and propitiation, but not substitution; but when they come to the way God applies it, they stop His channel, and open their own, which is sacraments and work.
They talk about the unity of the body, but in a way that is false, for it is the use they make of it that really denies it.
Ques. The church of Rome is not only a corruption of truth, but it is also an imitation of truth?
It is both. If you take the trouble to inquire about what they say of catholicity, the greatest number of Christians is outside of them. In their reckoning, they deny the Greek churches altogether, though these include some sixty or seventy millions.
In itself, Rome is the greatest scene of barbarism in the world. Look at its history, and you will find that as soon as one pope put another pope out, everything was called into question; notwithstanding infallibility, he broke all the ordinances of his predecessor.
Ques. And Christendom at large owes its condition very much to not seeing what the true church is?
Just so. And we know how bad its condition is. If Paul came, and had not been ordained, he could not preach; but if the devil came, and had been ordained, he could preach.
Ques. Is it important to see that Paul does not treat the Corinthians as corrupters, but rather as being corrupted?
He takes care first to own them as the church of God, before He begins to blame them.
Ques. How soon after the apostles' departure would you say the evil came boldly in?
Not "after" at all, but before they were gone, only they resisted it. "The mystery of iniquity doth already work", Paul says; only, while it was working there was, so far, apostolic power to stop it.
Ques. In verse 10, you have again the Lordship of Jesus?
Yes; you find it all through the epistle; it is the common title here; of course, He is Lord everywhere.
Ques. Is it special in connection with divisions?
Well, he uses the name "Lord", as the ground of exhortation, whatever it is about.
Then he puts down man's wisdom altogether: "It pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe", and that is what takes the place of human wisdom.
Ques. Does he not put it down by the cross?
Yes; by the foolishness of preaching a crucified Christ, only that is a little lower on.
If we look at the Book of the Revelation generally, we shall see its division into three parts: --
In the first part, we find not so much the divinity or the humanity of Christ, as His personal or official glory (chapter 1).
In the second part, we see Christ judging the seven churches (chapters 2 and 3).
In the third part, we have that which takes place after the church has been removed (chapters 4 - 22).
In the addresses to the seven churches, it is interesting to note that what is taken up by the Spirit of God is so presented that there should be nothing to check the expectation of the Lord's return at the time these letters were written, and still less so now.
And so elsewhere. When the Spirit of God speaks of the Bridegroom not tarrying, He takes the things then present, and uses them as existing on to the end. It is so in Matthew 25, where the same virgins go to sleep and awake; and in the parable of the talents, the lord, at his return, requires at the hands of the same servants that with which they had been entrusted at the first.
And thus it is in the seven churches. The evils seen therein at the end were there at the first.
Ques. Does that shew a cumulative responsibility?
I do not doubt it does. All the blood shed from Abel to Zacharias was to be required of that generation; Luke 11:51. And in Babylon was found the blood of all that had been slain upon the earth; Revelation 18:24.
After the seven churches, we find that which characterises the Book of the Revelation generally is the throne. In chapter 4: 2, "A throne was set in heaven", and in chapter 1: 4, it is grace from before His throne.
Ques. What is meant by "to come", in that verse?
It does not refer to futurity of time, but to the coming One. "Which is", i.e., exists; "which was", i.e., has been revealed in time; and "is to come", i.e., the coming One.
Ques. Why is the "garment down to the foot"?
That is, as not in service. You have here a transitional aspect of Christ; there is no crown upon His head.
In chapter 4, the throne is that of Daniel 7, but with a larger development. It is not simply for judgment or government, for we find seraphim as well as cherubim.
Ques. What is the special difference between the two?
A cherub is the instrument of God's judicial power upon earth; like the cherubim which stopped the way to the tree of life; Genesis 3. But in Isaiah 6, we find the seraphim, and there it is, not merely a throne governing in respect of responsibility but, God revealed in His own character; and so the seraphim cry, "Holy, holy, holy"; this was to bring man as man into God's presence, whether clean or unclean, and it goes right beyond Israelitish government. It was government, but as having respect to God's own nature in its holiness, and hot merely to the particular revealed ways in which God dealt with Israel.
You do not find God saying to Israel, "I will punish you with the Assyrian"; but it was according to the terms in which He had made a covenant with them.
And it is so with us now. As life and incorruptibility are brought to light by the glad tidings, so God's wrath is "revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men".
In the seraph, then, we have, not exactly the executioner of governmental power, but the nature of God coming out. All this is seen in the living creatures; they are cherubim, but with the attributes of God; the heads of creation are also seen in them (which is cherubic), man, lion, bullock, eagle, and they are here used as symbols of the throne of judgment.
Observe that, in this connection, we have nothing to do with the name of "Father"; the names used being those of the Old Testament; neither in Isaiah 6 is there anything to do with grace.
Cherubim are thus indicative of the government of God upon earth; seraphim, of His nature.
We find them both in Revelation 4, where the living creatures are of cherubic character, but crying, "Holy, holy, holy". Seraphim, means, "burners".
Ques. What is the character of the seven Spirits of God?
They indicate wisdom, power, etc., i.e., all that is necessary far this government.
Next, we find the heavenly saints sitting on thrones ("seats"RYDE MEETING
A FEW DETACHED NOTES
AS TO REPENTANCE
DETACHED MEMORANDA FROM A READING MEETING
READING AT 3, LONSDALE SQUARE
READING MEETING HELD AT 3, LONSDALE SQUARE
READING MEETING AT EDINBURGH
READING AT 3, LONSDALE SQUARE
ADDRESS AT RYDE
RYDE
MEMORANDA FROM AN ADDRESS AT KENNINGTON, LONDON
ADDRESS EDINBURGH MEETING
ADDRESS AT THE EDINBURGH MEETING
EDINBURGH - DETACHED MEMORANDUM FROM OPEN MEETING
FRAGMENTS
READING AT ROCHDALE
READING AT ROCHDALE
READING AT NOTTING HILL, LONDON
NOTES ON THE REVELATION