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Collected
Writings of J.N.
Darby
Evangelic 1
By John Nelson Darby
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Collected Writings of J.N. Darby
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Contents
e Suerings of Christ ..................................................7
Washing the Disciples’ Feet ........................................... 19
e Rejected Man .........................................................34
Cain: His World and His Worship ................................51
Wilderness Grace ..........................................................67
Carnal Condence, and the Condence of Faith ..........83
Balaam, Hired of Balak, and Used of God ....................98
e Church in the Wilderness in the Vision of God ..105
e Church - Her Power, Hopes, Calling, Present
Position and Occupation ....................................116
e Counsel of Peace ..................................................132
Parable of the Sower ....................................................141
e Wheat and the Tares ............................................153
e Parables .................................................................168
God’s Grace and Man’s Need ......................................186
e Marriage Supper of the King’s Son ......................197
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e Ten Virgins ...........................................................213
Two Warnings and an Example ...................................222
Christ As the Searcher of Heart .................................. 231
Parables of Luke 15 .....................................................240
e Prodigal With the Father .....................................259
Christ or Antichrist: John 5:17-47 ..............................273
e Woman of Samaria ...............................................290
e Living Water ........................................................305
Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life ............................323
Christ’s Cross and God’s Due Time ............................339
Adam and Christ ......................................................... 351
Why Do I Groan? .......................................................365
God for Us ..................................................................382
e Accepted Man ......................................................398
Moses Veiled, and the Glory of God in the Face of Jesus
Christ..................................................................414
Man’s Responsibility and God’s Promises ...................430
e Church, an Habitation of God rough the Spirit .....
446
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A Christian - Who and What Is He Now and Hereafter}
465
Life in Resurrection .....................................................481
Faith and Its Footsteps ................................................495
No More Conscience of Sins .......................................510
e Passage of the Red Sea .........................................516
God Speaking From Heaven .......................................533
Growth rough the Truth..........................................545
e Suerings of Christ
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62501
e Suerings of Christ
Psa. 22:22
THE whole of this Psalm evidently contains the words
and experience of the Lord Jesus Christ. It begins with one
of His most momentous sentences, as if a direct quotation
from prophecy: “ My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me? “ and gives the very words of the indel Jews, when
the Savior was expiring on the tree, in the eighth verse: “
He trusted in the Lord, that he would deliver him: let him
deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.”
e whole Psalm is an accurate scene of our Lord’s
suerings. In the verse preceding the text, His agony of
soul is described: “ Save me from the lion’s mouth! “ the
intenseness of which agony is thus described in Heb. 5:7:
“ Who in the days of his esh, when he had oered up
prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears “;
and of which we have witnessed the facts in the garden
of Gethsemane, where His soul was “ sore amazed,” and
He prayed, if it were possible, to have this cup pass from
Him. And in the concluding part of verse 21 (“ ou hast
heard me from the horns of the unicorns “), we have Him
brought to the crisis of extreme suering, on the very horns
of the altar, as describing the sacrice bound and laid on.
We have His delivery thence, “ ou hast heard me,” as in
Psa. 40 “ I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined
unto me, and heard my cry: he brought me up also from
out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet
upon a rock, and ordered my goings.” e very next verse
describes Him thus: “ I will declare thy name unto my
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brethren: in the midst of the congregation [or church] will
I praise thee.”
Here we read our Lord’s testimony after He had been
heard, after He had come out of the horrible pit, after the
agony, and suering, and woe, and death had been past;
in short, at His resurrection. It is just at that time this
verse describes Him: and in it we see, rst, the oce He
has taken in declaring God’s name to His brethren; and,
secondly, we see Him as He stands in the midst of His
church, as its Head.
And who is it that thus testies, “ I will declare “?
Who it is we cannot mistake, from the entire tenor and
express words of the Psalm. It is the Lord Jesus Christ.
And what does He declare? “ y name “: “ I will declare
thy name unto my brethren “; the name of Him to whom
He appeals as His God. And that, brethren, is the only
way we know anything of God; when the Lord Jesus
Christ Himself reveals Him and declares Him. It is God’s
appointed way of communicating anything of Himself;
and without a knowledge of God through Christ we never
can know peace. In declaring God’s name, Christ declares
His own: He testies what He has done for man, and the
consequences of it. Immediately after the work is nished,
He communicates it to His brethren “ Save me from the
lion’s mouth; for thou hast heard me from the horns of
the unicorns.” And immediately after His delivery, He
exclaims, “ I will declare thy name unto my brethren.”
e Psalm, throughout, gives us the suerings of the
Lord Jesus, and also His strength, and comfort, and trust
in God in the midst of them, which prophecies meet their
fulllment so accurately and fully in His life: “ I knew that
thou hearest me always “; “ I am not alone, for the Father is
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with me.” But there was one hour, one period of darkness,
and of agony, when Satan was let loose to buet Him, but
not yet able to turn Him aside-to take Him o from His
high trust in God, when He was brought so low as to say,
“ e waters have come in even unto my soul “: “ My soul
is troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this
hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.” e very
height of His trouble was the hiding of God’s countenance.
ere were three things which the Lord Jesus had to
encounter, and to triumph over, and which were ever before
Him-death, guilt, and the power of Satan. e union of
these against Him was the “ power of darkness,” which He
acknowledges to the multitudes who came to apprehend
Him” is is your hour, and the power of darkness.” Now
these were the three great enemies which were against us.
We had sinned, and God had declared, “ e wages of sin
is death.” We were guilty; and condemnation could not
be put away but by the removal of the occasion of it; and
Satan was manifestly against us, as an adversary to our nal
freedom. Now the Lord Jesus Christ had just to meet all
these, and if they were overcome in Him, as the federal
Head and representative of His people, then there was
liberty-glorious and everlasting liberty.
We nd then that Christ had really these three to
contend with. He came to be the sin-bearer; and, bearing
sin, He must necessarily subject Himself to its wages,
which was death. us bearing sin, guilt was necessarily
imputed to Him, and He must suer its condemnation
until God was satised. And nally He must, as the
Head of His people, overcome him under whom Adam,
and all mankind in him, had failed. is Christ did; these
He met, took, sustained, remained steadfast under, and
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overcame; conquered them all, obtained the victory-with
wounds and bloodshed indeed; but having triumphed, He
rose with the full blessedness of the enjoyment of God’s
countenance, death having passed, and guilt removed, and
Satan overcome by Him, in the name and for the eternal
blessedness of His people.
is was fully manifested at His resurrection, which
was a seal of His perfect accomplishment and acceptance;
when He rose (a living witness to the full satisfaction for
sin having been asked and obtained, and God’s faithfulness
being manifested), “ ou hast heard me,” said Christ, “
from the horns of the unicorns.” And then, without any
delay, He immediately adds, “I will declare thy name
unto my brethren”: as if the enjoyment He possessed was
incomplete until the knowledge of it was communicated to
them whom He had made part of Himself.
Christ Himself bore witness, and still bears witness
by the Spirit, to the souls of believers, that redemption
work is completed, and by this they are participators in
all His blessedness. He comes to them with the blessed
information of death being triumphed over, guilt being put
away forever, and Satan overcome. at is the comfort, the
joy, the peace He brings to the soul, which the knowledge
of these facts leads to. “ I will declare thy name unto my
brethren “; as if He had said, I will come and make known
to your souls, my brethren, the victory I have obtained over
all your enemies, and the consequences resulting from it,
as standing perfectly justied. And in this full position of
acquittal all His people stand, when Christ was declared
“to be the Son of God, with power, according to the
Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.” And
having ascended, think you that He has less power now?
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No. Having risen over sin, death, the grave, and Satan, He
gives the Spirit now as a witness to the soul, to prove the
subjugation of all its enemies-death triumphed over, guilt
removed, and Satan overcome.
And thus He brings believers to the adoption of children,
to the endearing character of family relationship, not as
servants, but sons. He shows them that He has redeemed
them that were under the curse of a violated law, that they
might receive the adoption of sons; and then He brings
them into the communion of the Father’s love-” Because
ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into
your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.”
is is what He does-that is what He declares in the
hearts of believers by the indwelling of the Spirit; and
this union between Himself and His people-this blessed
relationship subsisting between them and the Father, He
blessedly proclaimed, immediately after His resurrection,
when He declared, “ Go to my brethren, and say unto
them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father, and to my
God, and your God.”
He was just about to ascend to His Father, to ascend to
that glory which He had with His Father; but what does He
do previously?-there standing as the representative of His
people, He identies Himself thus with them: “ My Father,
and your Father; my God, and your God! “ 0 brethren,
the consciousness of this is great blessedness to a soul
having gone through the conviction that it is lost, ruined;
nding it just and right for God to cast it o because of its
transgressions. O the happiness, when Christ comes by the
Spirit, in the power of His resurrection, and demonstrates
this to the poor soul, who knows it has sinned, and has
been justly cast out of the presence of God, because, like
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Adam, it practically refused and rejected God. en can
the believer understand the full peace Christ brings, when
He testies what He has done for the soul, and the position
into which He has already brought His people: “ Behold
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us,
that we should be called the sons of God.”
If the Lord were pleased personally to appear, and to say
to your souls: I am come to tell you what I have done for
you; I have conquered all your enemies, and brought you
into so wondrous a state of privilege, that you are the sons
of God-joint-heirs with Me in My Father’s house-all sin
is done away forever, and there is no more condemnation
for you-what a witness would this be to your soul! But,
brethren, this witness you have had, when Christ rose after
the battle had been fought-rose triumphant, and just on
the eve of His ascension to glory, testies to His people,
“ I ascend unto my Father, and your Father.” Christ gives
the believer faith just to see Him standing in that position,
and to believe it, as though he saw Him with his bodily
eyes, recognizing Christ as his representative entering into
heavenly places for him, and now in that glory which shall
be his. us is the believer’s peace rmly established, as the
Savior says, “ Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto
you.”
And was this peace to cease when He went from the earth?
No; He expressly says, “ I will not leave you comfortless; I
will come unto you.” is He will do manifestly-but now
by the Spirit of holiness, who comes to the soul in a new
power; declaring the same truth which Jesus had before
revealed; still bringing home this testimony to the soul, “
My Father, and your Father.” And He just brings in the
same blessed truth-” Ye are sons.” It is not less true-it is
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not less real-not less certain, because Christ is actually
gone to the Father. No, that proves its reality, for He is
thence declared to be the Son of God with power, by His
resurrection; and this He declares to His brethren, and in a
way the most engagingly convincing.
He says it, when these things had been done; after death
had been triumphed over, sin blotted out, guilt removed
forever, and Satan foiled! And now, He comes with this
message, “ ere is therefore now no condemnation to
them who are in Christ Jesus.” ere is no more sacrice
for sin-He Himself having suered all the penalty due for
all the sins of His people, gone through the punishment of
it-God’s wrath, and received the wages for it-death: so He
is entitled well to credence, as He brings the truth to us in
a way of suering and in a way of love unparalleled.
Now there are two ways in which sin would hinder
our peace with God: either in not seeing the suciency
of Christ’s blood to wipe it out of the book of God’s
remembrance, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity;
or not having a consciousness that the guilt of it is removed
from ourselves; which feeling of guilt the devil endeavors
to tie on our conscience, and thus to keep us from peace.
But when the
Comforter, the Spirit of holiness, enters into our hearts,
“ to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of
God “ in the face of Jesus Christ, then we see that Christ
having ascended, having entered into heaven, His work for
sinners has been accomplished, and as the representative of
all believers He is now before the throne, appearing there
in the presence of God for us: and as He is without spot,
having fullled all righteousness, so in Him we are spotless
and righteous.
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Here we see the perfectness of His love; having removed
their sin and guilt, He makes Himself one with them-He
calls them His own brethren: “ I will declare thy name unto
my brethren.” “ He is not ashamed to call them brethren.”
Oh, this is a blessed identity into which the child of God
is brought! Have you any consciousness of this in your
souls? If you have, you are blessed. How wondrous is that
manifestation of His anxiety and willingness to make
known immediately to His brethren His deliverance, and
the consequences of it to them! His rst declaration, on
being rescued from the horns of the altar, is to make His
brethren partakers of its blessed eects; He declares it
to those He loves; as though He would say, It is all done
now, and I must go and tell them. It is done that they may
participate in My blessedness, being about to enter into
the presence of God with great joy for them, and as their
representative. us, being delivered Himself, He delivers
from sin, guilt, death, and Satan, all those who are part
of Himself-who “ are members of his body, of his esh,
and of his bones “-by declaring His nished work, making
known the Father’s love, and bringing them to the sweet
consciousness that God is their Father.
Jesus has declared Himself to be the Apostle and High
Priest of their profession, ever living to make intercession.
Having entered within the vail, He is there pleading the
ecacy of that blood which He has shed; and He sends
down this testimony of love by the Holy Spirit, who, being
a witness to His work, stamps the truth of it in the soul,
where He takes up His dwelling, and thus unites the believer
in sweet association and fellowship with Christ, in all He
has done, and suered, and in the high station to which
He is now exalted: and they are Christ’s brethren, who are
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brought to see Him thus their Head and representative-to
know Him and the power of His resurrection, as rising
for them without sin unto salvation. is the world knows
nothing about. Christ’s fellowship was not with the world,
but with His own, whom He had chosen out of the
world: “ I pray for them: I pray not for the world.” He is a
Christian to whom Christ has declared the Father’s name,
as reconciled to Him by the peace-speaking blood; that He
has carried into eect His glorious purpose of redemption-
this He declares in the midst of the Church, of those whom
He has gathered out of the world, and translated into the
kingdom of heaven. ere He stands in the midst of them,
as their glorious and triumphant Head-they are His. “ ey
are not of the world,” He said Himself, “ even as I am not
of the world.” ey are no longer in connection with the
world; they have done with it, as a rule of life or conduct;
its fashions, pursuits, customs, and desires, no longer guide
them; instead of being led by them, they are led by the
Spirit, and choose those things which the Spirit delights
in.
As Christ oers up the prayers of His church, so He is
said to be the Head of their praises. e believer sees Christ
brought into the “ dust of death “; but he also hears Him,
after His conquest, in the midst of His church, declaring
the Father’s perfect satisfaction and pleasure. Christ’s joy
in the church’s salvation, and in the inward witness of the
Spirit of love to the work of Christ, we have the blessed
certainty of the Father’s love. All is thus nished. Now, did
the Lord begin to praise before the work was nished? No;
it is upon His resurrection He shows forth praises; then He
begins the “ new song,” which His redeemed are taught to
sing: “ And they sing a new song, saying, ou art worthy;
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for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy
blood.” It is a new song, because a redeemed song, and
they have done with sin, that is, as to any condemnation;
they may, indeed, before they join the church triumphant,
while they are here below, be tempted still, harassed, and
oppressed; but greater is He that is for them than he that
is against them.
Here we see what the Lord’s work is, and the blessed
eects of it. Nothing could so completely satisfy a soul of
this, as the declaration of our Lord, after He had eected
redemption: “ I ascend to my Father, and your Father; to
my God, and your God,” leading the way to the Father, and
then bringing them by that way that He went Himself;
bringing them as His associates-His brethren-as His own,
engaged with them in the same work of praising God.
Now, that is what the world cannot do. e world never
praises God; it knows not how; it knows Him not, and
never can know Him by its own wisdom: “ e world by
wisdom knew not God “; but Christ’s brethren know Him,
and praise Him, when He comes and declares God’s name
to them; and it is the very declaration of the Father that
calls forth their praises: they cannot but praise when they
hear Christ saying, “ I have declared unto them thy name
and will declare it, that the love wherewith thou hast loved
me may be in them, and I in them.” Now, dear friends,
have you received this declaration of the Father’s love by
Christ? If you have, are you now praising Him? Have you
entered into the vastness of that guilt to which you have
individually contributed, which could call for such wonder-
working eects as the descent of the Son of God into this
world of woe? And have you seen it put away? Have you
measured sin-your sin-by the suerings and death of Jesus?
e Suerings of Christ
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And have you set your seal to the truth of God’s word, as
seen in Christ, that “ the wages of sin is death “? What was
all the work about? Is it true, or was it all a mere story or
tale? What was all this suering for?
Christ has declared His Father’s name unto you. If
you know why it was, you know that you are living in a
world guilty of the sin of rejecting Christ, and that He thus
permitted Himself to be rejected, that in Him you might
be accepted; that He might pay the ransom price for your
souls, and set you free. is He tells you, and declares that
what He does, He does surely. Do you want security for it?
You have the
word of God, and the oath of God for it, “ that by two
immutable things, wherein it was impossible for God to
lie, we might have strong consolation who have ed for
refuge to lay hold on the hope set before us.” Has God
made such a declaration to you? 0, wondrous intelligence!
en is He of inestimable value to your souls. As sinners
you were lost; but, as sinners, He has declared that there is
hope-that there is joy-that there is salvation, and that He
brings it to you.
He does not wait for you to come for it, for then you
would never receive it, but He brings it to you-He makes
known the Father’s love-that “ it is the Father’s good
pleasure to give you the kingdom “; that God the Father is
pleased, satised, gloried; and He brings you to the same
acknowledgment of satisfaction in Jesus, who lived for you,
who died for you, who rose for you, and “ who ever liveth
to make intercession for you.” 0, what a claim has He on
you to live for Him! Can it be possible that you still love
the world? that you are still fond of the world which hated
Christ, and drove Him out of it? e world is the enemy of
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God. Will you then be its friend? Oh, may the Lord draw
o your aections, that are now drawn out and placed on
the things of the world, and x them on Himself, on Him
who changeth not, but is “ the same yesterday, and to-day,
and forever! “
Washing the Disciples’ Feet
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62534
Washing the Disciples’ Feet
John 13:1-11
Two of these verses claim particular attention in
commencing our subject. e rst is, “ Now before the feast
of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come
that he should depart out of this world unto the Father,
having loved his own which were in the world, he loved
them unto the end “; and verse 3: “ Jesus knowing that the
Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was
come from God, and went to God “: for these reasons He
arose from supper, and prepared to wash His disciples’ feet.
Observe, dear friends, His knowledge that the hour was
come when He should depart out of this world unto the
Father, and loving His own which were in the world unto
the end, was one reason why our Lord washed the feet of
His disciples; and knowing that the Father had given all
things into His hands, and that He was come from God
and went to God, was another reason why He washed their
feet.
is demands our attentive consideration: why His
leaving the world, and the love which He had to His own
which were in the world, and His knowledge of the power
over all things which was given Him by the Father, His
coming from God and now going to Him, should be the
reasons why our Lord (as related in this chapter) laid aside
His garments, and took a towel, and girded Himself. He
did this because His hour was come that He should depart
out of this world, and because He loved His disciples unto
the end. e reason is explained by what passed between
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our Lord and Peter: “ en cometh he to Simon Peter; and
Peter saith unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet? Jesus
answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not
now, but thou shalt know hereafter. Peter saith unto him,
ou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I
wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. Simon Peter
saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands
and my head.”
Here, dear friends, we see the reason why our Lord’s
leaving the world, loving His own which were in the world,
and an apprehension of His future glory, led Him to wash
His disciples’ feet. All is explained by His saying, “ If I wash
thee not thou hast no part with me.” What do we learn
from this? at all His people have a part with Him; they
partake of all the benets of His life and death; they are
loved of the Father as Christ Himself is loved by Him; they
have a part with Him in His future glory; they are heirs of
God and joint-heirs with Christ; they shall reign forever
with Christ, sitting with Him on His throne. In all things
they are one with Him, and hence they are assured, “ All
things are yours, and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.”
I say then, dear friends, it was because His own had a part
with Him that He washed their feet, when He knew that
His hour was come that He should depart out of this world
unto the Father; it was “ because he loved them unto the
end, and was come from God, and went to God.” Before
He left the world, He thus declared why He had come into
the world, that His people should have a part with Him,
as I have already noticed. By washing their feet, knowing
that the Father had given all things into His hands, He
declared that the love which He had for His disciples,
while He was with them in the world, would continue after
Washing the Disciples’ Feet
21
He had left them, and went to God and the glory that He
had with Him before the world was. Washing their feet,
with a perfect view of this glory, and a consciousness that
He would soon enjoy it, also signied that when in this
glory He would continue to wash their feet, according to
what He said to Peter: “ If I wash thee not, thou hast no
part with me “: and “ He that is washed needeth not save
to wash his feet “; which we shall afterward consider. Dear
friends, I now direct your attention to the love of Christ
for all who have a part with Him. He showed this love in
coming into the world to save them. While in this world,
how great was the love He manifested for His disciples!
No aictions, toils, or suerings that He endured, ever
prevented the exercise of this love; neither did their errors,
weaknesses, or defects. One denying, all forsaking Him, did
not abate it; it overcame, it continued through all. His hour
was now come that He should depart out of this world:
death-that death which He had undertaken to endure,
that they might live forever with Him in glory-was before
Him, and He viewed it with a full comprehension of its
suerings. Did this present any obstacle to the exercise
of His love? No: His was a love stronger than death; and
therefore we read in Luke 9:51: “ And it came to pass,
when the time was come that he should be received up
[as we read in another place, ‘ knowing all things that
should come upon him 1, he steadfastly set his face to go
to Jerusalem.” He knew that He had there to contend with
the powers of darkness, followed by His suerings, death,
and the grave; yet, with a full prospect of all, He steadfastly
set His face to go to Jerusalem. Why? Love urged Him
onwards-love for His disciples, for all who have a part with
Him. It was His Father’s appointment; and therefore He
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said, “ e cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not
drink it? “ It was His own free engagement, expressed in
verse 6 of Psalm 40: “ Mine ears hast thou opened “: better
translated, and as you read it in the margin of some Bibles,
“ ou hast digged ears for me.” God the Father digged
ears for Christ. What does this signify? at the Father
appointed and prepared Christ to hear and obey His will in
saving His people in the type of His service forever.
ere is a shade of dierence in the case of a Hebrew
who preferred serving his master to his liberty, as we read
in Ex. 21 a Hebrew servant who had served his master
for seven years was then entitled to liberty. e terms of
servitude and its termination are there related: if he came
in by himself, without wife or children, he should go out by
himself; if he was married, then his wife should go out with
him; if his master gave him a wife, and she had borne him
sons or daughters, the wife and her children should be his
master’s; but if the servant, who may have his liberty and
go out by himself, should plainly say, “ I love my master, I
love my wife and my children, I will not go out free,” then
his master should bore his ear to the door-post, to signify
that he was to serve him forever.
Here, dear friends, is an exact representation of Christ’s
love for the church. He might have been forever free from
servitude and go out by Himself; He was not bound (I now
speak of Him as God) to suer and die for sinners; but His
Father had given Him a wife and children. You know, that
in Scripture the church is described as the wife of Christ,
and its members as the children. In Eph. 5, speaking of
marriage, the apostle declares, “ is is a great mystery, but
I speak concerning Christ and the church “; and in Heb. 2,
Christ is represented as saying, “ Behold, I and the children
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23
which God hath given me.” And, as in the case of the
Hebrew servant, who so loved his master and his wife and
children that he preferred serving his master to his liberty,
from love to his master, to his wife, and children; so did
Christ plainly declare to His Father, I will not go out free; I
love my Father, I love the church, I love the children; mine
ear shall be bored; I will bind myself to that the Father
has given me to do and to suer for their salvation, having
taken upon me the form of a servant, assumed their nature,
descended into their world, and endured all that is needful
to raise them to fellowship with the Father and myself in
heavenly glory. is, dear brethren, was the reason that
death, and a full apprehension of its suerings, could not
prevent the exercise of Christ’s love for His people. I say,
He steadfastly beheld it, yet never turned aside from it:
oods of anguish overwhelmed Him; they compelled Him
to cry out, as we read in Psa. 49 “ Save me, 0 God; for the
waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in the deep mire,
where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters,
where the oods overow me. I am weary of my crying.”
Did this abate the love which was needed to endure it? Did
it here fail? Did He turn aside from the bitter cup? No:
these many waters could not drown His love; He drank
up the dreadful ood, that His people might be delivered
from it: He took their place in suering, that they might
take His place in glory! I say, dear friends, it was in the
exercise of this love, and in the prospect of the continuance
after He had entered into His glory, that our Head when
He knew that He should depart out of this world, girded
Himself, and washed His disciples’ feet; and this brings us
to a particular consideration of what is signied. As I have
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24
already said, It was because they had a part with Him that
He washed their feet.
He certainly intended it as a proof and example of
humility and condescension. But observe, while He washed
their feet, He said unto Peter, “ What I do thou knowest
not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.” is proves that
by it our Lord signied another washing, also evident from
Peter’s saying unto Him, “ Lord, not my feet only, but also
my hands and my head.” is washing is not the cleansing
of their persons, or the pardon of all their sins; as declared
by our Lord saying to Peter, “ He that is washed needeth
not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit.” Here
the entire cleansing of His people is described; they are
compared to him who has just left the bath, and is perfectly
clean; but we know that his feet might become that moment
deled; and this, dear friends, is precisely our case. I now
speak of believers; Christ appears in the presence of God
for us. is proves that He has forever removed all our sins;
for this He came into our world and lay in the grave. His
resurrection, and now appearing in the presence of God is,
I say, a sucient proof that He has forever removed from
God’s sight all our sins; His blood is in their place; they
are washed, born of water and of the Spirit, through which
they are clean. every whit: but, dear friends, our feet are
continually deled; we live in a deling world, our earthly
nature continues, Satan and the world act on it: what is the
consequence? Our mind and conscience are perpetually
deled; not that the guilt of our sins ever returns to the
view of God. is cannot be; Christ is ever before Him for
us, and His blood is now in the place where our sins were
seen. But I say our sin and its guilt dele our mind and
conscience; it troubles us, it obscures the glory to which we
Washing the Disciples’ Feet
25
are called, it interrupts our communion with God and the
blessedness of fellowship with Christ and the Father.
Here is the delement of our feet, from which we
need continual washing; but because we have a part with
Christ, though now in His glory, He never ceases to wash
our feet. How does He wash them? By removing from
our mind and conscience everything that interrupts our
communion with God, and its glory and blessedness.
We believe that we are admitted to this; but, through the
inuence of nature and a deling world, we cannot always
enjoy it: everything in our nature, everything in the world,
interrupts our fellowship with Christ and the Father, and
mars our enjoyment of it. We still believe, we look up,
but if the least guilt remains on the conscience we are
dazzled, and perplexed; the glory appears too high for us
to reach or enjoy. en how does Christ wash our feet? I
say, by delivering us from the consciousness of guilt and its
inuence: He restores to us a sense of complete pardon;
He delivers us from the power of nature and the world; He
brings us into unhindered communion with Himself and
the Father, and the enjoyment of its glory and blessedness.
He again brings down to our apprehension what we are as
seen in Him, and enables us to rejoice in it; and thus does
He ever continue to wash our feet.
Dear friends, you now see the reason why Christ acted
as a servant to His disciples when He was departing out of
this world: “ He loved them unto the end “; the end, not
only of His life on earth, but during His eternal reign in
glory. To them, to all who have a part with Him, He is a
servant still; He washes their feet, as I have noticed, and
in all His feelings towards them is precisely the same as
He was when on earth; no change, no alteration whatever.
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26
Did His love for His disciples triumph over every obstacle
to its exercise, over all their errors and defects, their defect
in attachment to Himself? Such is His present love for
all who have a part with Him. Did He bear with all the
ignorance, errors, and weaknesses of His disciples, and
only notice them to pardon and restore? us does He bear
with His people now, equally compassionate and ready to
supply all their wants. Did He say, “ I am among you as he
that serveth “? did He actually serve them, pouring water
into a basin, and washing their feet, and wiping them with
the towel wherewith He was girded? He is the servant
of His people still: He washes their feet with the same
condescension and love that He felt for His disciples when
He was leaving them to depart out of this world. Dear
friends, let us ever remember that Christ, though now
in His glory, is in all things precisely the same as He was
when on earth; present with us at all times to render us the
same services. We are one with Him, and He with us; no
distinction, no separation, as it respects His sympathy in all
that concerns us: “ In all their aiction he was aicted “; “
we are members of his body, of his esh, and of his bones.”
Hence, after He had ascended and entered into His glory,
when Paul persecuted His people, He said unto him, “ Saul,
Saul, why persecutest thou me?” He will say, “ Inasmuch as
ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye
have done it unto me.” In serving His people He considers
nothing that aects them unworthy of His notice. He said
unto Ananias, “ Arise, and go into the street which is called
Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas for one called
Saul of Tarsus “: He knows the street and house where His
people dwell, that He might there render them all needful
services; for this He numbers the hairs of their heads.
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27
Knowing that His hour was come that He should
depart out of this world unto the Father, and that He would
continue to love and serve His people, it was for this reason
Jesus washed His disciples’ feet. But why is it said, that
when Jesus knew that He should depart out of this world
unto the Father, and that the Father had given all things
into His hands, He arose from supper and washed the
disciples’ feet? I say, why did He do this at the prospect of
His eternal fellowship with the Father, and His dominion
over all things that the Father had given into His hands?
Because He knew that in that glory, and possessing power
over all things, He would be the servant of His people
forever. How is He to serve them when they are with
Him in His heavenly kingdom? By ministering to their
happiness and enjoyment. is He Himself declares, as we
read in Luke 12. After exhorting His disciples to watch for
His coming, He said, “ Blessed are those servants whom
the Lord when he cometh shall nd watching: verily, I say
unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them sit
down to meat, and will come forth and serve them.”
Dear friends, here we perceive that Christ will ever
be the servant of His people; when they are with Him in
His glory He will be unto them all that He was when on
earth, so far as they need His services: they will need them
only for their enjoyment; and for this, I say, He will always
serve His people with the same love and compassion that
He felt for His disciples when He washed their feet. His
fellowship with the Father, His power over all things that
the Father has put into His hands, He will ever use for
making His people perfectly happy. Now He washes their
feet by removing from them everything that hinders their
enjoyment of fellowship with Himself and the Father;
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28
because our earthly nature and all contact with a deling
world continually interrupt this enjoyment. But when
we are with Him in His heavenly glory, we shall enjoy
unhindered communion with God, and its full and perfect
blessedness: to secure it Christ will still serve us. Is it not
said, “ He shall gird himself and make them sit down to
meat, and will come forth and serve them “? Yes, He will
do this by revealing and imparting unto them all that is
needful for their perfect happiness. ey shall feast with
Him; and in this feast He will serve them, they the guests,
and He ministering to their enjoyment. And what a feast
will that be! how great the delight which it will aord,
when He who is Lord of all supplies, serves, and entertains
every one who is admitted into it!
Now, dear friends, you see the reason why Jesus washed
His disciples’ feet, when He knew that His hour was come
that He should depart out of this world unto the Father,
and that the Father had given all things into His hands. He
then began the service which, in another manner, He will
fulll forever. Now, I say, He washes our feet by removing
from us all that deles our mind and conscience, and
hinders our enjoyment of the glory to which He has raised
us. Yes; we have fellowship with Him in His present glory,
but a deled mind and conscience interrupt its comfort
and blessedness. “ God,” says the apostle in Eph. 2, “ hath
quickened us together with Christ, and hath raised us up
together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in
Christ Jesus.” I say we now live with Christ in His glory;
but our earthly nature is still in a deling world. We
resemble the priests who served in the court of the temple,
and had free admittance to the holy place. ey were never
removed from their service-why? Because their persons
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29
had been washed and arrayed to prepare them for it. No
need to repeat this, no renewal of their title to their sacred
oce. But their hands and feet were continually deled by
the blood of the sacrices.
en what must they do? Not depart from their place
and oce; provision was made for cleansing them. e
laver was placed between the brazen altar and the holy
place, in which they washed their hands and feet, and
then they served in the tabernacle. is, dear brethren,
is precisely our case. We are priests, and now dwell with
Christ in spirit; for God has raised us together, and made
us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, and He
has made us kings and priests unto God and His Father.
No alteration in our place and title, no removal from it.
Christ has washed us, and we are clean every whit, and
therefore we dwell with Him in heaven itself; we are
admitted to unhindered communion with Him who is
our sacrice, our altar of incense, our table of show-bread,
our ark of the covenant-all that was in the temple; our
hands and feet are continually deled. What must we do?
Precisely what they did-feel that our place with Christ and
our title as priests are never altered; for these we have been
cleansed and arrayed, and, like the priests in the temple, we
have only to wash our feet meanwhile. Christ, I say, dear
friends, continues to render us this service. e world and
Satan act on our earthly nature. We cannot in any degree
come in contact with the world without delement; for
who can touch pitch and not be deled? But these never
move us from our heavenly place in Christ, nor alter our
title as priests unto God and His Father. Christ washes our
feet, removes delement from our minds and conscience,
delivers us from the power of these things which cause its
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30
delement; and again we enjoy full fellowship with Him in
the holy place into which God has raised us and made us
to sit together in Christ Jesus.
us, dear friends, have I endeavored to show you why
our Lord washed the feet of His disciples, knowing that the
Father had given all things in His hands. Let us consider
the obligation which this presents to His people, according
to what we read in the chapter before us. “ So after he had
washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was
set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have
done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord; and ye say well;
for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed
your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.” How
are we to fulll this? As Christ does in His heavenly glory.
I noticed the way in which Christ washed His disciples’
feet, when He was with them in the world. He patiently
endured all their inrmities, errors, and defects, that He
might intercede for them, and remove from their hearts and
minds everything that deled them. And so in His glory
Christ is ever engaged in thus serving His people. And He
truly declared, “ Ye also ought to wash one another’s feet
“; as I said, in the same manner, patiently enduring their
ignorance, errors, weaknesses, defects, any delement that
cleaves to them-patiently enduring it, I say, that we might
be the means of removing it. e servant is not greater
than his Lord. If Christ, now in His glory, is thus engaged,
we should think it an honor to resemble Him. How are
we to resemble Christ in washing one another’s feet?
By endeavoring to remove from our Christian brethren
everything that deles their mind and consciences, and
hinders the blessedness of their fellowship with Christ
and the Father; bearing their burdens, comforting them
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31
in their aictions, and restoring them to a right mind
by aectionate reproof; also, by praying for them. Yes, we
should resemble Christ, who is their High Priest, ever
restoring, ever interceding for them; by endeavoring, I
say, to deliver them from their delement, to remove their
sorrows, and to disengage them from nature and the world
by a faithful testimony of their error. We should also pray
for them, pray for their deliverance from everything that
deles and troubles them; like our Lord and Master, ever
meek, patient, compassionate, and tender in our conduct
towards them. is is recommended in Phil. 2 “ Look
not every man on his own things, but every man also
on the things of others.” e example of Christ is there
proposed to us: “ Let this mind be in you, which was also
in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought
it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of
no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant …
and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself,
and became obedient unto death, even the death of the
cross.”
Dear friends, when we consider how little we resemble
Christ in His humility, and in all that He did and is now
doing as the servant of His people, we cannot wonder that
the apostle said, “ 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.” Why are we disinclined to
resemble Christ in His services to His disciples? Because
we so faintly apprehend the glory in which He now reigns.
Observe, dear friends, the prospect of His soon enjoying
this glory is said to be the reason that Christ girded Himself
and washed His disciples’ feet; He knew that when in this
glory He would continue what He meant by the service.
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32
He rejoiced at it; it was part of the joy set before Him;
and therefore, I say, He washed the disciples’ feet. We see
but little of the glory of Christ, and of our glory in having
a part with Him; and for this reason we are not inclined
to imitate and obey our Lord and Master in washing one
another’s feet. As we behold this glory, and enjoy it, so will
be our inclination and pleasure to fulll the lowest service
for His disciples. For in truth, the services that I mean are
the highest; because they make us like Him who washed
His disciples’ feet, who now serves them in all which it
signied, and will be their servant forever. Observe, then,
dear friends, our Lord’s declaration: “ If I, your Lord and
Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one
another’s feet.” e Lord bless His word, and enable us all
to obey Him.
Before I conclude, let me say a word to those who may
not yet have experienced any of the services of Christ. To
you, dear friends, I present Him as a Savior; if you see and
feel your separation from God, because your sins interpose
between you and Him, believe in Christ, and your sins
will be removed from the sight of God, and then you will
enjoy all the present and future glory and blessedness of
those who have a part with Christ. Your sins, whatever they
may be, are no obstacle to your enjoyment of this glory. If
all the sins that ever were committed in the world were
congregated in your persons and were your own act, this
need not prevent your believing in Christ, and coming
unto God through Him. Christ bore in His own body on
the tree the sins of all who believe in Him; and now lives in
the presence of God for them. I say, whatever be their sins,
though great as the sin of His murderers, for even these He
pardoned. Believe in Him, dear friends, and you will enjoy
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33
all His services, and reign with Him in His glory. e Lord
bless what has been said to all who hear me, and to Him
be all praise. Amen.
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34
62521
e Rejected Man
Gen. 3
IT is a good thing, seeing the great levity of our hearts,
that we should all of us sometimes look at our origin, at
what we were, and at the actual corruption of the stock
whence we are derived. us shall we see what God has
done, and the revelation He has made of Himself in what
we are.
e Israelite was instructed to remember the day that he
came out of Egypt all the days of his life (Deut. 16:2); and
the confession made by him when presenting his basket
of the rstfruits of the land was this: “ a Syrian ready to
perish was [not I, but] my father, and he went down into
Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there
a nation, great, mighty, and populous; and the Egyptians
evil entreated us, and aicted us, and laid upon us hard
bondage; and when we cried unto Jehovah the God of
our fathers, Jehovah heard our voice, and looked on our
aiction, and our labor, and our oppression; and Jehovah
brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and
with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and
with signs, and with wonders: and he hath brought us into
this place, and hath given us this land, even a land that
oweth with milk and honey,” Deut. 26:5-10.
Our rst father hath sinned. us the fountain was
deied. Evil has abounded, and sin has taken its free, full
course. We learn in all this scene in the garden what has
distorted the natural conscience, in circumstances so plain
that we can say what they are. Now it is hard to learn what
e Rejected Man
35
we are, because that which has made us sinners in heart has
made us sinners in understanding also. As the conscience is
aected and renewed by the Holy Spirit, so is it perverted
by sin. ere may be a false standard of good and evil, and
thus blindness through that (as a law of darkness), as well
as corruption of heart. Paul says, “ I verily thought with
myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name
of Jesus of Nazareth, which thing I also did,” etc. (Acts
26:9-11). And the time was come, the Lord forewarns,
when those that killed the disciples would “ think they did
God service,” John 16:2.
e book of Genesis gives us, in the rst dealings of
God with man, the rst grand elements of truth with
exceeding freshness and energy. All that was said by Satan
to Eve (except “ Ye shall not surely die,” v. 4), was in a
certain sense true. at was not true. And this is the way he
deceives. He does not present evil in its own hideous garb,
but in a plausible, insinuating manner. He can tell truth if it
subserve sin-much attractive truth, so that he win attention
by it; but he never uses it to lead to obedience. Both that
which was spoken by Adam and Eve, and that which was
spoken by Satan, shows the exceeding deceitfulness of sin.
Where God has not His place in the soul, in the assertion
of our independence, our weakness and inconsistency open
the way to the guile of the enemy, and the mind does not
see its departure from truth. “ I said in my haste, All men
are liars,” Psa. 116:11. So again, Mic. 7 (where there is
every kind of corruption), “ e best of them is as a briar:
the most upright is as a thorn hedge … Trust ye not in a
friend, put ye not condence in a guide: keep the doors of
thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom,” etc. ey had
departed from God. To learn what sin is to any purpose is
Collected Writings of J.N. Darby
36
to learn the source from which we have departed. We have
departed from God.
Notice, the rst thing introduced here is the subtlety of
Satan. It was not agrant open sin and wickedness when
Eve replied to it; it is not, I am the devil come to deceive
you. He puts the present pleasantness of the thing, and
with subtlety inquires, “ Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not
eat of every tree of the garden? “ e Holy Ghost does not
say the devil was wicked, but He says, “ Now the serpent
was more subtle than any beast of the eld which the Lord
God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath
God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? “
e woman entered into conversation with him, and
she was clean gone. is questioning what God had done
was a calling in question of His goodness and love; just the
temptation to mistrust God. Hath God said so and so?’
is in eect, Well, do not believe Him, He has kept back
something worth the having.’ e moment Eve entered
into the discussion, and parleyed with the serpent, God
was altogether gone from her; and all was gone.
She ought to have said, Why ask me? Surely He hath
done whatsoever it hath pleased Him to do. A right mind
would have rejected the temptation at once; a true heart
would have fallen back upon God. “ He that is begotten of
God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him
not,”
John 5:18. Satan “ touched “ Eve. He had got his
question into her mind, and she had departed from her
strength; for God had lost His place in her soul. When
Eve began questioning God’s goodness and answering
Satan’s question, she was putting herself above God, and
judging God, and thus putting herself into the hands of
e Rejected Man
37
Satan. Had Eve been worshipping God, Satan could not
have “ touched “ her; but, judging God, she took the place
of independence, and thus Satan had power over her, and,
being wiser than she, he deceived her.
We cannot judge God’s ways without judging God: we
may adore Him in His ways, but the moment we judge or
question that which He has revealed, we get above God,
we make ourselves gods, and put God in the place of the
creature as subject to us. is brings our souls under the
power of every one that is more clever than ourselves; we
are in their hands, and they can do what they please with us.
Now the devil is more clever than we are (the woman was
no match for him). erefore we ought to keep God ever in
His place of God in our souls, lest Satan should make gods
of us, and set us judging God Himself. If God be displaced,
we get into the place of those who are irresponsible, and
as creatures become the prey of any more cunning than
ourselves.
e soul, when rst awakened, nds its place before
God. It may not all at once have peace and joy, but this at
any rate it learns-to submit to God, and to be willing to be
taken up anyhow, so that God will but have it at all. How
does God keep this His place in our souls? Because it is
the constant aim of Satan to slip in between God and our
souls. In order to meet Satan, we must get into the place of
entire responsibility to God. God did not hold His place
in Eve’s mind, or she would not have been questioning His
love, and judging Him: there was the want of submission.
And may it not be that there is the want of submission in
us, that our minds are questioning and judging, and not
submitting to God’s righteousness?
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38
Notice also that Eve was in full recognition of God’s
command. “ And the woman said unto the serpent, We may
eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of
the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said,
Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die,”
v. 2, 3. ere was the clear and denite knowledge of what
God had said to her. So with ourselves. We have all heard
about God, and about His way of salvation; yes, many of us
have before our minds much of scriptural knowledge. But
this did not put Eve beyond the power of Satan. Neither
will it us-it may only the more immediately put us into the
hands of Satan. We all know what God has said about our
sins (we may not believe it perhaps: that is another thing),
that “ there is none righteous, no, not one.” We all know
that Christ came to save the lost; but then, if we do not
know that we are lost, this knowledge, remaining without
faith, does not take us out of the hands of Satan, but really
gives Satan power over us. We must have delivering power
from God before we can be out of Satan’s power. We must
have conviction of sin before we are o the ground of sin.
e very moment that Satan got Eve to listen to one
breath of his suggestions, that moment he took God’s place
in her soul. You cannot suppose she would have parleyed
with the devil, and have listened to him as to somebody
speaking to her as her friend, if she had not had condence
in him. So that she did trust in Satan. e truth is, she held
not with God, but with Satan. She looked upon Satan as
a better friend than God. Eve was not content. Now the
enemy of our souls may not be met by the simplicity of
e Rejected Man
39
truth, because of the want of simplicity of our minds.
1
Her
reply was truth, but it was truth not held in communion
with God. She thought God had kept back something
that was competent to make her happy. It was not a settled
thing with her, that God knew and had provided all that
was needed for her happiness. And have we no desires
for anything not actually given to us? ere was distrust
that God had power in Himself to make her happy, and
therefore she was desiring and seeking it somewhere else.
is was the beginning of it all. is led to man’s willingly
subjecting himself to the dominion of Satan. And now we
see the world bent on providing itself with pleasures apart
from God.
And how is it with you, dear friends? Let me ask, Is
this your case? Are you wanting something that God will
not allow you to have? Man naturally does not believe that
God is competent to make him happy, and therefore he
desires the things of the world, supposing that they can
make him happy. is to the end is the subtle state of the
esh, even in God’s children; not trusting God to make
one happy. It is a mercy, in a certain sense, that man must
earn his bread with the sweat of his brow (for God is not
mocked; and when He said, “ In the sweat of thy face shalt
thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground,” etc.,
1 According as our minds are not spiritual, and in any sort
aect anything not the object of the Spirit, to which they are
not led by Him, therein the simplicity of truth fails to keep
them, and the power of the enemy can avail itself of its subtlety
against them. If there were any measure of positive though
mixed spirituality, apparent rejection of the word would not be
possible. But Satan does not so proceed: he does not therefore
propose disobedience, but modies obedience, proposes
preliminaries to it, or substitutes something instead.
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40
what a store of accompanying sorrow and toil came in as
the result of man’s disobedience!), since that prevents the
giving up of our poor race to the unbounded gratication
of their desires away from God.
When the soul is distressed or cast down, that is not
in itself sin. But sin comes in when there is distrust of
God. Satan gets entrance for his full power in the soul the
moment there is a shade of distrust of God. God will be
trusted in the condence of His love. Eve had the highest
place in the world; she was surrounded by blessing, and
possessed of actual happiness (man’s state in Eden was one
of actual happiness, though not of spiritual power such as
the saints now have); but the very moment she felt distrust
in God’s competency to make her happy, it was all gone.
Distrust in God is the positive condition of every natural
man: all are seeking their happiness in something or other,
if they are not trusting in God to make them happy. It is a
solemn thought that one-half of the world is employed in
providing the means of pleasure for the other half.
Satan was trusted by Eve. If God is not trusted,
Satan most certainly will be. Man, standing alone in his
independence, is not independent, but the slave of every
man,
2
the slave of sin and Satan. Like Eve he trusts Satan
2 Look at the state man is really in, as regards the trust he puts
in man rather than God. If his neighbor should ask him to do
anything, though his conscience may tell him God hates what
his neighbor wants him to do, still, rather than disoblige his
neighbor, he will sin against God. He nds it harder to refuse
his neighbor than not to walk with God; it would distress
him more to refuse him either in going to ungodly places of
amusement or gratication, or indulging in known sin. I say it
would distress him more to refuse his neighbor to join in such
scenes and diversions than to break the holy commandments
of God, and to despise the sacrice of God’s Son.
e Rejected Man
41
rather than God. She hoped on his authority that there
was a doubt about the fulllment of God’s threatenings.
God had said, “ In the day that thou eatest thereof thou
shalt surely die,” chap. 2: 17. He said, “ Ye shall not surely
die,” impugning the truth of God’s word. And so he says
now. Men say in their hearts that sin will not bear the
consequences God has said it will-” e wages of sin is
death,” Rom. 6:23. No man could go on if he believed what
God said, instead of believing Satan. e happiness of man
is faith in Satan’s lie in this respect. ey are proceeding
in the same course, listening to that old detected lie of
Satan. But God has said, “ Ye shall surely die,” and there
is an end of all pleasures. So that all the devil can do is
to hide the consequences of sin. He could not keep men
going on if he did not keep out of their sight that truth, “
Ye shall surely die.” It is not that terror of it would change
their hearts; but if they did really believe it they would not
have one happy day here. Where is the earthly happiness
these words will not blast-” Ye shall surely die “? But men
believe what Satan says, and disbelieve what God says. “
e lust of the eye, the lust of the esh, and the pride of
life,” have present enjoyment connected with them-man
rushes to take the bait, willingly selling himself to Satan,
though in so doing he is morally conscious that he is not
acting according to the commandments of God. Observe,
I am not here speaking of gross sin, but of disbelief in God
Himself.
Let us see the next step. God has lost His character
in the heart of man; all man’s condence in God is gone:
and Satan the liar and arch-deceiver is believed. Now the
devil can say whatever he likes, he having the condence
of the heart instead of God. “ God doth know that in the
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42
day ye eat thereof, they your eyes shall be opened, and ye
shall be as gods, knowing good and evil,” v. 5. He began by
insinuating that God knew the fruit would make her happy,
but grudged to give it; then he questioned the truthfulness
of God; now he adds, “ ye shall be as gods,” tempting man
to assume the privileges of God Himself.
3
How entirely had Eve forgotten every thought of
God? Her soul should have recoiled with horror from the
proposition. “ What, I account myself as God! I take this
glory to myself, and cast o God! Am I to set about being
a thief-to take from God His glory, and become like Him-
I, creature, and indebted to Him for everything? “ How
dierent the way of Him who, “ being in the form of God,
thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made
himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of
a servant “! etc. (Phil. 2:6). But when we are once away
from God, we have no spiritual sense of sin at all. Eve
had no sense of the sin of leaving God out, and making
herself the center. And this is ever the result of exalting
man, of looking at God’s ways through man’s telescope.
Dependence is true exaltation in a creature, when the
object of it is right. It looks up, and is exalted above itself.
See David (Psa. 8) the greatest philosopher. But Eve was
so willing to get rid of God that she sought by robbery to
make herself equal with God. She may not have known the
extent of the presumption of her condence in Satan’s lie:
but the secret of it all was this, that she had forgotten God,
and thought only of herself-she had got self as a center,
and God was not in all her thoughts. When God is not our
3 us there were three things in which the devil desired that
man should dishonor God; rst, as to His grace; secondly, His
truth; thirdly, the majesty of His Godhead.
e Rejected Man
43
center, all that by which we can exalt ourselves becomes the
motive and principle of our hearts.
“ e man is become as one of us, to know good and
evil.” is is God’s account of fallen man: Satan never
deceives by a mere abstract lie. But supposing Eve could
have known that it was the truth, it would have been only
an added deception, because it would not have been the
truth in power in the conscience. Her heart having departed
from God, her then seeing it to be truth would only have
added to her darkness. I am doubly blind if the truth does
not lead my heart towards God and put me under God.
Eve goes on in the way of sin. “ And when the woman
saw that the ‘tree was good for food, and that it was
pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one
wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat,” in positive
and known disobedience to God’s command, acting on the
present enjoyment without any regard to consequences.
And now she becomes the active instrument of sin, “ and
gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat,” v. 6.
e man was not deceived (1 Tim. 2:14); but more shame to
him in following the woman (who was deceived), contrary
to the truth of God. Natural aection often becomes
the means of drawing the heart away from God. “ And
the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that
they were naked: and they sewed g-leaves together, and
made themselves aprons,” v. 7. Here we nd conscience at
work, not conscience towards God, but that of shame, the
conscience that drove out the accusers of the adulterous
woman; John 8. e guilty pair have the sense of the shame
of their nakedness, and they seek to hide it the one from
the other. e divine work in enlightening the conscience
gives a man to see the guilt of sin, the exceeding sinfulness
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44
of sin; but sin has its shame as well as its guilt, and the
natural conscience always seek to hide the shame of its sin
with some g-leaf covering.
is is no proof of conversion; it is only the main proof
that man has got into a bad conscience, and cannot get out
of it. Adam and Eve dare not look at each other, nor yet to
God. ey cannot bear the condition they have got into,
and they cannot change it, therefore they hide it. But do
not mistake this for repentance. Shame merely drives them
to hide from, and excuse themselves to, God. And so with
ourselves: as long as the shame of sin continues, we try to
hide it, to get away from it; but it only drives us farther and
farther from God. It is not a divinely-taught conscience,
because we are more concerned about the shame before
men than the sinfulness before God. Until God has the
place which man now occupies in our hearts, there is no
conversion: the soul is not looking to God. We may be able
to reason about the tender love and grace of God, but our
sense of the guilt of sin should ever be deeper than that
of its shame. When the Conscience is before God, guilt
brings sorrow; and yet we can as sinners reckon upon the
love and the kindness of God.
And now the dreadful moment arrives when they hear
the voice of Jehovah God walking in the garden in the
cool of the day. “ And Adam and his wife hid themselves
from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of
the garden,” v. 8. e Lord comes not with a ery sword in
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45
judgment as yet;
4
but still He comes as an “ adversary “ in
some wise.
* Man is the only intelligent being who is still alive
in successful apostasy. What do we nd in the case of
the fallen angels? eir sin brought its immediate and
irremediable punishment. Man, man alone, is abiding in
unbelief; condemned indeed, but still the execution of the
sentence is suspended.
us Jesus came, seeking an account of the fruit
produced.
“ Agree with thine adversary, quickly, whilst thou art
in the way with him.” Christ was saying, I am yet in the
way with you. “ Now is the accepted time, now is the day
of salvation.” e ax was laid to the root of the tree; Luke
3:9. erefore the only thing to be done was to agree with
Him who had the right against them, “ lest at any time the
adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver
thee to the ocer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily, I
say unto thee, ou shalt by no means come out thence, till
thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.”
“And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto
him, Where art thou? “ (v. 9). How came you not to be
4 In this the world most accurately follows the example
of our rst parents. ey sin, and then plead, as an excuse
or extenuation of their guilt, temptation, natural desire,
expediency, etc. But we rest on God’s truth when we declare
that there is no excuse that man makes, which is not in fact
the ground of his condemnation, yea, the very reason of it. See
in the parable of the marriage supper, for instance, the excuse
those who were invited gave for not attending: “ I have bought
a piece of ground, and must needs go and see it, I pray thee
have me excused.” Where was the “ needs be “? Only just this-
they preferred their own gratication to the reception of the
Lord’s invitation.
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46
with me! “ Enoch walked with God,” Gen. 5:22. God had
no occasion to say to him, “ Where art thou? “ “ And he
[Adam] said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was
afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself,” v. 10. If the
Lord were here, those who are ignorant of His grace would
go out one by one, like the accusers of the poor adulterous
woman. When Christ spoke to their conscience in those
words, “ He that is without sin among you, let him rst
cast a stone at her,” they walked out from His presence one
by one (not all together, lest it should be noticed that they
were sinners). ey were careful of their character before
men, but not before God. Had they been willing to confess
their sin and to submit themselves to God’s righteousness,
they would have stayed. It was not that the Lord used
any reproach to those Pharisees, but He xed the sin on
their consciences. So God merely says here to Adam, How
comes it that you are not with me?
And how comes it, dear friends, that you have found
bitterness and sorrow in the world? You will say, perhaps,
it is because sin is in the world; but it is sin you have got
into. You talk of a good conscience: the best conscience
of a sinner only leads him to get as far away as he can
from the presence of God. Do you call it a good conscience
here in Adam, getting away from God and then judging
for himself about his state? “ I was afraid, because I was
naked; and I hid myself.” And it is thus even with the saint
if he gets into sin; there is darkness in the sin, and fear in
the conscience after the sin. And when he is convinced he
must get get back again into the presence of God: and there
is not unreserved confession, he seeks to excuse himself.
You will always nd conscience, where the heart is wrong,
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47
tends to the invention of deceit. What did Adam say? I am
guilty; pardon me, 0 Lord? No, he practices deceit.
“ And he [the Lord] said, Who told thee that thou wast
naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded
thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, e
woman whom thou gavest to be with me “ [not “ my wife
“: in seeking to excuse himself, he casts the blame in reality
upon God. It was ou who gavest me this woman, and]
“she gave me of the tree, and I did eat,” v. 11, 12.
God takes no notice of this. He turns to the woman.
“And the Lord God said, What is this that thou hast
done? “ Eve now learns her lesson from Adam, as Adam
had learned his of her before: “ And the woman said, e
serpent beguiled me, and I did eat,” v. 13. All this is the
truth; but conscience is not before God.
God, when He comes to deal with them about their sin,
at once takes them up on the ground of their own excuses.
“ And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened
unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of
which I commanded thee, saying, ou shalt not eat of it:
cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat
of it all the days of thy life: thorns also and thistles shall it
bring forth to thee,” etc. (v. 17-19). e very excuse he gave
was just the height of his sin, and the very thing by which
God condemned him. So also with the woman. Out of
their own mouths were they judged. e plea of temptation
was only in fact saying that they preferred their own lusts
to God; that they listened to the devil’s word more than to
God’s commandment.*
Still God says nothing about this at rst. But what
does He? He brings in grace. When He does take up the
question, the man had already departed from Him-as a
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48
sinner he had departed from Him, before God came to
judge him for the sin-and the eect of conscience is to
drive away from God. Why does the indel delight in
indelity? Because he dislikes God. God therefore takes up
man in grace, and brings in promise. But He pronounces
judgment upon what they have done. He does not take up
grace and pass lightly over sin. Man always begins with
what he will do, but God begins with what He has done.
e truth always looks at what I am in the sight of God.
Having traced up the evil to its source, God goes at
once to the serpent as the author of it; but in pronouncing
sentence He deals with Adam as lost (already the condition
of man was that he was lost: God comes to no question
about goodness; and there is no promise made to Adam as
in the esh), and sets up the Second Adam. “And the Lord
God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this,
thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of
the eld; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou
eat all the days of thy life: and I will put enmity between
thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed;
it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel,” v.
14, 15.
ere is where grace comes in. ere is the root of the
evil, and there is the sole remedy to set aside what man
and the devil had done. He sets up the Lord Jesus Christ
Himself, “ the seed of the woman,” as the bruiser of the
serpent’s head. What is the meaning of the term probation,
as applied to our present state? “ To save the lost “ settles
that. Grace brings out man’s misery and sin in the presence
of God, and brings Christ in. Man is under the power of
Satan, decent or indecent. e decent, moral, unconverted
man is only the more deceived, but the decent slave of
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49
Satan. God takes up the full power of the evil, and sets up
His power for remedy in the Lord Jesus Christ. Man is not
mended in his condition. God deals with Him as already
set aside and lost, and, without any proposition of mending
the evil, brings in and sets up the Lord Jesus Christ, the
Second Adam, as the destroyer of the works of the devil;
1 John 3:8.
And where was He to be found? Where does God
bring in His glory? e grand fact is that it is “ the seed of
the woman.” e spring of the evil was in the woman, and
out of her was to come the deliverer. ere is the glory of
divine grace. Out of the eater cometh forth meat, and out
of the strong sweetness; Judg. 14:14. e poor wretched
woman was to give birth to the Savior of the world. God
does not slur over sin, but brings out all its vileness, and
sets up Christ as the Second Adam in the very place of sin-
His birth-place was in the death that sin had brought into
the world. “ Where sin abounded, grace did much more
abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might
grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus
Christ our Lord,”
Rom. 5:20, 21.
And mark the perfect contrast of the obedience of
Christ! Not as the rst Adam (from the place of the
creature exalting himself to be as God), He from a high
place takes a low. “ Being in the form of God, he thought
it not robbery to be equal with God; but made himself of
no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant,
and was made in the likeness of men: and being found
in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross,” Phil. 2:6-
8. He lays not the burden on the weak one, but bears her
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50
sin. Instead of saying, “ e woman that thou gavest me,”
etc. (v. 12), He loved the church, and gave Himself for it;
took her sins upon Himself, and came into the depth of her
sins. “ He that descended is the same also that ascended up
far above all things,” etc. (Eph. 4:10), that in His blessed
grace the greatest, the chief of sinners, might be able to
nd a resting-place, not in their own wretched excuses, but
in His divine love.
Cain: His World and His Worship
51
62522
Cain: His World and His
Worship
Gen. 4
IT is a terrible history of man’s hopelessness, the history
God has given us in His word (I say history, because
we have a setting forth of his sins and failures from the
beginning); but then the blessed grace of God is shown
forth in it, because it tells of Christ.
It is not simply that man’s heart is evil-that is true; but
it has been proved evil in the presence of everything that
ought to have restrained its evil., God has given us the
history of man’s ways, and of His dealings with man (not,
merely stated certain dogmas); and in whatever way He
has dealt with man, we nd the evil of man’s heart breaking
out, and following its course, spite of all.
Man, having sinned against God, is turned out of
paradise; Gen. 3. e next thing we read of is the outrageous
wickedness of man against his brother-Cain, Adam’s rst-
born, slaying Abel; Gen. 4. en comes the ood sweeping
away a whole generation of evil-doers;, Gen. 7. Mercy
shown to Noah (he and his house saved through the
judgment), immediately afterward we nd him drunk in
his tent, and Ham, his son, mocking and dishonoring him;
Gen. 9.
God speaks to Israel at Sinai, thundering with His voice
His righteous demands on man; yet, awful as the presence
of God is (and even “ Moses said, I exceedingly fear and
quake “), before Moses comes down from the mount, the
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52
people have made the golden calf, and broken the rst link
that binds them to the service of Jehovah; Ex. 32. In the
ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ we see God visiting the
Jew, and dealing with sinners in grace in the Person of His
Son- Him they slay and hang on a tree; Acts 5:30. Israel’s
history (man’s under the most favorable circumstances)
is one scene of violence and evil all the way through; so
that Stephen (in testifying to them after their rejection of
Christ and the descent of the Holy Ghost in witness of
Christ’s glory) says they were but doing as their fathers had
ever done. “ Ye sti-necked and uncircumcised in heart and
ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost; as your fathers
did, so do ye,” Acts 7:51.
Notwithstanding all the dealings of God with man-
the voice of God and the judgments of God-man is so
hopelessly bad, that the nearer he is brought to God-the
more culture there is bestowed upon him by God-only the
more is manifested, and that in darker characters, the sin
and desperate wickedness of his heart, working spite of all
in sight even of God’s judgments.
In the sin in the garden we get the character of man’s
evil as against God; Cain’s sin is sin against a neighbor.
5
Of
course both are sins against God (all sin is against God);
but whilst in the sin of Adam and Eve we see lust and
disobedience, in Cain’s there is something more-it is sin as
exhibited against a neighbor.
Man (as to his actual condition) is a sinner cast out of
paradise, already out of the presence of God • and he ought
to have the consciousness of being out, and that the only
5 “ What is written in the law? how readest thou? And he
answering said, ou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with
all thy mind: and thy neighbor as thyself.” (Luke to: 26, 27.)
Cain: His World and His Worship
53
way of getting back to God is through His Son. We are
not in paradise. We have got out of it some way or other;
and we are in a world which is under judgment, and where
death is staring us in the face. Adam had just been driven
out of paradise, and Cain must have had (through Adam)
the remembrance that there was a time when man was not
out of paradise, when he heard God’s voice in the garden
without fear, when he had not a bad conscience, and when
he was without toil. Saints or sinners (in our own eyes), we
have been driven out of Eden, and we are in the wilderness
utterly excluded from God’s presence. We ought to have
the consciousness of being out, and of the misery of our
condition; but alas! we have lost all remembrance of the
place in which we once were, and have become familiarized
to the ruin and desolation consequent upon sin. Still it is
true, and we cannot deny it, that we have got out of paradise,
and are in a world constantly under judgment. We may
try to make the best of the world; but we must all feel
that something has come in, something that has brought
in death and judgment. Happiness cannot be associated
with sin, any more than sin can be associated with God. As
for man, though he seeks to buoy himself up with his sins,
and to delude himself with the lie of Satan, sink he must,
sooner or later, under the power of the sin and death that
has come in. He is just spending his energies to make the
world pleasant without God, and himself comfortable and
rich in it, to die out of it.
e world he cannot keep. He may build a city for
himself, as Cain did (v. 17), and call it after his own name
(Cain called his city after the name of his son); but it will
be with him as David speaks, “ eir inward thought is,
that their houses shall continue forever, and their dwelling-
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54
places to all generations; they call their lands after their
own names. Nevertheless man being in honor abideth not;
he is like the beasts that perish. is their way is their folly;
yet their posterity approve their saying. Like sheep they are
laid in the grave; death shall feed on them,” Psa. 49.
Cain did not like the sense of the wrath of God lying
upon him.
6
Gone out from the presence of Jehovah (v. 16),
he had become so great in the earth that he could build a
city. Man never likes to be in the truth of his condition.
Cain likes not to be “ a fugitive and a vagabond,” and he
tries to build a city, and he does build a city, in the endeavor
to make the world as pleasant as he can without God. It
might be said, What harm was there in building a city? In
the rst place there would never have been the necessity for
this in paradise. Moreover it was a proof of insensibility as
to this sin against God; it showed quiet contentment under
the eect of that punishment which at rst he had felt was
greater than he could bear; it was the last expression of
total alienation of heart and aection from God. Driven
out from the presence of God, he sets about to establish
himself. He seeks for himself a home, not with God in
6 “ And Jehovah said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother?
And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper? And he
said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood
crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from
the earth [not merely, “ Cursed is the ground for thy sake,”
etc. as to Adam], which hath opened her mouth to receive thy
brother’s blood from thy hand: when thou tillest the ground,
it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive
and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. And Cain said unto
Jehovah, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold,
thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth;
and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a
vagabond in the earth,” etc. (v. 9-14).
Cain: His World and His Worship
55
heaven, but on the earth, from which God had pronounced
him “ cursed.” He makes himself master of a city, where
God had made him “ a vagabond.”
And mark further the faculty man has of making himself
happy in his estrangement from God. We nd amongst the
family of Cain not only “ the father of such as dwell in
tents, and of such as have cattle “ (v. zo), but “ the father of
such as handle the harp and the organ “ (v. 21), and “ the
instructer of ever articer in brass and iron “ (v. 22). Now
there is nothing wrong in working brass and iron; neither
is there any harm in sweet sounds (we read in the book of
Revelation of harpers in heaven); but what Cain was doing
was this-he was making the world pleasant without God.
ese are the eorts of man, who has settled himself
down in a world where judgment has placed him, and who
is trying to make himself as happy and the world as pleasant
as he can without God, till death and judgment overtake
him. If I saw a man who had committed some wicked
crime against his father, the next day playing on musical
instruments, should I say there was no harm in that? Such
was Cain’s world. And is it not like your
7
world? Is there
any dierence between your soul and Cain’s world? Is it a
better world because God’s Son has been crucied in it?
Has that act on the part of man made it more acceptable to
God? (because that has happened since the days of Cain).
Where is the dierence? ey had their “ harps and organs
“; and so have you. ey had their “ articers in brass and
7 e believer is “ not of the world “; his home and citizenship
are in heaven, and his walk down here on the earth should be
in the distinct consciousness, and in the distinct confession,
that he “ seeks a country “ (Heb. 11:14). is is of the last
importance: anything of the earth is of that which rejected
Christ.
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56
iron “; and so have you. It was Cain’s world then away from
God? and it is Cain’s world still. e like tree produces
like fruit. Man is carrying on the world by himself, and for
himself, endeavoring to keep God out of sight, as much
as possible to do without Him, lest He should get at his
conscience and make him miserable.
Can you nd any dierence between Cain’s world
without God and your world without God? You may object
that you are not without God, that you are called by the
name of Christ -are Christians, and have a religion also.
Cain had a religion. He was a religious man, as religious as
Abel. But he had no love to God; he had no faith. He was
a religious man, but not a godly man.
It is a strange introduction to this picture, the setting
forth of Cain as a worshipper, and a worshipper moreover
of the true God. We read, “ And Abel was a keeper of
sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in process
of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the
ground an oering unto Jehovah,” v. 2, 3.
ere is no mention made of false gods before the ood.
Cain was a worshipper of the one living and true God.
Soon after the ood there were idolaters; and then God
called out a separate people as witnesses of His character
to make good His name and grace. But there is not any
mention made of false godg before Josh. 24:6-8, “ Your
fathers worshipped other gods “: a fresh crime, a fresh snare
of the enemy, which called for new measures on the part
of God. Satan had come and slipped himself in between
man and God, and was the one that was really worshipped,
though under the name of gods; and the call of Abram was
the call and witness of “ the most high God.”
Cain: His World and His Worship
57
Your “ articers in brass and iron “ are worshippers of
the true God. So was Cain. And he took some pains too.
He oered that which he had been toiling for in “ the
sweat of his brow.” He was a “ tiller of the ground,” and
he “ brought of the fruit of the ground an oering unto
Jehovah.” He did not bring that which cost him nothing
(2 Sam. 24:24); nay, his worship cost more of toil than that
of Abel. He came in the way of nature, oering the fruit of
his toil and labor; and you have done the same. is is ever
the character of false worship. Religiousness does not take
a man out of the character of Cain; it the rather brings him
into it. So that you have not got one step in that way out of
the character God has marked as that of Cain.
Observe, I do not charge you with being hypocrites,
for I do not say that Cain was not sincere. ere is no
doubt indeed of his sincerity; but then his sincerity only
evidenced the blind hardness of his heart. Human sincerity
means nothing; it is often but the greatest proof of the
desperate darkness in which a man is. ose were sincere of
whom Christ said, “ He that killeth you will think he doeth
God service.” Saul of Tarsus was thoroughly sincere when
he thought he “ ought to do many things contrary to the
name of Jesus of Nazareth.” He consulted moreover the
chief priests and elders, the religious authorities of the day.
He was zealous for his religion, and thoroughly sincere as a
man, but totally blind as to God and the things of Christ,
thinking to do God service by ghting against and slaying
His saints. Cain in his sincerity brought to the Lord that
which cost him something, that which was the fruit of his
toil. He came to God as a worshipper, and in so doing
oered to God that which he had brought honestly as a
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man, but which proved him to be ignorant of his state as
a sinner.
What then is man to hope for? you will say. He is to
hope for nothing. Did he not get out of paradise because
of sin? what possible ground can he have as a sinner for
hoping to get into heaven?
What ground had Cain for hoping that God would
accept either himself or his oering? God had driven man
out of paradise because of sin: what ground had he to expect
by the works of his hands to get back into the presence of
God? You may say, It was not the works of his hands, but
the fruits of God’s creation. But what would you think of
the man who was hoping to get into heaven by oering his
corn and his wine to God, supposing, like Simon Magus
(Acts 8), that the gift of God may be bought? Why, it
would show that his conscience was as hard as the nether
millstone, utterly insensible to the condition he was in, as
well as to the character of God. e very worship of Cain
proved the desperate utter insensibility of his heart to the
judgment of God against sin, and to those mighty things
which had just happened, the eects and consequences of
which he was now experiencing.
How came man to be toiling there in the sweat of his
brow? eir very toil told the tale of the curse. ey had
been driven out of Eden for sin. But in Cain we see utter
recklessness to the judgment of God. He had forgotten
the very nature and being of that God who had set man
perfectly happy in the garden at the rst, to keep it and
to enjoy its fruits (fruits yielded to his hand without toil
or labor); and supposed that by toil and labor (the judicial
consequences of sin) he could produce something that
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59
God would accept. ere was utter desperate recklessness
to the judgment of God.
Cain’s worship was the worst thing he did. It was in fact
the denying that he had sinned; such blindness to what he
had been, such hardness of conscience in supposing that he
could get into the presence of God in his sins as if nothing at
all had happened! such wretched assumption that because
he was a “ tiller of the ground,” tilling of the ground was all
right! But how came it to be all right? Because God had
cursed the ground. He, a deled sinner driven out of
paradise, brings “ of the fruit of the ground “ which the
Lord had cursed, “ an oering unto Jehovah “; that is, he
brings into the presence of God the sign and seal of the sin
that had driven him out from God!
And how comes a man to be going Sunday after Sunday,
as he says, to ‘ worship God ‘? What is all this toil? To ‘
make peace with God? ‘ God is “ the God of peace “; He “
preaches peace “-a made peace through “ the blood of the
cross “; yet man goes on seeking to carry something into
God’s presence as ‘ a duty,’ to make peace ‘ without once
asking about God’s way of peace.
Cain was a worshipper of God; but there was no faith in
Cain. ere was no faith to recognize his own ruin and sin,
no faith to apprehend the judgment of God against sin: he
had no business in the presence of God as he was, no title
to be a worshipper of God. He had not a bit of faith to
recognize his own condition as driven out of paradise, his
sin and estrangement from God, or, that blood-death-was
necessary, in order for him to approach God. at is just
the world’s worship; and are you any the better for it? Are
you any the nearer to God? Tell me, dear friends, what if
God does not receive your worship? Suppose that, after all
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your well doing and toil for God, God rejects it, for that is
what Cain’s toiling met with from God-” Unto Cain and
to his oering he had not respect “ (v. 5)-would you be
content?
How was it with Cain? “ Cain was very wroth, and his
countenance fell.” And it is ever thus. e moment God
puts man on the true ground of his condition before Him,
the enmity of the natural heart breaks out against God.
Cain was “ very wroth,” exceeding angry; and why? Because
his heart was opposed to grace. He had not owned the rst
principle of sin in the presence of God.
And you, when the sovereign grace of the gospel comes
to you, are “ very wroth.” What! a man do his best, you
exclaim, and not be accepted! So thought Cain. And so
thinks every man naturally; that is, he thinks that God
must accept him just as well as he accepts God, bringing
down God to his own measure of holiness. And then the
wrath of man breaks out, and he rejects the righteousness
that God holds out to him; he will not have His Son.
ere is not a principle in Cain that is not found in
you. ere is no evil in brass and iron, nor is there any
harm in sweet sounds; the evil and the sin are in this, that
men are using these things to hide God from them. If you
are worshippers of the true God, so was Cain. We may
put a terrible name on that which we see in Cain, and yet
approve of the same thing in ourselves; the light tells us
that was sin in Cain which the spirit of self-love tells us is
not sin in our own case. What dierence is there between
you and Cain) Take the Bible and see if you can make out
any dierence. e only real dierence is this, that you have
a further and more developed knowledge of “ the Seed of
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61
the woman “ (Christ), and therefore that of the two you are
the more guilty.
Having sinned against God, abused His goodness, and
refused His Son, man turns to please himself as if nothing
had happened. It is more terrible to a spiritual eye to see
insensibility after sin has been committed, it is a far deeper
shade of sin than even the commission of the crime. e
returning of a soul to God is just in the being awakened to
a sense of the awfulness of this state.
ere is yet another feature in the Cain character-open
hostility to those who know God’s principle of grace, to
those whom God does accept. See what follows: “ And
Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass,
when they were in the eld, that Cain rose up against Abel
his brother, and slew him,” v. 8. Abel as a poor helpless man
should have demanded Cain’s sympathy, but Cain hates
the one whom God delights in.
And so it is now. Why is it that you are so angry at a
fault in a Christian which you readily excuse in a man of
the world, if it be not hatred to the name he bears? If it
ought to produce better fruits in him, why not adopt it
yourselves? If you are expecting better from him than from
the world, why not follow that which you profess to believe
will produce the better fruit?
But you have not merely hated the name of Christ, you
have been guilty of hating that which God has stablished
in Christ. And here is the same principle that crucied
Christ, the desperate recklessness of sin.
You cannot deny that the world has crucied Christ;
God’s Son is not now in the world. He has been in the
world. He became a man amongst men (“ the Word was
made esh, and dwelt among us,” John 1:14)-our neighbor.
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Man saw and hated Him, and summed up his evil in killing
Him. I ask you therefore, Has God no such question with
you as He had with Cain, “ Where is thy brother? “ (v. 9).
Christ has become man’s “ brother “ (it is not the question
of God’s purpose and counsel here); and is not God
demanding of the world, Where is Christ? Cain replied, “
I know not: am I my brother’s keeper? “
Here is a much worse character of sin than Adam’s.
It is the haughtiness and recklessness of sin. “ Am I my
brother’s keeper? “ Not only has there been sin against
God, sin that has exiled man from Eden and separated
him from the presence of God in peace, but there has been
sin also that has led to the hatred and destruction of a
brother (blessed and perfect in His ways) whom man has
seen. Your disclaiming this displays, and is the proof of, the
recklessness of your hearts. “ If I had not come and spoken
unto them,” said Jesus, “ they had not had sin; but now
they have no cloak for their sin. He that hateth me hateth
my Father also. If I had not done among them the works
which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now
have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. But
this cometh to pass, that the word might be fullled that is
written in their law, ey hated me without a cause,” John
15:22-25.
e coming of the Son of man into the world has
shown the real state it is in. Why was Christ rejected by
man, except that man hated God? at was the only reason
that Christ was slain in this world. ey hated God, and
therefore they hated Him. ey hated the light-” Every one
that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light,
lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth
cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest,
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63
that they are wrought in God,” John 3:20, 21. “ ey loved
darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil “;
and this is their sin, that they have put the Light out of the
world. Like Cain, they were “ of that wicked one,” and slew
their brother;
John 3:12.
8
Like him too in the motive-” And wherefore
slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his
brother’s righteous.” “ Which of you convinceth me of sin?
“ (John 8:46). Even Pilate said, “ I nd no fault in him,”
John a: 38; chap. 19: 4, 6. e world
9
has sinned against
God in crucifying and slaying Jesus. ey hated God, and
therefore turned God’s Son out of the world, when sent to
it in love.
But there is another thing. It is not simply a question
of man’s having killed the Lord Jesus Christ; the world has
now to answer for its resistance of the Holy Ghost. “ Ye do
always resist the Holy Ghost,” etc. e testimony of the
Holy Ghost, present in the world as witness of the glory
of Christ, is a conviction of the world of sin; John 16:7-15.
He has been sent down because Christ has been killed.
e necessary testimony of His very presence in the world
is this: He would not have been here on earth if Christ
had not been killed. He is come in condemnation of the
whole world before God. I am here,’ He says, as it were,
because you have killed your Abel.’ It is not a question
about particular sins; you have killed God’s Son, you are a
sinner because you have not believed on Him.
Well then, dear friends, are you the daily companions
of those who have rejected Christ, who have killed Christ?
8 See John 8:40-47.
9 Not merely Jews are in question here; the world has done it,
man has done it. “ He was despised and rejected of men.”
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Are you of that world, and found with that world in its
pleasures and prots, its religion and its lusts, which has
done this, and which is still against God and against His
Christ, vainly trying to make yourselves pleasant without
God? Or have you taken your stand with those who are
“ of God,” who have God with them and God for them,
though the whole world that lieth in the wicked one be
against them? e eorts that are being made merely to
improve the world are but the sign of the insensibility of
Cain. e Spirit of God is come into the world to awaken
us to a sense of what has happened in the world, and of the
truth of our condition as men.
How came poor Abel to be an accepted worshipper?
“ And Abel, he also brought of the rstlings of his ock
and of the fat thereof. And Jehovah had respect unto Abel
and to his oering; but unto Cain,” etc. (v. 4). He was
accepted by blood. ere was this testimony in his oering:
I cannot go to God as I am; I am driven out of paradise,
sin has come in between me and God, and death, “ the
wages of sin,” must come in between me and God, or I
cannot go to God-I cannot go as I am. He took the place
of a sinner, and put in faith between himself and God the
blood of a victim that had been slain. Unless in his going
to God he had owned his necessity that he could not get
into the presence of God at all but by blood, he would not
have been accepted any more than Cain. But he knew and
owned that he could not get to God without blood: he
was of faith, and faith ever sees that “ without shedding
of blood there is no remission,” Heb. 9:22. He put death-
judicially inicted death (by slaying the victim)- between
himself and God, and then he comes into the presence of
God as an accepted worshipper. “ By faith Abel oered
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65
unto God a more excellent sacrice than Cain, by which he
obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of
his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh,” Heb. 11:4.
But further, Abel suered with Christ. Having owned
that he could not come into the presence of God without
the blood of the lamb slain, he takes his place and portion
with Christ in rejection. He is a suerer from the wicked
of the world. at is how it must end. at is all that the
Christian is to expect at the hands of a world departed
from God. “ Marvel not if the world hate you,” 1 John 3:13.
“ Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into
the holiest,” says the apostle, “ by the blood of Jesus, by
a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us
through the veil, that is to say, his esh; and having an high
priest over the house of God, let us draw near,” etc. (Heb.
10:19, 22). All who come not through Him are rejected,
because they do not know that they are so utterly sinful
that they cannot come into God’s presence except through
the blood of His Son. And on the other hand, all who say,
I cannot draw near except through blood, see that it is the
perfectness of love-God’s own perfect blessed love-that
to meet man’s need spared nothing, not even His only-
begotten Son. “ He hath made him to be sin for us, who
knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him,” 2 Cor. 5:21. is is the language of faith. He
is the only God who, when I was the chief of sinners, gave
His Son to die for me. I know of no God but a God of
perfect love, bringing me out of all my vileness, hanging on
my neck in my vileness, as did the father to the returning
prodigal (Luke 15), and bringing me into His house to
rejoice with Him in the exceeding riches of His grace.
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We get perfect blessed peace through the blood of Christ,
without one pang of conscience left. “ e worshipper once
purged has no more conscience of sin.” Heb. 10. e apostle
does not say that he is not a sinner, that he is not vile; but
that God has so loved the vile and sinful as to give His Son
unto death to wash away their vileness and their sin.
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62518
Wilderness Grace
Ex. 17
THOSE who are familiar with the study of this part of
scripture will remember that the history of Israel from the
Red Sea to Sinai (that is, from the time of their deliverance
out of Egypt until they placed themselves under law)
contains an exceedingly remarkable testimony to the grace
of God.
At Sinai Israel took up the promises of God on the
condition of their own obedience, and then their entire
failure was manifested. But up to that moment all God’s
dealings with them had been in grace. ough there was
continual murmuring and unbelief and disobedience, He
did not chasten for these things as afterward, when they
had taken a stand before Him on the ground of obedience.
It was an immense transition in their history.
e law “ came in “ as it were (though of course it was
perfect in itself) “ by the bye,” between the promises and
the accomplishment of the promises, to show what the
condition of man would be if he stood on his own ground
before God. e law was not before the promises, the
apostle argues (Gal. 3), “ that it should make the promise
of none eect.” Promise was given rst. And “ He to whom
the promises were made “ came after the law. Meanwhile
the law entered in order to manifest what man was, and the
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68
eect that would be produced on man when placed on the
ground of obedience to the known will of God.
10
It was needful to do this, because of the constant
tendency of the heart to put itself under law, in spite of
repeated failures; not that God’s promises of grace were
not simple and clear, but because of this natural tendency
of the heart of man. Supposing my conscience to be
awakened, I must know that it is my duty (that I ought) to
please and obey God. e eect of this naturally is that I
expect God would accept me on this condition. Till a man
is brought to feel his really lost state, this is very natural. It
is quite too late to talk of pleasing and obeying God when
we know ourselves to be lost sinners.
Now God, who is wonderfully painstaking with us for
our blessing, sent the law, in order that this tendency of
man’s heart, and his utter worthlessness, might be shown
out, and proved to man.
11
But before He did this, He had
made known abounding grace, pure grace, owing from
His own thoughts and purposes, without any reference to
the feelings of man about Him, or any condition of man’s
obedience.
10 “ All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient.”
ese words (the response of the people with one voice, when
Moses had taken the book of the covenant and read in their
audience, Ex. 24) were the complete confounding of two very
distinct principles, which man has been continually mistaking
and confounding since the fall of Adam-responsibility and
power. Man is responsible to keep the law perfectly, but by
the fall he has lost the power. is the natural heart cannot
understand. One man denies his responsibility, and another
assumes his power; grace, and this only, puts a man right on
both points.
11 See Rom. 3:19.
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So that those whose hearts were opened to believe the
promises could rest in peace upon them all the while they
were learning more of their own sinfulness through the
law. e very starting point of all God’s dealings with us is
pure grace, suitable to sinners, whose state He knows, and
therefore knows how to meet.
ere was no promise given to Adam before he fell.
He needed none; he was happy in his innocence and then
present condition. And after he had sinned, the promise
given was not made to rest on anything in him. e Lord
came down to the garden, saying, “ Adam, where art thou?
“ that he might be made to feel what the condition was
into which sin had plunged him: and he answered, “ I
heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because
I was naked, and I hid myself.” e Lord did not give a
promise to Adam (for He could not, in the state of sin
in which he was, without dealing lightly with sin; neither
could He leave Adam without promise, unless He cast him
into remediless despair). What God does is to bring in “
the seed of the woman “-the second Adam. ere was not
a word of promise to Adam personally: the promise was
made to the “ seed of the woman “ in pronouncing the
curse on the serpent-” I will put enmity between thee and
the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall
bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” is was a
promise for Adam, one on which his soul might rest, one
faith could lay hold of-no promise to Adam in his sin, but
a promise of blessing in and to Christ. And it appears that
through grace Adam did rest on this interference of God,
for he afterward speaks of Eve as “ the mother of all living.”
is was developed onwards and onwards till we come
to the history of Abraham; where it is revealed still more
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denitely: “ In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth
be blessed.” Isaac was only the type of Christ. “ Now to
Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith
not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, and to thy
seed, which is Christ.” us Christ was the Seed to whom
the promise was made; Gal. 3. “ All the promises of God in
him are yea, and in him Amen,” and we, through grace, can
now add, “ unto the glory of God by us.”
e promises were not only made to Abraham (Gen.
12) and to his seed, but conrmed to the seed through
resurrection (Gen. 22). is was shown in Abraham’s being
commanded to oer up Isaac, and his receiving of him again
from the dead “ in a gure “ (as the apostle speaks, Heb. 11).
Christ takes the promises, not as on earth incarnate, but as
risen from the dead. Without His death and resurrection
we could have had no part in them, for God cannot bless
people in sin. “ What concord hath Christ with Belial? “
It is impossible that there could be communion between
God and the sinner in his sins. If the Lord Jesus had not
died and become the source of a new life to the sinner, we
could have had no portion with Him in these promises.
After the resurrection of Isaac there was a conrmation
to the seed of the promises made to Abraham. “ By myself
have I sworn, saith the LORD, for because thou hast done
this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son:
that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will
multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven … and in thy
seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” is is
referred to by the Spirit in the Epistle to the Galatians.
As to blessing, unless we speak of the presumption of
our own thoughts about sin, we must look to Christ in
reference to it. All the blessing is Christ’s; it belongs to
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Him; and to us only as having our portion in and with Him.
It all rests on promise, without any reference to the state
of man. Our strength and comfort is in seeing this, that it
ows down from God as the expression of His thoughts
towards us. Just as water reaching a thirsty man, the water
has only to do with the thirsty man as it regards quenching
his thirst; it does not come from, but merely to, him.
ere was then the sentence of punishment pronounced
on the serpent, and the promise given to the Seed. All is of
grace, and in Christ.
e Lord having settled this great basis of truth, that
all is of grace in Christ, and established in resurrection,
He began to manifest His ways more in detail; and that
rst, amongst His own people Israel, the seed of Abraham
after the esh. He began to show, not merely His grace in
giving His promises to the Seed, on which faith might lay
hold, but His own considerate love in caring for the need
and sorrows of His people. When once it was completely
settled that the promises came simply from God and from
His love, then He shows that He can consider all the need
of His people, and take every possible thought about them
and their sorrows, saying to Moses (chap. 3), “ I have surely
seen the aiction of my people which are in Egypt, and
have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I
know their sorrows; and I am come down to deliver them
out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out
of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land owing
with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites,
and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and
the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Now therefore, behold, the
cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have
also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress
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them,” etc. He took notice of every circumstance of their
trouble and sorrow.
Having sent this message to them by the hand of Moses,
that He knew their sorrows, and having touched their heart
in this way, giving them condence in His love in spite of
their sinfulness, so that “ the people believed, and bowed
their head and worshipped,” He does not pass over their
sin. He cannot help seeing their evil; and if He is to have
them in communion with Himself He must take notice
of their condition towards Himself as well as towards
Pharaoh; that is to say, that of being sinners. God and sin
must be always at variance: we ourselves feel it to be so.
When quickened and convinced of sin, the rst expression
of our hearts, like that of Peter’s,
12
is “ Depart from me, for
I am sinful man, 0 Lord.” We see at once, as he did, that
God’s holiness cannot, ought not, to allow of sin. ere is
always great ignorance in us when we say this, though it
is a very true feeling; for it is as though we thought that
the Lord did not know a great deal more of what is in
our hearts than we do ourselves. A moment’s consideration
in the case of Peter would have made him feel, e Lord
knew that I was a sinful man before He came into my ship;
and yet He came: surely then I need not shrink from Him.
e Lord gives us condence in Himself by taking the
start of us about the knowledge of our sinfulness. Jesus
said to Peter, “ Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch
men “ -planting him at once in condence in Himself,
because showing him that though He knew quite well he
was a sinner, yet His purpose was to make him the means
of saving sinners. It was as much as to say, You need not
shrink from me; for if I could not meet you in grace and
12 See Luke 5.
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put away your sin, I could not of course make use of you to
save others.
In bringing Israel into direct fellowship with Himself,
God showed, by putting the blood on their doorposts
(chap. 12), that when He executed judgment on Egypt He
secured deliverance from it to His people. And just so in
God’s dealings with us; the judgment that has passed on
Christ because of sin is the security of the church (of every
believer) against judgment. When the soul apprehends the
Lord Jesus as the one oering for sin, it has condence
in God; and that on the very ground of His knowing
thoroughly our sinfulness. It is impossible that God should
pass over the blood of the Lord Jesus, and impute to
sinners those sins which He has washed away. He cannot
impute sin to a believer without condemning the value
of His blood-shedding, and virtually denying the ecacy
of it. And if that be true when He judges men by-and-
by, it must be true now. Faith knows that death is God’s
own sentence against sin, and that it has been executed on
Christ in the sinner’s stead. Faith “ sets to its seal that God
is true,” and receives His thoughts who has said about the
blood-shedding of Jesus, “ When I see the blood, I will pass
over.”
But there is another thing: it is not merely that God
says, “ I have surely seen the aiction of my people, I know
their sorrows,” etc.; there must be also His power put forth
in delivering. is is shown in the passage of the Israelites
through the Red Sea (chap. 14), and to us in the Lord Jesus
having “ through death destroyed him that had the power
of death,” Heb. 2:14. In the cross Satan put forth all his
power and energy against the Prince of life; and he did it
successfully, arraying both Jew and Gentile against Him (it
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74
was “ your hour and the power of darkness,” Luke 22:53);
but in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus the mightiest
power of Satan was destroyed forever. And so with Israel;
God had taken up the cause of His people. It was not merely
that He had given them peace through the blood sprinkled
on their doorposts. but He Himself had entered into
conict with their enemies, and Satan’s power in enslaving
them was completely gone. We may have been brought to
see the sinfulness and evil of our condition before God, and
the power of the blood of Jesus in satisfying the holiness of
God; but we do not know liberty till we see God for us in
the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
What was the eect of deliverance to Israel? and what is
the eect of our deliverance from the bondage of Pharaoh
(Satan looked at as such)? To bring into the wilderness,
and not at once into Canaan. Being in the wilderness
implies all sorts of trials. It may seem strange to sight, that
they who had just been singing the song of triumph and
deliverance (chap 15) should be allowed to be three days in
the wilderness without water; and then, when they came to
water, should nd it so bitter that they could not drink of it.
But God permits these trials, in order that we may see our
own need and prove His faithfulness. From the Red Sea to
Sinai Israel proved the grace which belongs to us now. Let
us ever remember, when speaking of the wilderness, that
though there is trial in it, and plenty of trial, it is the place
of the ministration of grace. e Lord’s previous dealings
were, as I may say, preliminary: He brought Israel into the
wilderness in order to have them quite alone with Himself,
that He might teach them what He was; as He said
afterward, “ Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians,
and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto
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myself,” chap. 19: 4. He lets us pass through these trials
that we may thoroughly understand that all is from God
there. e eagle’s wing never tires or fails. It is either the
most blessed triumph, security, and victory, that we enjoy,
or it is nothing. It is wonderful how our hearts cling, not
only to the thought of our own righteousness, but to the
practical denial of our not having any strength in ourselves.
Many have peace in Jesus, who do not see so entirely that
they have no strength, either for service or conict. Well,
they learn it in the wilderness. Our journey through the
wilderness is the weaning us from trusting in ourselves, in
order that we may trust only in God.
e rst thing God taught Israel in the wilderness was,
that they could not get a drop of water except He gave it to
them. ey were kept without it three days; and when they
came to water at last (when there was something within
reach that man seemed able to grasp), they could not drink
of it, it was so bitter; until the Lord showed Moses a tree
to cast into the waters, which made them sweet. e Lord
causes that which was death to become the means of life,
as Hezekiah says, “ 0 Lord, by these things men live, and in
all these things is the life of my spirit,” Isa. 38. In death to
the esh there is life to the spirit.
In chapter 16 the Israelites want bread and begin to
murmur again. e Lord deals with them in grace and
gives them bread. But it was such bread as showed them,
morning by morning, that they must depend on Him. Had
He withheld the manna one day, they would have had
nothing to eat, for they could not keep it till the morrow;
“ it bred worms, and stank.” e Lord will not allow us to
lay up anything (no, not even grace) in store that would
tend to lead us into independence of Himself: it will turn
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to evil if we do. He showed His people perpetual grace in
His dealings towards them; but He never took them, nor
can He ever take us, out of the condition of dependence on
Himself. e manna was the type of Christ; as the water
was of the Spirit.
Soon after (chapter 17), in journeying from the
wilderness of Sin, we nd the Israelites murmuring again
because they had no water. “ Wherefore the people did
chide with Moses, and said, Give us water that we may
drink.” But new murmurings only bring out fresh grace
(for they had not yet come to Sinai): God gave them water.
His grace abounded where their sin abounded. e more
they murmured, the more in one sense they got.
I would just remark in passing, that it is sin not to have
condence in the Lord, not to be quite sure that He will
help us, whatever the need may be, when we are walking
in His ways. It is recorded of the children of Israel as sin,
that they tempted the Lord in that which they said here, “
Is the Lord among us, or not? “ (v. 7). When we are going
on wickedly and willfully, and say, “ Is not the Lord among
us? none evil can come upon us “ (Mic. 3:11), this is quite
a dierent thing. Our God will indeed be with us, if His
children, even then; but to chasten us. Whenever there is
real need in the wilderness, it is sin to doubt whether God
will help us or not. If we are not as sure of water in the
midst of the sandy desert as though we saw rivers of water
running through the country, we are tempting God.
is is the force of that expression of our Lord to Satan,
“ It is written, ou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.”
Satan wanted Jesus to try by an experiment whether God
would be as good as His word. Had He done so, it would
have implied a doubt. His answer was, “ It is written, ou
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shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” Tempting the Lord is
doubting the supply of His goodness in giving us all that
we need.
e supply of water and of manna to the Israelites
did not take them out of trouble. ey drank and were
refreshed: there was the gathering up a little strength, and
then Amalek comes and ghts against them. It was but
the preparation for conict. So those who feed on Christ
as the manna, and have in their souls the well of water
springing up into everlasting life, have still the wilderness
and conict with Amalek.
In that sense we have to do with Satan, though we are
entirely delivered from his bondage. We are never more
under the power of Satan, as Israel was under the power
of Pharaoh. (If Israel binds itself to Amalek, it is its own
fault.) It is said to us, “ Sin shall not have the dominion
over you; for ye are not under law, but under grace.” But we
have to ght with Amalek though delivered from Pharaoh.
When we have been brought into the wilderness, and fed
and refreshed through this grace, Christian conict begins.
We are called, like the Lord Jesus, never to doubt the
Father’s love; but was He out of conict? No, it was just
the very thing that set Him in it. e being delivered from
the bondage of Satan, and the being ranged on the Lord’s
side, is that which brings us into conict; and in this the
Lord never lets us be taken out of dependence on Himself.
e moment we forget this we shall be overcome. Satan
can never make us his slaves again, but we may be beaten
and wounded by him. In every detail of our lives there is
no blessing but in dependence on God. Whenever self-
dependence comes in, whenever our own wills are working,
there is failure. If in speaking to you now I were to cease
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from depending on the Lord in doing it, all blessing to my
own soul would cease. “ Without me ye can do nothing,”
John 15:5. Neither can I speak, nor you hear, to prot
without dependence on Him. If a Christian gets out of
dependence on the Lord, he will be beaten by Satan in
conict. Yet we ought not merely not to be beaten by
Satan, but ever to be gaining ground upon him. Whether
it be in winning souls to Christ, or whether it be in making
progress truly ourselves in knowledge, or in holiness, or
in love, we are gaining ground on Satan’s possessions.
We have been delivered from the power of darkness, and
translated into the kingdom of God’s dear Son. As Satan
takes possession of my heart by ignorance, then every step
I make in the knowledge of God is gain on the possession
of Satan. He uses our esh too; so that to mortify and
keep the esh in death is gaining ground upon him. But
every inch must be won, every bit of knowledge gained, by
conict. In this conict we are directly and hourly cast in
dependence upon God.
God did not put Amalek out of the way of Israel-they
must ght with him • and it is just so with us. “ And Moses
said unto Joshua, Choose us out men, and go out, ght
with Amalek; to-morrow I will stand on the top of the hill
with the rod of God in my hand,” v. 9. is is very dierent
from what we get in chapter 14, “ e Lord shall ght for
you, and ye shall hold your peace.”
See what the Lord had said to Moses concerning Israel
(chap. 3: 8); that He would “ bring them up out of the land
of Egypt unto a good land and a large, unto a land owing
with milk and honey.” Now where are they brought? Into
the wilderness, to thirst for water, and to ght with Amalek!
ey had not reckoned on this (v. 3). And thus it is often
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with the saints of God; when they have had joy, and have
sung the song of triumph, in being delivered from the
power of Satan, they are afterward astonished at nding
themselves not in Canaan but in the wilderness. Jeremiah
found the Lord’s word the joy and rejoicing of his heart
(Jer. 15:16), yet afterward he was so discouraged that he
says, “ 0 LORD, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived
“: of course this is only a strong expression of sorrow, “ thou
art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision
daily, every one mocketh me. For since I spake, I cried out,
I cried violence and spoil; because the word of the LORD
was made a reproach unto me, and a derision, daily. en I
said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more
in his name,” etc. (Jer. 20).
When the saint nds what the road is, he is apt to forget
the end, where there will be fullness of joy and blessing.
e Lord desires to purge out that which would hinder our
blessing and keep us from having our hearts and hopes set
upon the end, and to humble us.
Moses,
13
Aaron, and Hur go up to the top of the hill,
and Israel under Joshua ghts in the plain below with
Amalek (v. to). ey fought the Lord’s battle: but it is not
sucient even to be ghting the Lord’s battle unless the
Lord stretches forth His hand to help them. Otherwise
“Amalek prevailed.” Israel might have reasoned on the
manner of their ghting, on the strength of the enemy, and
on ten thousand things; but after all, their success depended
on Moses’ hands being stretched out. It is very hard for
us to see ourselves and Satan to be as nothing, and God
13 Moses held in his hand “ the rod of God “-the symbol of
the power of God, that which had worked the defeat and
destruction of Pharaoh.
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to be everything. e moment we get out of dependence
on God, we nd out our own weakness; though we have
this comfort, that under whatever circumstances, through
the priesthood and the righteousness of the Lord Jesus,
our blessing is substantially maintained for us, and this
until the going down of the sun. “ And it came to pass,
when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed: and
when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses’
hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under
him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his
hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other
side; and his hands were steady until the going down of
the sun,” v. 11, 12. Enemies were as nothing when Israel
had the power of God with them. e day is won-” Joshua
discomted Amalek and his people with the edge of the
sword.”
“ And the LORD said unto Moses, Write this for a
memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua:
for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from
under heaven. And Moses built an altar, and called the
name of it Jehovahnissi (i.e., Jehovah my banner): for he
said, Because the Lord hath sworn that Jehovah will have
war with Amalek from generation to generation,” v. 14-16.
I dare say many of us have thought, when we have seen the
necessity of dependence on the Lord, that one good battle
with Satan, and all will be over; but no such thing, we have
security and the certainty of victory, but no promise of
cessation from conict whilst in the wilderness. God has
promised that He “ will bruise Satan under our feet shortly
“; as He said to Israel that He would “ utterly put out the
name of Amalek from under heaven “; but still “ Jehovah
will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.”
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Till Christ comes, and Satan will be bound, and we shall
have the full result of victory, we must reckon on conict
(not on slavery to Pharaoh, but on war with Amalek),
but with the comfort of knowing that it is Jehovah who
makes war, though it is through Israel, and Israel therefore
has to ght. It is the Lord’s battle against Satan- there is
our comfort, but still a battle which we have to carry on;
hence we are kept in an unceasing state of dependence. e
moment it was not so, Israel were put to the worse.
As it regards the accusations of Satan, the blood on
the doorposts is the eternal answer to that. As to slavery
to Satan, the Lord Jesus has delivered us from that; we
have stood, the living ones, on the other side of the Red
Sea; and we “ shall see “ Pharaoh and his host “ no more
again forever.” What we nd in the desert is, grace, conict
and the Lord having war with Amalek from generation to
generation. We are to be kept, moment by moment, in a
state of dependence, yet reckoning on the constant grace
and help of God. ere is not blessing and joy and comfort
where there is not dependence on the Lord exercised. It is
not enough for victory that in the battle we have ranged
ourselves on the Lord’s side. You will nd the tendency
of the esh, whether in praying or preaching or anything
else, is to get out of dependence on God. We may be
saying true things in prayer or in testimony; but if we are
not realizing our dependence on the Lord, we shall not
have His strength in the battle; and the Lord must. make
us learn our dependence on Him, through weakness, and
failure, and defeat, because we have refused to learn it in
the joy and condence of communion with Himself.
Victory is turned to worship in the scene before us.
“ And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it
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Jehovah-nissi--the Lord is my banner.” When victory does
not tend to worship, we and God part company as soon
as the victory is achieved. How sad to see victory often
leading to mere joy, instead of still greater dependence on,
and delight in, God!
May we trace out, in all these paths of His wondrous
ways, still more and more of the depths of His divine love!
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83
62516
Carnal Condence, and the
Condence of Faith
Num. 17; and 18:1
“ BEHOLD, we die, we perish, we all perish. Whosoever
cometh anything near unto the tabernacle of the Lord
shall die: shall we be consumed with dying? “ When the
children of Israel cried thus unto Moses, the feeling they
expressed was not exactly dread of an unknown God-that
which the sinner has naturally on his conscience when
rst awakened, but a dread resulting from haughtiness of
spirit, the esh having intruded itself into the presence of
God. And this is what is constantly found where there has
been a high bearing before God. e consequence of God
showing Himself to one in this state of soul is to cast him
down into despair. e fear of the natural conscience when
rst awakened, on the other hand, though painful, most
painful, is still salutary.
When there has been a going on altogether without
God, I do not call this a high bearing before God, though
it is so in another sense. We all know how many people
go on carelessly, day after day, and year after year, without
troubling themselves about God, seeking joy and pleasure
in the world, sunk in listlessness, oppressed with cares, or
engrossed with business: a thousand things ll and occupy
the natural heart to the exclusion of God. Sometimes it
does cross the conscience that there is a God, but, so far
from His being the object of their life, He is not their
object at all-” God is not in all their thoughts.” ere
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may be these secret misgivings (God often works thus in
the hearts of those whom He afterward calls to Himself,
although not producing fruit through it at the time); and,
when the soul is converted, the remembrance of such
appeals aids in bringing to a consciousness of the total
and entire perverseness of the will of man. Where there
is open and notorious sin, it is an easier thing to reach
the conscience, just as the Lord said to the Pharisees, the
religious people of the day, “ e publicans and the harlots
go into the kingdom of God before you.” Often, in the
course of a comparatively blameless life, there have been
these calls, and God, in the riches of His goodness and
forbearance and longsuering, has been despised.
When conviction of sin comes, when the Spirit of God
sets a man in consequence in God’s presence, he nds out
both what he has been doing, and what he is. He nds out
that he has been treasuring up unto himself “ wrath against
the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment
of God “; and more than this, he nds out also that his
natural condition is a condition of sin and rebellion against
God, and that he cannot remedy it. Now, whilst this state
of soul is ever painful (and it often drives a man nearly
to despair), it is salutary, a blessed thing. Wherever there
is a clear sense of our position, there is to desire to go to
God, though with the consciousness of having no title to
be there. Just as with the poor prodigal-” I will arise and go
to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned
against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to
be called thy son.” So also with Peter, at the feet of Jesus-”
Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, 0 Lord! “ ere is
this consciousness of unworthiness before God because of
having recognized His holiness, and that He ought to be
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holy; but there is also the desire to go to Him-a seeming
inconsistency, but that which is really of the Spirit of God.
It is very natural, where the Spirit works, to desire to go
to God, because we feel He is needed by us, although
conscience says we are unt to be there. e heart is turned
to God; it sees His holiness, sees that He ought to be holy,
and so takes God’s part against itself. ere is no desire that
He should be less holy, that it might, so to speak, slip into
heaven; and therefore it justies God, instead of seeking to
condemn Him that it may justify itself-that which many
a poor sinner does, that which Adam did when he said, “
e woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me
of the tree and I did eat.” Instead of justifying self, there is
the justifying God and condemning self. us the heart is
set right. It has not yet, it is true, learned redemption-what
God has done for it in Christ; it is occupied with its state
before God as a present thing, but this is salutary. ere
is not the peace that God does give and will give; still the
heart is set right.
In grace God had raised up priesthood to meet the need
of His people. But there was assumption on the part of
these Israelites, that, because they were His people, they
could take a place before Him otherwise than on His
ground. ey had abused the privileges conferred upon
them-murmured against
God-made the golden calf-said it was better to go back
to Egypt-despised the promises; there had been a long
course of failure and rebellion, and at last it rises up to
what is called the “ gainsaying of Core.” Whilst in this
eshly state, they assume that they can draw nigh to God.
“ And they gathered themselves together against Moses,
and against Aaron, and said unto them, Ye take too much
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upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of
them, and the Lord is among them; wherefore then lift ye
up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord? “ (See
chap. 16). Here is haughtiness in the presence of God. And
this is very apt to creep into our hearts-a taking up in the
esh the privileges of the children of God. It may not be
manifested in the gross aspect of this scene; but is there
not often the feeling of being able to come near to God
because it is our privilege to do so? Now it is clearly our
privilege, the privilege of all saints; but it is a sad thing if
as a consequence of that nearness, when the soul has got
out of His presence, it goes on haughtily and carelessly, still
talking about its nearness.
We nd another instance of haughtiness in the presence
of God, in the case of Cain (Gen. 4). When God said to
Cain, “ Where is Abel thy brother? “ he replied, “ I know
not: am I my brother’s keeper? “ answering God ippantly.
But the moment God showed Himself as God, saying, “
e voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the
ground, and now art thou cursed from the earth,” in came
despair. Wherever there is haughtiness of heart before God,
and God shows Himself, there is despair; the language of
the heart is, “ Behold, we die, we perish, we all perish.”
We get here a great principle: even in the man who is a
Christian, there is no realized ground of condence, and
the heart sinks down in despair.
A Christian has always the ground of being perfectly
happy before God, because he is perfectly saved. is is
the right state of a Christian-that of condence, not in the
esh (carnal condence), but condence and joy before
God. A state of want of condence and of uncertainty as
regards himself is a state in which the Christian may be
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found; he may pass through it, and that even because of a
certain work produced on the soul by the Holy Ghost, but
it is not his proper state. What the Holy Ghost gives is
certainty. Wherever there is uncertainty, it results from the
working of our own hearts, even though in connection with
(and, in a sense, grounded upon) what is really the work
of the Spirit. I may believe that God is holy, and seeing
sin in myself, may begin to reason on my own worthiness,
as to whether I can, or cannot, come to God; whether I
can have anything to say to God. ere may be the desire
to go to Him, but then I do not know whether He will
accept me. is is not faith; and yet it is constantly the state
of soul in which Christians are found. It is not properly
a Christian state; it is reasoning upon things known by
faith, things found out through faith, but it is not faith.
We nd in the word of God, that the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin-that by the blood of
the cross He has made peace-that our sins and iniquities
are remembered no more-and, if faith is in exercise, we are
happy, we get peace. Faith is the simple-hearted reception
of what God has said.
Unbelief is not a Christian state. It is, alas! that into
which the Christian may fall, but it is not a Christian state.
Uncertainty cannot be therefore recognized as a proper
position of the soul, admitting that it may pass through
it, and indeed, that it generally does. But then Christian
certainty is certainty in, and not out of, God’s presence.
Inasmuch as it is certainty founded on faith in what He
has said, it is always certainty in His presence. Faith is
at rest there. All else that comforts, strengthens, gives us
liberty in what we do in the world, is based on what we are
in the presence of God. e blood is placed there-on the
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mercy-seat-in God’s sight; and therefore, because we know
this, we can say that we are justied from all things, that it
is impossible God can impute sin to us. e blood is under
His eye, and not our sins.
But there is quite a dierent state of soul from this,
a condence out of God’s presence. e soul may think
and reason about the ground of Christian condence,
and Christian privilege, just as did these Israelites that
they were owned of God. eirs was a carnal condence.
It was just the taking up of general principles of truth as
to God’s dealings with His people, and then going on in
eshly assumption. is brought them to murmur and
rebel. ey came up with condence that the Lord was
with them; but the Lord gave directions respecting Korah,
Dathan, and Abiram, and interfered in judgment upon
their ungodliness. And then we read, “ But on the morrow
all the congregation of the children of
Israel murmured against Moses, and against Aaron,
saying, Ye have killed the people of the Lord,” (v. 41).
Now what is the remedy of the Lord for this? He sets
up priesthood, as the only ground on which He can go on
with them. He says, as it were, ‘ I must have clear and plain
evidence what My power is, in order to make cease from
Me the murmurings of the children of Israel; but then, if
I give this evidence of My power, it must be in grace; to
deal with them on any other ground than that of grace
would be for destruction.’ And such must always be the
case. If the Lord were simply to come by the power of His
actual presence, it would bring confusion into the soul.
Sometimes we see this on a death-bed for a little moment.
In what the Lord thus does in bringing the soul into His
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presence, He puts it under a shade of the power of that
which Christ went through-just a shade of it.
e truth is, that, in the way in which many believers
are occupied in daily life, they little realize the presence of
God. It is not that they have not peace, but that they never
fully estimate what the esh is before God. One learns
this from intercourse with Christians, and specially with
those who have been long Christians. ey know very little
what it is to nd themselves face to face with God. ey
may have been awakened under convictions of sin (perhaps
terrible convictions), and have got peace to their souls; but
since that there may have been the going on comfortably
with certain things, without a realizing of the presence of
God, so that if it were to come on them, they too would be
“ consumed “ with terror.
It is well for us to remember that certainty as to salvation
is the proper, the normal state of a Christian. I repeat this
here, just to show that what I am now saying is not meant
to deny it at all; but still I say that if God were to meet such
persons, real Christians though they were, in the present
power of what He is as God, it would produce trouble and
distress. is ought not so to be. It is quite clear that, if it
is the case, we are not really living in His presence, and
that is the place where we are privileged to be. ere is a
constant tendency in our hearts, when out of it, to be taken
up with certain things that are grounded upon what is
truly our relationship to God, and to carry on these things
without realizing His presence. Now, if condence goes
along with this, it is a most hardening thing. Condence,
I repeat, ought always to be the portion of the believer-the
condence of faith. God does not withdraw this, but we
may lose it. Whilst there is a going on with condence, and
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we are not walking in the presence of God, the conscience
not being sincere, there exists that which is mining the very
foundation. We may go on in joy, but if that joy is not joy in
the presence of God, there will be a breakdown some time.
Now that is what I mean by “ carnal condence “-not
the condence of an unconverted person: there is that,
but I do not mean it: I mean the condence of one whose
peace and hopes are rightly based, but maintained without
walking in the presence of God. It is a right peace, right
hopes, a thing rightly founded, that which is really his own
(the proper condition of a Christian is always to have it);
but still it assumes a carnal character in the heart when it
is carried on without God; that is, when it is not continued
in by walking in His presence. e consequence is, that the
moment the Lord appears, no matter in what way, let it
even be in grace, His presence comes to be terrible. ese
people had not realized the power of it in God’s presence,
and therefore they broke down in despair, and said, “
Behold, we die, we perish, we all perish.”
Now I do not say that it will come to this point in
our hearts, but (the same thing in principle) it will be for
discouragement, for loss of condence, and for distrust of
God. Suppose you, a real Christian, had been going on in
carelessness, and carrying this carnal condence along with
it; and one were to speak to you even of the intercession of
Jesus, if there was a sense of God’s presence through this
to your soul, it would not be a cheering and strengthening
but rather a discouraging thing, and the soul would break
down. Our place with the Lord is to walk with joy, but it
is joy in the Lord. Enoch “ walked with God.” Can you say
you are walking with God? I do not ask if you are doing
that which is openly wrong; but would the presence of God
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91
alarm and distress you? Our condence, if we have any, is a
eshly thing, when that is the case.
Do not rest in such a condition: it is not what God
has called us to. He is all grace, grace to us according to
our need; but it is with Him, and in His presence, that we
nd and enjoy His grace. Moses sang (Ex. 15:13), “ ou
in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast
redeemed. ou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy
holy habitation.”
And that is what He has done for us. He has brought us
home to Himself. And what then? He has put His Spirit
into our hearts, that it may be our home. You know what it
is to be at home: we act so dierently there-no other place
is like it. We are at home when the Spirit is working in our
hearts, giving the joy of our portion in the presence of God.
We may have to go forth into the world to labor, to exercise
ourselves, and to be engaged in a thousand dierent ways;
but when we get back again, how great the change! We
only go out to come back. ere we are at home. How
comforting, how establishing the thought! It is a terrible
thing to be saying, instead of this, “ Behold, we die, we
perish, we all perish; whosoever cometh anything near unto
the tabernacle of the Lord shall die “-when God’s presence,
in the place of being the home of our hearts, is terror and
distress. I have no doubt, that you will nd hundreds of
Christians, who, instead of feeling away from home when
they have got out of God’s presence, are at ease. But it is,
I repeat, a terrible thing, not merely because it is a wrong
thing, but because God is grace. We are called to be “ at
home “ with God. e Lord Jesus Christ, when about to
go back to heaven, said to Mary, “ Go to my brethren, and
say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father;
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and to my God and your God.” We ought to be as much
“ at home “ in spirit there as He. Was it not with joy, with
condence, that Jesus said He was going to the presence
of His Father? He came forth from God’s presence to act
in love in the midst of this ruined world, and He went
back when He had nished the work that had been given
Him to do. And was it not, in a certain sense, with the
feeling of going home? But He says, “ unto my Father and
your Father; to my God and your God.” What a blessed
thought! at is the church’s place; we are called to be “ at
home “ with our God and our Father-to the blessedness of
His house. No matter what the world may be, we should
be there at home-happy home!-as truly there in spirit, and
as happy there, as Christ.
If that is what is given us in Christ (and God gives
nothing less), do our souls realize it? We may be measuring
tness, but God cannot measure tness. If He receive at all,
it is for Christ’s sake; our title is based upon what Christ
has done. We may be going through many an experience;
but God does not rest on our experience. Nay, He has not
to do, in that sense, without experience at all. If He receive
us, it is for Christ’s sake, it is as Christ, it is all Christ. It can
be nothing less, and nothing short of that. Having adverted
to this, let us now turn to God’s answer.
After all the murmurings of the people, after the
rebellion and gainsaying of Korah, this is the manner in
which the Lord takes away the murmurings, by priesthood
in grace. ‘ I must conduct them ‘ (He says) by Aaron’s rod
(not by the rod of Moses) to Canaan. is people have not
only been found in bondage in Egypt, but in rebellion and
sin in the wilderness; and therefore the only way in which
I can deal with them is by priesthood.’ ere is no possible
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93
hope of leading us up into the heavenly Canaan except
we are put under the priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ;
and therefore it is said that Christ is a “ Son over his own
house.”
It is “ his house “; that is the rst thing. How does He
deal with it? Suppose we nd a house that is not ours to be
a bad, dirty house, we may bear with it-not so if it is our
own house. e way that Christ deals with that which is
His house (it is His interest, so to speak, to do so) is to have
it clean. We are put under the priesthood of Christ; this is
God’s arrangement for the purpose of dealing with sin in
the “ house.” “ If any man sin,” a Christian man: what then?
He is guilty and gets condemned? No such thing. at
would be the reasoning of the heart where there had been
“ carnal condence “; it would get alarmed and uneasy, and
say, “ We die, we perish,” but what is the truth? “We have
an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”
e sin sets Christ to work; that is the eect of it, not to
leave it there (of that we are quite sure), but on the same
principle that, if we nd uncleanness in our house, it would
not make us reject the house but get rid of the uncleanness,
so Christ is occupied in love in removing the sin. It is the
priesthood of Christ that leads us up into the heavenly city.
But the next thing to be noticed is, we are priests in
God’s house, and the thing therefore which we have to
bear is the iniquity of the house. “ And the Lord said unto
Aaron, ou, and thy sons, and thy father’s house with thee,
shall bear the iniquity of the sanctuary; and thou and thy
sons with thee shall bear the iniquity of your priesthood.”
is is true of all the church. We are God’s sanctuary-” the
house of God “ (1 Tim. 3:15). So of the individual saint, “
What?
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know ye not that your body is the temple of the
Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and
ye are not your own? “ (1 Cor. 6:19). It was not allowed
to have anything deled in the camp, much less in the “
sanctuary.” We are brought now to dwell in the sanctuary
of God-to minister in the priesthood of God. is involves
responsibility. us have we to judge about sin; and not as
though we were under law. is is where God has brought
us-the position in which we stand towards God, and
what we have to bear. It is no matter of attainment or of
maturity in Christ: you may have been converted yesterday,
or you may be a “ father “ in Christ, and therefore able to
understand it better; but that does not aect the question:
there might have been a young priest or an old priest in
the sanctuary, but the young priest would have to bear the
iniquity of the sanctuary and of the priesthood, as much as
the old one-as much as Aaron himself.
God, in the riches of His grace, has made us His “
sanctuary; “ our bodies are temples of the Holy Ghost; we
are priests in His house; and iniquity must therefore be
judged accordingly. If the sense of this does not produce
joy in our hearts, we cannot be on our right ground. If we
do not know what it is to be in the sanctuary of God, we
do not know what it is to be a Christian. I do not say we
are not Christians, but we do not know what it is to be a
Christian. If we do not know what it is to be priests unto
God, we have never yet got into our proper place before
God.
ere is another remark. Suppose we have, through
grace, the consciousness of being priests, I ask, Is there
not, as a necessary consequence of this (not the feeling, “
Behold, we die, we perish,” but that which takes the place
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95
of it), holy condence, condence before God? He says,
I will not deal with those who come into my house as a
judge, as though they were under law; it is “ you and your
sons,” etc. If God has people in His house, He will have
them there as priests. If we are saying, “ Behold, we die,
we perish, we all perish: whosoever cometh anything near
unto the tabernacle of the Lord shall die,” we have got
back under law. We are listening to the reasoning of our
own hearts, and that is not faith. e moment we begin
to reason thus, we are under law; faith is not in exercise,
and therefore we must be under law. is “ Behold, we die,
we perish, we all perish: whosoever cometh anything near
unto the tabernacle of the Lord shall die “-is all law. Now
what is the Lord’s word, or rather what is the silence of His
word about it? It does not know such a man as the one who
is saying this: his doing so is just a proof that he is not a “
priest “ at all. He does not know what righteousness is, in
coming into the presence of God; he does not know what
grace is; he will neither come into the house, nor perish-he
is not in a condition to do either.
If the Spirit of God is working in the heart, He produces
a sense of dread in bringing out of that condition: but if we
then distrust God, we shall never get into His presence on
that ground. ere is no answer to us, except that we are in
a wrong and untrue condition altogether. God may bring
us out of it, but He does not own us in it. Let us remember
that it was “ carnal condence “ that had produced, as we
have seen, the feeling here; and it may be that the same
thing is working in our hearts. Where there is “ carnal
condence,” it takes us from under the consciousness of
grace, and puts us for the time under the power of law.
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Nothing meets us there, nothing can meet the case, no, not
even the intercession of Christ.
To conclude: we are brought, through wondrous grace,
into the sanctuary of God, we are made priests unto God;
and that is the way in which we are to judge of good and
evil. We are always to judge of good or evil, according to
the condition in which a man is; we do not expect our
servants to be sons; neither our sons to be servants. And
if we are merely judging of good and of evil according to
natural conscience, we are not going on Christian ground
at all. is is the question we have to ask ourselves: What is
it that becomes a man who is God’s temple? what is it that
becomes a man who is God’s priest?
Do we shrink from being set in this responsibility? If
we cannot say that we like to be there, or that we have
such an interest in God’s glory that we desire it, if we are
speaking about our weakness, we have not the condence
of grace; we are saying in a little degree, “ Behold, we die,
we perish.” It is the same thing in principle: I speak not
of the extent of it. Why is it that we are thus afraid? Just
because our hearts are not strong in the full and simple
condence of grace-present grace: as it is said, “ Being
justied by faith, we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith
into this grace wherein we stand.” ough Christ has died
and put away our sin, yet we have not full condence in
God’s grace, we think He is not all grace; that is what is
meant by the “ present grace.” God loves us with the most
perfect love; He cannot deal with us on any other ground;
He loves us at this moment, just as much as when He gave
Christ to die for our sins. He is love, and nothing else, to
us. He is not double-hearted. What we are standing in is
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97
grace. When the soul is condent of that, ‘ 0 now’ (it says)
‘ let me have this holiness, let me enjoy this holiness of
the sanctuary.’ If it is all grace, it does not say “ we die, we
perish.” How can we die, where all is grace?
What we want is the full blessed, clear apprehension
that we stand in grace. Our hearts will then have joy and
courage. at which will enable us to act aright is, not
what we have called carnal condence, the going on in the
common-place joy of certain truths, but the certainty and
joy of God’s presence. Do we know God’s presence as the
practical home of our hearts? Oh what joy is there in this!
Of one thing be sure: coming to Him in the name of Jesus,
you will nd it to be the real, blessed, secure home of your
hearts.
Forever blessed be His name, He has said, “ Him that
cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out.”
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62520
Balaam, Hired of Balak, and
Used of God
Num. 22-24
IT is a wonderful thing to see the way in which, through
the overruling power of God, the eorts of Satan against
the people of God only bring them out the more distinctly
in their own place of blessing.
We nd in these chapters the connection of the name
of God with the power of Satan. Some of the instruments
which he uses may be, and some of them may not be,
conscious that it is Satan’s power which actuates them.
Nothing could be greater confusion than that which here
passes between Balaam and Balak.
Balaam, we know, was a thoroughly wicked man. (See
Rev. 2:14; 2 Peter 2:15, 16; Jude 11.) Nothing could exceed
the wickedness and perverseness of his ways. And yet he
is called a prophet; as it is said, “ Who loved the wages
of unrighteousness, but was rebuked for his iniquity: the
dumb ass speaking with man’s voice forbad the madness of
the prophet.” We know that he was acquainted with and
used enchantments (chap. 24: r); and yet, when he comes
to Balak, he says, “ Lo, I am come unto thee: have I now
any power at all to say anything? the word that God putteth
in my mouth, that shall I speak,” chap. 22: 38. Balak was
looking for the power of evil against the children of Israel,
God’s people; and yet looking for it from God; chap. 23: 27.
ere was a sort of looking to the power and intervention
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of God, although God was not known; and thus all was
confusion.
And so in the world; even where Satan is working, and
where in those who are intelligent in evil he is looked to
as working, there is often a certain vague looking to God.
us there is complete confusion-man’s will being Satan’s
will, and yet with a certain owning of God.
Chapter 22: 1-6. We see the enmity of the world against
the people of God brought out, and especially against the
power of the people of God. God’s power was with His
people, and this drew out the enmity of Satan. When
the Son of God came into the world, the whole energy
of Satan’s power and enmity was directed against Him; so
afterward against the apostles, those who had “ turned the
world upside down,”
Acts 17:6. But God’s power was with and for His people.
See the song of Moses; Ex. 15:14-16. God had redeemed
His people with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm
from the power and bondage of Satan, and had brought
them to Himself; Ex. 19:4. When this is the case, Satan
seeks to force others into an open opposition to the
people of God. eir presence becomes intolerable to their
enemies. But the eect of it all is, to bring out God’s people
as being under His eye and care. e very wish that God
should curse Israel only brought out the more His distinct
blessing upon them. “ And he [Balaam] took up his parable,
and said, Balak the king of Moab hath brought me from
Aram, out of the mountains of the east, saying, Come, curse
me Jacob, and come, defy Israel. How shall I curse, whom
God hath not cursed? or how shall I defy, whom Jehovah
hath not deed? For from the tops of the rocks I see him,
and from the hills I behold him: lo, the people shall dwell
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alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations,” chap.
23: 7-9: Here we nd the eect of Satan’s opposition was
to bring out into the clearest manifestation that they were
not of the world.
So long as Israel were living in Egypt, there was nothing
at all that drew out the thoughts and feelings of Balak and
Balaam against them, or that made them intolerable to the
world; but the chief point of the testimony to their blessing
is that they were a peculiar people, separated from all other
people unto God, according to that word, “ Jehovah hath
avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people,” Deut.
26:18.
Verse 11 and onward: Balaam, at the suggestion of
Balak, seeks to curse Israel from “ another place.” He tells
Balak, “ Stand here by thy burnt oering, while I go and
meet yonder.” He does not seem to know whom he was
going to meet. It is all the most thorough and perfect
confusion. He says, “ While I go and meet - yonder.” But
there Jehovah meets him, and puts a word in his mouth
proving the rmness of God’s purpose concerning His
people. “ God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the
son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall
he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make
it good? Behold, I have received commandment to bless.”
Balaam would gladly have altered this testimony of God;
but he says, “ He hath blessed, and I cannot reverse it.”
en comes the testimony to the completeness of God’s
justication of His people: “ He hath not beheld iniquity in
Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel.” is is
not a mere abstract statement of truth. Israel had acted so
failingly and unbelievingly during their wilderness journey,
as to bring out from Moses, the meekest man upon the
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101
face of the earth, the expression, “ Ye have been rebellious
against Jehovah from the day that I knew you,” Deut. 9:24.
e result of the judgment of the man of God about them
after forty years’ experience was, that they were a sti-
necked and rebellious people; but the judgment of God in
reference to their justication was altogether opposite to
his judgment of the moral condition of the people.
It is most important in applying this to ourselves to
draw the distinction clearly between these two things; the
judgment of the Spirit of God within me as to what we are
practically, as to the evil of the esh, etc., and the testimony
of the Spirit as to what God’s judgment is in reference
to us in Christ. We often nd the soul forming through
the Spirit of God a righteous judgment about itself, and
forgetting that the ground on which it stands before God,
the resting-place of faith, is what He has wrought for us
in the Lord Jesus. e Spirit of God judges sin in me by
virtue of its character as seen in the light of the holiness
of God, but it makes me know that I am not judged for
it, because Christ has borne the judgment for me. It is no
question of examining the details of either good or evil
that we nd in ourselves; it is altogether a question of the
ecacy and value of Christ’s work, and of His acceptance.
We either stand under the broad condemnation of God,
sinners dead in trespasses and sins, or are “ accepted in the
beloved.” Although it is most important that we should
judge ourselves, as it is said, “ If we would judge ourselves,
we should not be judged,” etc. (1 Cor. 11:31, 32); yet this
is quite a distinct thing from the judgment which God
forms about us through the work of Christ. At the end
of a long course of failure in the children of Israel, after
their perverseness has been fully proved, God “ hath not
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beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness
in Israel.” Where the soul of a believer confounds the
judgment of the Spirit within and about himself with the
judgment of God through the work of Christ for him,
there can be no peace.
“ Jehovah his God is with him, and the shout of a king
is among them.” e distinguishing mark of the people
of God is, that He is in them and among them. (See 1
Cor. 14:25.) e utter feebleness of the saints is shown
wherever this is not the case. It is a blessed truth, that God
has forever saved and justied His children; but this is in
order that He may “ dwell among them,” Ex. 29:45, 46.
“ God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were
the strength of an unicorn.” I dare not meddle with them,
Balaam says; I have too much understanding of what
they are, to do so; they are connected with God, with His
strength and power. “ Surely there is no enchantment
against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel:
according to this time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel,
What hath God wrought! “ According to what time? e
time when Israel was faint and weak, discouraged by reason
of the length of the way, and none of their enemies on the
other side of Jordan conquered. eir enemies were much
mightier than they (Deut. 7:1, etc.), and yet he says, “ What
hath God wrought! Behold, the people shall rise up as a
great lion, and lift up himself as a young lion: he shall not
lie down until he eat of the prey and drink the blood of the
slain.” e moment he sees them under the eye of God he
says that.
“ And Balak said unto Balaam, Neither curse them at all,
nor bless them at all. But Balaam answered and said unto
Balak, Told not I thee, saying, All that Jehovah speaketh,
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103
that I must do? And Balak said unto Balaam, Come, I pray
thee, I will bring thee unto another place; peradventure
it will please God that thou mayest curse me them from
thence. And Balak brought Balaam unto the top of Peor,
that looketh toward Jeshimon,” etc.
“ And when Balaam saw that it pleased Jehovah to
bless Israel, he went not, as at other times, to seek for
enchantments, but he set his face towards the wilderness.
And Balaam lifted up his eyes, and he saw Israel abiding
in his tents according to their tribes; and the Spirit of God
came upon him. And he took up his parable, and said,”
etc. (chap. 24:1-9). He now begins to look at the people
of God themselves, and sees Israel abiding in their tents
in their own proper loveliness. e sight of the fairness
of God’s people thus is the occasion of the Spirit of God
speaking as He does (v. 5 and onwards), “ How goodly are
thy tents, 0 Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel! As the
valleys are they spread forth,” etc. He looks at the people
of God themselves, and sees their beauty in the vision of
the Almighty. ere were Israel occupied with their own
foolish thoughts below; and this scene was going on above.
So it is with us, beloved friends: we are occupied with
our own (ofttimes) foolish thoughts; the accuser is speaking
against us; and yet nothing can prevail, because God works
for us. I am not now speaking of God justifying us, but of
much more; and that is, the beauty of the order, and the
never-failing source of refreshment of God’s people-” all
my springs are in thee.” God brings this out most fully
through the evil desire of Balak and Balaam.
We see in these chapters, man working according
to Satan’s will, and yet looking to the power and the
intervention of God. Hence all is confusion: and it will
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ever be so. But the moment the children of God get into
their right place before God, there is no confusion, no
perplexity: the path is as simple as possible.
May the Holy Spirit enable us to realize as our own
that peculiar feature of the church of God, and that which
is the power of their holiness, and of their comfort too: “
e Lord their God is with them, and the shout of a king
is among them.”
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62526
e Church in the Wilderness
in the Vision of God
Num. 24
ALL this statement of Balaam is of what God would
do with His people.
14
Behind Israel’s failure God takes up
His own thoughts, and acts in His own ways, about them.
Firstly they are a peculiar people, separate from all other
nations unto God; chap. 23: 9. “ e gifts and calling of
God are without repentance.”
Secondly, God will see no evil in them; chap. 23: 21.
In the end, Israel will be the testimony that “ His mercy
endureth forever.”
irdly, we have the way in which their beauty and
comeliness are seen, as looked at in “ the vision of the
Almighty,” chap. 24: 5-9. It is not man’s sight of them, but
God’s.
Fourthly, speaking of the glory of Israel in connection
with Christ in the latter days (chap. 24: 15-25), Balaam
says, “ I shall see him, but not now; I shall behold him,
but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a
Scepter shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners
of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth. And Edom
shall be a possession: Seir also shall be a possession for his
enemies; and Israel shall do valiantly. Out of Jacob shall
come he that shall have dominion, and shall destroy him
that remaineth of the city.” en he looks at the nations
and says, “ Amalek was the rst of the nations, but his
latter end shall be that he perish forever.” Of the Kenites, “
14 e sovereignty and ecacy of the calling of God.
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Strong is thy dwellingplace, and thou puttest thy nest in a
rock; nevertheless, the Kenite shall be wasted until Asshur
shall carry thee away captive … Alas! who shall live when
God doeth this? “ e whole power, pride, and energy of
the Gentiles is smitten. e “ Star,” the “ Scepter,” arises,
and delivers Israel. e pride of man is brought down,
and Christ is set up. And there is the world’s history. e
great truth of all history is in its connection with God. His
people being brought out before the Gentiles, He shows,
in the great result, that His gifts and callings are without
repentance; Rom. 11. ough He may not interfere for a
long time, yet in the end it will be seen that He has taken
notice of all that the nations have done; and Christ, in
whom His glory and purposes center, shall be set up King
upon His holy hill of Zion; Psa. 2
In chapter 24 we get out of the region of conict and
questioning into the place where God can look upon His
people in their loveliness and beauty: to us the beauty
of the church in all Christ’s perfectness. e preceding
chapter gives us their separation and justication. As
looked at by God (and therefore by faith), the church is
dead and risen with Christ. We are quickened together
with Him (He having borne all our sins), as out of the
grave, where our sins were left. But where the fullness
and nishedness of acceptance in Christ
15
is not known,
anxiety and despondency result in the heart of the saint,
on the discovery of sin within, and he questions whether
he is such. He does see iniquity-he is conscious from the
teaching of God that iniquity is in his heart. It is not
merely a natural consciousness of sins: the Spirit of God
gives him a divine understanding of sin, and of what it
15 “ As he is, so are we in this world,” 1 John 4:18.
e Church in the Wilderness in the Vision of God
107
is. e power of God’s holiness is set up as a throne in
the conscience, and he judges himself, as though he were
himself to be judged for it. We constantly nd souls in
this state, miserable, distressed, and anxious, questioning
whether they are saved; whether they are in the faith. Now
how is this to be disposed of? Clearly not by the taking
away of the Spirit, whose work has produced this discovery
of sin, but by the eye being directed elsewhere entirely; that
is, to the work of Christ for him. It is not by the pulling
down of the throne set up within that nearly drove him
to despair. By looking to the work of Christ the standard
of holiness is exalted, but he sees that he is made the
righteousness of God in Christ, and he gets rest. e nearer
he is to God, the less will he get rest otherwise, so long as
God is God. He is taught to look entirely out of himself,
and to understand that the righteousness of God is his by
faith in Jesus Christ. When man is manifested to himself,
he secs that he is wretched (Rom. 7:24), but man being
proved to be bad, this gives way to God’s righteousness,
etc. e last Adam takes the place of the rst in respect
of life and judgment. In everything this is true. It will be
fully realized in the glory by and by; but faith does not wait
for that. Faith does not take even conscience’s view of the
matter, but God’s view, and rests there. e church is seen
in God’s presence and in God’s sight; as here He “ has
not seen iniquity in Jacob, nor perverseness in Israel.” Paul,
looked at in himself, was “ chief “ of sinners; I Tim. 1: 15.
Israel had gone through the wilderness with constant
failure, but at the end of the forty years’ journey, when
Satan resists their entrance into Canaan, God does not see
iniquity in them. Moses had said of them in these very
plains of Moab, “ Ye have been rebellious against the Lord
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108
from the day that I knew you.” But God sees no iniquity;
He sees no perverseness.
Experience is not faith. You cannot know an object of
faith by experience, you may know yourself by experience.
But the experience of what passes in my soul is not
faith. I want faith for that which is revealed (that is, in
the revelation of God) and not a revelation. No doubt it
is felt experimentally, it is not merely a matter of theory.
Many a one who had by faith got peace, when he sees his
sins again, loses peace. He may have received the grace of
the gospel very sincerely; yet, in measure his knowledge
of it is supercial. He does not see it is applicable to his
state. Faith looks not at itself but at God’s righteousness
in Christ: His grace has judged the whole condition of the
sinner; and, resting in His revelation, the soul stands in the
consciousness of redemption.
Has God planted us in this condition merely to say, I
am safe? Is this the end of God? Surely not! But this peace
is the basis on which all happy intercourse with God goes
on. He cannot have such intercourse with me while He is
judging me. Take, by way of example, the parent dealing
with a naughty child-there is no intercourse in that; nor can
there be any until the child is restored. Correction is not
communion. e Holy Ghost’s thoughts and revelations
are founded on the righteousness God has set the church
in in Christ. God has redeemed her-” brought her out of
Egypt “
16
-charged Himself with the question of her sins.
It is not that we should work up to a certain righteousness:
there is not a question of righteousness to be allowed. God’s
side of the matter begins there. We may know terrors rst,
16 Num. 23:22; 24:8.
e Church in the Wilderness in the Vision of God
109
and it may be well that we should; but God begins with
having the church.
See Eph. 5:25-27: “ Husbands, love your wives, even
as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it,
that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of
water by the word, that he might present it to himself a
glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such
thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.” He
has loved it, and given Himself for it, that He might work
in and about it what He would like to have it. He presents
it to Himself, not merely as puried, but more, “ a glorious
church.” Well now, our souls ought to follow this; we should
start from the point whence God starts-His determination
to bless, as it is said, “ And when Balaam saw that it pleased
Jehovah to bless Israel.” is foils Satan.
To return. Balaam goes not now as at other times to
seek for enchantments. He nds himself in the presence of
God, and Satan and Balaam can do nothing. “ ere is no
enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination
against Israel.” So in our case; when it is manifest that God
has the church, Satan can do nothing. It is a settled thing.
e church is to be a blessed church, and the Holy Ghost
can take His stand there, and occupy Himself with her
portion, and set before the soul her beauty and glory which
are of God.
But Balaam set his face “ towards the wilderness “-why?
Because the children of Israel were yet in the wilderness.
e wilderness was not Canaan, but Israel was there. e
world is not heaven nor the glory, but the church is there
now; and while the church is in the wilderness, the Spirit
of God can take up the parable and show what the church
is in God’s eye. So here, Balaam is not walking through the
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tents of Israel, or he would have heard the murmurings and
discontent of Israel. He is not in the camp, he is gone up
to the top of the hill, and, looking at them with God’s eye,
what does he see? Israel abiding in their tents according
to their tribes. e Spirit of God comes upon him,
17
and
he takes up his parable and says, “Balaam, the son of Beor,
hath said, and the man whose eyes are open hath said: he
hath said, which heard the words of God, which saw the
vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having
his eyes open: How goodly are thy tents, 0 Jacob, and thy
tabernacles, 0 Israel,” etc.
We have to look at God’s thoughts about the church.
e Holy Ghost speaks of the church, as to what it is to
God; and God’s thoughts are not merely of the glory of
the church in the world to come, but of the beauty, in His
mind, of the people in the wilderness.
Would we have happy thoughts about the saints? we
must rise up to what the church of God really is to God.
We must get “ the vision of the Almighty “ (the knowledge
of the beauty and comeliness of the church in all Christ’s
perfectness), in order to have our souls soft and tender
and humble about what passes around. If we do not see
this, we shall not be able to maintain the sense of Christ’s
love. And, further, unless by the power of the Spirit we get
away from circumstances, so as to see the church, and the
saints individually, as Christ sees them, instead of seeking
to nourish and cherish them, as Christ does, we shall be
disappointed. is often makes us angry: it should not, but
it does. We shall either lower our standard and be content
17 Observe, the Spirit of God did not come upon him before;
God met him, and put a word in his mouth (chapter 23: 4-16),
but not the Spirit upon him.
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with conformity to the world in the saints, or become
discontented and judicial, angry and bitter against them,
the esh being disappointed and vexed. Faith assumes the
acceptance of the saints in Christ, while it seeks in the
exercise of godly and gracious discipline that they should
be maintained and bloom in the fragrance of Christ’s grace.
“ As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by
the river’s side, as the trees of lign aloes which Jehovah
hath planted, and as cedar trees beside the waters.” What
a most blessed picture! And could we be happy in seeing
them stunted, dishonoring the Lord? e glory of Christ
is concerned, for His character is to be seen in us. Paul says
to the saints at Corinth (not, Ye ought to be, but), “ Ye are
the epistle of Christ, written with the Spirit of the living
God.” No, I must grieve when I nd in them that which is
contrary to their beauty in Christ. ey are “ as trees of lign
aloes,” and as “ cedar trees.” It is not merely that God has
not seen iniquity in them-He has seen beauty.
Israel were in the wilderness, their enemies all around;
but for all that, the table is spread for them in the presence
of their enemies; and here are God’s thoughts about them,
thoughts of comeliness and goodliness; they were “ as
gardens by the river’s side, as the trees of lign aloes … as
cedar trees by the rivers of waters.” “ ou shalt make them
drink of the river of thy pleasures,” Psa. 36:8. What an
unlikely place, the wilderness, in which to look for rivers of
waters! ‘ He shall pour the water out of his buckets, and his
seed shall be in many waters, and his king shall be higher
than Agag, and his kingdom shall be exalted.”
Balaam was in the very presence of Balak, who would
have done anything to bring a curse on the people; and he
says, “ God brought him forth out of Egypt; he hath as it
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were the strength of an unicorn: he shall eat up the nations
his enemies, and shall break their bones, and pierce them
through with his arrows. He couched, he lay down as a
lion, and as a great lion: who shall stir him up? Blessed is
he that blesseth thee, and cursed is he that curseth thee.”
And this is what we have to see in the church, spite of
Satan. ough in the wilderness, and in the presence of its
enemies, a table is spread for it there. Spite of all the power
of Satan, the beauty of the church is this-not in the glory,
because there it is not in the presence of Satan; not in the
rest, but now-the display of the ecacy of the calling and
of the power of God in the presence of Satan, in the very
place where Satan rules. e church is set in the ecacy of
the fullness of Christ’s work. It has failed. But, unless the
soul has the consciousness of redemption-the fullness of
redemption in Christ, it cannot see this.
We should know that we are the Lord’s “ garden “; we
should have in the wilderness the consciousness of being
planted as God’s “ trees,” and not merely of being saved.
God has set rivers of water to ow there-not thence,
but there-that though in a dry place, the church should
bear testimony to the perfectness of Christ’s work, to
the inniteness of the ecacy of Christ’s death. What a
marvelous miracle of grace is the acceptance of the church!
Yes, such is its ecacy, that in this dry and barren land, this
land where no water is, the waters of God ow; and God’s
people have rivers of waters around them to refresh them
through it. at a poor wretched creature such as I am
should have the Holy Ghost dwelling in me, and be a tree
of the Lord’s planting, is as great a miracle as bringing me
to glory. “ Greater is he that is in us, than he that is in the
world.” God has put a wall, an unseen wall of grace, around
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us; and while Satan is deceiving and blinding the eyes of
the world, these waters of God supply the saints, watering
the plants of His planting inside the fence of God. What a
manifestation of divine power and grace.
0 beloved, our souls need to see the church, and the
saints individually, thus in God’s vision, with our eyes open,
in the Spirit: otherwise we shall not get into the power
of God’s thoughts. We do not want “ the vision of the
Almighty “ in order to see that a saint is a saint; neither
do we want “ open “ eyes to discover inconsistencies in the
walk of our brethren. We want to rise up and have our
eyes open to see, as God sees, this beauty and glory of the
church. God is in possession of us. And remember this was
said in the very presence of Balak. It is blessed we should
have the certainty of these things in the midst of Satan’s
power.
What does David say? (Psa. 33). “ ou preparest a table
before me in the presence of mine enemies.” e enemies
can only look on, and see how blessed I am whilst I feast
on what God has provided. “ ou anointest my head with
oil; my cup runneth over.” Not only have I got mercy and
peace, but I have understood its fullness-an overrunning
cup. He can both dwell upon the proved faithfulness of
God, and count upon it for the future also; as he goes on
to say, “ Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the
days of my life,” and nishes with “ I will dwell in the house
of the Lord forever.”
One thing more. Balaam sees the beauty of the people in
“ the vision of the Almighty “; but not only so, he sees their
hope in the One that is to be in the midst of them in the
latter days. ere is the actual beauty of God’s people; there
are the secret unfailing springs whereby they are refreshed;
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the power of God is for them against their enemies. But
we must see the future also: “ And now [he says to Balak],
behold, I go unto my people; come therefore, and I will
advertise thee what this people shall do to thy people in the
latter days … I shall see him, but not now; I shall behold
him, but not nigh; there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and
a Scepter shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners
of Moab,” etc.
So as to the church; it will be brought into glory and
blessing with Christ. We do not merely see the beauty of
the church, according to God’s mind, its present loveliness
and preciousness in His sight, but we see Him who is to be
in the midst of the church, the Bridegroom of the church,
whom we
are longing for. “ We shall see him as he is,” 1 John
3:2. By faith we see Him now-we see One our souls long
for- who has loved the church and given Himself for it:
18
and when He thus comes out in His glory and beauty, we
shall be with Him. e same Holy Ghost, who forms us
for His eyes, gives Him to our eyes to be the center of our
aections and joy.
ere is our hope: We shall see Him as He is. If we
have the Spirit showing us the beauty of Christ now, we
are looking for the fullness of glory and beauty in the day
of the glory. Let us see that our aections are going out
towards Himself.
“ How goodly are thy tents, 0 Jacob! and thy tabernacles,
O Israel! “ We have the strength of God’s love to think of
for present comfort, and where there is a right view of the
beauty and comeliness of the church, and yet of her failure,
18 We look out for Him not merely as the Star of Jacob. e Star
is known to us in a more blessed way.
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there will be great humbleness and tenderness of spirit
towards the Lord, and towards one another.
e Lord grant we may not sit down content in wretched
coldness of heart, with evil in ourselves, or in our brethren.
e waters of God are at the root of the plant, however
miserable the pruning. How precious this! May we rise
up, in the sense of the beauty we have in God’s mind, to
delight ourselves in Him, who is our comeliness, to glory
in Him who is God’s delight, and our joy and glory. Amen.
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62528
e Church - Her Power,
Hopes, Calling, Present
Position and Occupation
IT is a solemn thing when we come to think what the
church really is.
19
It is all blessed when we think of her
privileges; but looking at her as Christ’s representative on
earth is most solemn-an “ epistle of Christ.” As the tables
of stone represented what God demanded of man, so
should the church, and in an equal sense, be in the world
the revelation of what God is to man, an exhibition of
God’s grace and power to man and in man.
When I speak of the “ kingdom,” it is a dierent thing.
20
We there get the display of power and government, not
union and fellowship. Even the testimony of the kingdom
comes necessarily to be quite a distinct thing. I should
distinguish altogether “ the gospel of the kingdom “ and
“ the kingdom,” from what we are accustomed to call, “
19 Not, ought to be, but, is; she ought to be a faithful
representative; but we cannot take the church of God out of
this place, let her have got into what condition she may.
20 It is of great importance to distinguish between the kingdom
and the church.
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the gospel “
21
and “ the church.” Paul taught the kingdom,
and he taught the gospel, and he taught the church; but he
never taught them as the same thing.
22
ere is one revelation: God is going to take to Himself
His great power, and to reign. ere is another truth: there
is to be a bride, and body; of the King. Again, certain things
setting out the grace of God are necessary for the soul to
be saved. ese three things
23
are very plainly quite distinct.
From the moment Israel was called as a people, God
had evidently the thought of having a king.
24
Man’s
way of setting about it was quite wrong. Up to the time
of Samuel priesthood was morally the regular point of
association between the people and God. But the priests
21 We employ the term “ gospel “ in a very limited sense, but
in the scriptures it is used in a much more general way. For
example, the apostle could say that when Timothy came back
from them, he brought good tidings (preached the gospel) of
the brethren’s faith and charity. Again, we read “ For unto us
was the gospel preached, as well as unto them,” Heb. 4:3. To
them it was the promise of the land. e word is not restricted
to the grace now preached, it is simply “ good news,” and there
may be the good news of the kingdom, or the good news of
Canaan.
22 He preached the kingdom of God; but it is a very distinct
thing that God should set up a reign of power on the earth
(take the word “ reign “ instead of “ kingdom,” and you will see
at once that this is quite distinct from the idea of the “ church
“); that would not necessarily touch the question that Christ
was going to have a bride united to Him in glory. And when he
speaks of his ministry, he distinguishes his own ministry into a
ministry of the gospel, and a ministry of the church.
23 e kingdom, the church, and the salvation of the soul.
24 is thought was not fully brought out until David; but in
the days of Moses it was brought out that He would not only
have a kingdom, but a king. Moses is called “ king in Jeshurun
“ (Deut. 33:5), but he was not their king.
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were unfaithful, and then the Lord wrote Ichabod upon all
that had been Israel’s glory. e link between God and the
people was broken. e ark was taken by the Philistines.
e priests were slain. He delivered His strength into
captivity, and the Philistines were in the mount of God.
is was the sign given to Saul Sam;
25
to. He found
people going up to Bethel (v. 3). ere were people that had
faith in the God of Bethel
26
(that is, that God would never
leave His unchangeable promise to Jacob). Everything else
might be gone; but God’s connection with Israel could
not be broken up. is became the resting-place of faith.
God could not fail. Secondly, he was to go to the mount
of God (v. 5); and there was the garrison of the Philistines;
the power of the enemies of the Lord in the place where
God’s altar ought to have been, and thus power against
those who were acting in faith. Still Bethel could be visited
with a tabret and pipe; faith could take up the joy that
was proper for the people who had Jehovah for their God.
ere was also the spirit of prophecy given to him (v. 6).
But neither of the signs did Saul understand, though clear
and instructive to the eye of faith. David was the opposite
of this, and was the type of Christ, as King.
After the king is brought in, there is a change in the
position of the priesthood; it ceases to be the habitual link
of connection between the people and God. When Eli is
set aside (1 Sam. 2:35) God says, “ I will raise me up a
faithful priest … and he shall walk,” not before me, but “
before mine anointed forever.” ere I get a royal person,
another link between God and the people, set up above
25 He ought to have understood it, but he did not.
26 Bethel was the place where Jacob had seen that God was the
unchangeable God of Israel (Gen. 28).
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priesthood.
27
So that Solomon was quite right in thrusting
out Abiathar; 1 Kings 2:27. When Solomon dedicated the
temple, and the priests could not stand to minister because
the glory of the Lord had lled the house of God, the king
praised God and blessed the people.
28
At length the King was presented in humiliation in the
Person of Christ. John Baptist comes (Matt. 3) and says,
“ Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand … he
that cometh after me is mightier than I … whose fan is in
his hand … he will burn up the cha with unquenchable
re.”
29
John is rejected; and then, after he is cast into prison,
Christ takes up the same testimony (Matt. 4). “ From that
time Jesus began to preach and to say, Repent: for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand.” “ And Jesus went about all
Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the
gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness,”
etc. e power of God was with Him in testimony, and was
seen. e disciples, the King having been rejected, are given
to know “ the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven,” which
to the multitude are parables; chap. 13. And they have God
with them. e apostles were to go on (and they went on)
preaching the kingdom.
e kingdom is still to be set up, that is, the power of
heaven, in the Person of Jesus Christ. He shall take to Him
His great power and reign. It will be set up in heaven, for
He must go to a far country to receive a kingdom and to
return; Luke 19:11, 12. He has gone up on high; but He
has not yet been sent back in the power of the kingdom. It
will be a “ world to come,” not merely a state of Judaism,
27 From this time the people’s fortunes followed the king.
28 As Melchisedek.
29 at is, the King is coming in judgment.
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the kingdom of the “ Son of man “-not merely the Jews
and their Messiah; Dan. 2; 7 Heaven will be in the highest
sense the seat of the kingdom. But it is still the kingdom.
ere is another revelation. We are to reign in the
kingdom. ere are “ joint-heirs “; those who are to “ reign
with him “; and those who are to “ sit on thrones.” Yet it is
still the kingdom, largely extended, a wider sphere; but I
am still traveling in the circuit of the kingdom.
e destruction of Jerusalem was the setting aside of
Jerusalem in judicial power; but still we can preach the
kingdom of God. ere will be the eect of the actual
employment of power in setting things to right. At present
it is rather in testimony than in power. e eect of the
power of Christ in “ the world to come “ will be to set aside
the power of Satan.
30
In all this we have only the kingdom.
Again, there will be a special testimony to the coming of
the kingdom before the close.
ere is another ministry that goes out altogether on
another principle. In Paul’s ministry I get that which is
beyond the reach of dispensations; I have here what man
is (not merely “ sinners of the Gentiles,” or Jews). He may
prove it as regards the Gentiles in one way, and demonstrate
it as regards the Jews in another; but what he proves and
demonstrates is this, that man as man is at enmity with
God. If we begin at Jerusalem, we begin with a testimony to
Jerusalem.
31
In Paul’s ministry Jews and Gentiles alike are
known only as “ children of wrath.” We get him preaching
30 Miracles were “ miracles of the world to come” (Heb. 2:5;
6:5.)
31 e testimony in Matt. 28:19 goes out without a word about
the Jews; Christ had been with the Jews, but the testimony is
to go out unto the Gentiles. In Luke 24:47 the “ beginning at
Jerusalem “ marks the greatest possible grace.
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the gospel
32
to “ every creature under heaven.”
33
But Paul
was not simply a minister of the gospel; he was a minister
also of the church “ to fulll [complete]
34
the word of God.”
We read in Col. 1:12, “ Giving thanks unto the Father,
which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints in light: who hath delivered us from the power
of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom
35
of
his dear Son; in whom we have redemption through his
blood, even the forgiveness of sins; who is the image of
the invisible God, the rstborn of every creature
36
for by
him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that
are in earth, visible d invisible, whether they be thrones
or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were
created by him, and for him: and he is before all things, and
by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body,
the church: who is the beginning, the rst-born from the
dead:
37
that in all things he might have the pre-eminence.
For it pleased [the Father] that in him should all fullness
dwell; and, having made peace through the blood of his
32 In the common sense of the word.
33 It was not a dierent gospel, as to the salvation of the soul
from that of Peter; but the testimony was more indiscriminate.
I may distinguish in speaking to a man, but I must come to the
same point- You are a lost sinner, and God is a holy God, and
(Jew or Gentile), if not washed in the blood of Jesus, you must
perish.
34 In order to the completion of the word of God, the doctrine
of the church (as taught by him) must be preached, as well as
the kingdom.
35 ere I get the kingdom.
36 Besides being the image of God, He is Head over creation;
and the reason of that is, that He has created it all.
37 It is now “ Head of the body, the church,” as “ rst-born from
the dead.”
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cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him,
I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven.
And you,
38
that were sometimes alienated and enemies in
your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled, in
the body of his esh through death, to present you holy, and
unblameable, and unreproveable in his sight.” And now as
to the ministry: “ if ye continue in the faith grounded and
settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel,
which ye have heard, and which was preached to every
creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made
a minister; who now rejoice in my suerings for you, and
ll up that which is behind of the aictions of Christ in
my esh for his body’s sake, which is the church; whereof I
am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God
which is given to me for you, to fulll the word of God,”
etc.
In the testimony about the church, I nd (not the
kingdom, nor the salvation of individuals, merely; but) that
there is a body for Him who is the Head, associated and
connected with Him in His headship over all things. ere
is a certain special thing which the Lord has reconciled.
Paul deduces everything, as to the church, from Christ’s
headship of the body, and the owing down from Him of
all he has to minister. How is the accomplishment of this?
“ By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body,” 1 Cor.
12:13.
Turn to Eph. 1:19: “ And what is the exceeding greatness
of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the
working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ,
38 e church. Here (as there was the headship over all things,
and the headship of the church, so) we get the reconciliation
of all things in purpose, and the present reconciliation through
faith, which is the church.
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when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own
right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality,
and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that
is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is
to come; and hath put all things under his feet, and gave
him to be the head over all things to the church, which is
his body, the fullness of him that lleth all in all.” In this
passage, there is the headship of the body, and He is “ Head
over all things to the church.”
As to the way and power of the unity of the body of
saints formed on earth with Christ, the Head, in heaven, it
is by the Holy Ghost “ sent down from heaven “
39
making
them one body.
As a consequence, when Paul speaks of apostles and
prophets, he looks at them exclusively in this light,
40
and
never as appointed by Christ on earth. He says, “ If ye have
heard of the dispensation of the grace of God, which is
given me to you-ward: how that by revelation he made
known unto me the mystery (as I wrote afore in few words,
whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge
in the mystery of Christ), which in other ages was not
made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed
unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit,” etc.
41
(Eph. 3:2-5). As to the very existence of these holy apostles
and prophets: “ Wherefore, he said, When he ascended
up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto
39 Come down after Christ’s ascension, and consequent upon
His glorication at the right hand of God, the work of
redemption being accomplished.
40 As owing from Christ, the exalted Head in heaven.
41 Here I get “ holy apostles and prophets,” and a thing known
nothing of until revealed to these apostles and prophets, to
whom it was revealed by the Spirit.
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men. (Now that hp ascended, what is it but that he also
descended rst into the lower parts of the earth? He that
descended is the same also that ascended up far above all
heavens, that he might ll all things.) And he gave
42
some
apostles; and some prophets; and some evangelists; and
some pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints,
for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body
of Christ,” etc. (chap. 4). His thought about apostles is of
something that ows from the exalted Head. He knows no
man after the esh.
By one Spirit baptized into one body, we have the Head
and the body united together-the Head at the right hand
of God in heaven, united to the members, formed into a
body down here on earth by the power of the Holy Ghost.
Scripture calls that “the church.”
43
ere is a word in Matt. 16 that is sometimes overlooked.
e Lord says there to Peter, “ Upon this rock will I build
my church.” ere had been the revelation by the Father
to Peter of the Person of Christ as “ the Son of the living
God.” And Jesus answered him (on the confession of this),
“ Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for esh and blood hath
not revealed it unto thee … And I also
44
say unto thee, at
42 From this height.
43 One greatly respects the jealousy of souls having the
consciousness of the electing love of God, and His saving every
one whom He has called from Adam downward, in being
alarmed lest this distinction should aect the foundation of
God’s electing love, through the blood; but still it is my duty, as
well as my privilege, to understand the position in which God
has set me, and to call by the right name what God has called
by that name in scripture.
44 In eect, “ I am going to give thee an ocial place; I am going
to say something: My Father has revealed my name to thee,
and I am going to give thee an ocial name! “
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thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church,
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will
give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven,” etc.
Christ is going to build His church; and besides this He
gives the keys to Peter, the keys of the kingdom-a distinct
thing from Christ’s building His church. e church is that
body which the Holy Ghost forms into unity, as connected
with, and united to, the Lord Jesus Christ, its Head, sitting
at the right hand of the Father in heaven; and that which
the Holy Ghost so unites to Him is the only thing
45
in
Scripture, called “ the church “ -that is specically such.
It may be added that this is a question which at the
present moment is running through almost every country
in Europe.
46
ere are endless theories about it; but this
is the question, “ What is the church? “ Some say it is “
visible,” others “ invisible “; some, that there will be a
church by-and-by, but there is none now; that there is no
church on earth (there may be churches), but (when all are
assembled in heaven) there will be a church. Now whilst
it is perfectly clear that, when Christ leaves the Father’s
throne to take the church unto Himself, it will form a
glorious body in heaven; yet, plainly, whilst sitting at the
right hand of God, the only thing He owns as the church
is the body down here. Until He rises up from His seat on
high, He is working and ordering and acting always (while
hid in God) by the Holy Ghost; and the Holy Ghost is
down here. at which He owns as the church is where the
Holy Ghost is, until it is united to Himself in glory.
45 Local “ churches “ are not in question here.
46 e thing people are seeking to settle is, What is the church
of God? It may be said to be the question of the day with
the saints; and most surely it connects itself with every part of
practice.
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ere is no diculty if we turn to Scripture. Where did
Paul look at the church? “By one Spirit are we all baptized
into one body,” where? On earth, not in heaven. Certainly,
gifts of healing, etc., were not in heaven. Nor are the “
joints and bands “ in heaven. None of its ministries are in
heaven. It will be in heaven eventually no doubt, but it is
now on earth. is is a great point to get our souls simple
and clear upon.
As to her “ power.” In Scripture it is not the power of
the church, but the power that works in us-the power of
God working in the church: “ Now unto him that is able
to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think,
according to the power that worketh in us,
47
unto him be
glory in the church,” etc. e operation of the power of
the Lord is necessarily limited by the moral condition of
the church (He may bear with it, have patience towards it,
but); God will never publicly act so as to sanction what He
disapproves.
48
And with regard to power in public testimony; whilst
the church was no doubt the vessel of it (there was a certain
measure of power in the testimony of the kingdom
49
then,
for which you would look in vain now), still it was the
power of the Son of man. Where it is merely the saving
of a soul, or the ministry of the church, one does not look
for the same sort of power. God is sovereign and works as
He pleases. e church was a vessel of power, and miracles
were a testimony to the power of Christ as the risen Son
of man. But when I think of the saving of souls, I look
rather for that operation of the Spirit of God through
47 “ In us,” it is true, but still it is His power.
48 He sanctions the gospel preached, and there will be a certain
measure of power go with the gospel.
49 e kingdom was there to a certain extent.
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the gospel. And when I look at the church, I look to the
Head to supply what its need demands. While the church
carried externally the character of Christ before the world,
she was chartered with power-the power of Christ. at
which Christ is to supply can never fail. Christ, and His
power, and His acting in power, can never fail. He must
nourish the church withal according to its need. But if God
is acting in, and towards, persons, there must be truth in
His actings; He cannot act in the power of grace contrary
to the moral condition of the church, any more than He
can act towards an individual contrary to his state before
Himself.
We must get our souls down into the consciousness
of where we are, before we get the blessing suited to our
condition. Where are we? is the question. He never alters
His mind. But the church’s responsibility never alters His
grace. Christ is exactly what it wants now-otherwise my
faith cannot get on-as exactly what we want for the church
now, as when in the days of the apostles it was adorned with
every kind of miracle. But He will not act in the same way.
Christ will never give up His thoughts about the church;
and if we are acting on our thoughts, and He acts on His,
He will make sad work with what we have set up. “ He that
gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.” If Christ begins
to gather, He will scatter that which is not gathered in the
power of unity with Himself. As with a card-house, the rst
wind of God’s Spirit blows it all about. is may be very
astonishing, very humbling, still it does not discourage (far
from it!) those that look for God’s actings. You are sure to
get bad roads, when the spring comes, and the frost breaks
up. Let the church be what it may, that is, the members of
it; Christ is not altered. Her power is her weakness, her
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spirit of dependence, in never getting out of the place of
constant, simple, unmingled dependence.
e “ hope “ of the church, as such, is identied with,
and founded on, the relationship in which it is placed as
united to the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven. It is true she
is here as a pilgrim on earth, but, at the same time, she is
the bride on earth. United to her Head in heaven, seated
in heaven in Him, she waits to be there. e one proper
hope of the church has no more to do with the world than
Christ has, who is in heaven. She will see things set right
in the kingdom, but this is not her hope: her hope, as her
actual association, is with the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven,
where she knows Him. Where did Paul know Christ? In
the heavenly glory. And Paul knew the church to be one
with Christ there.
ere may be the change of the body in order to the
accomplishment of the glory, but there is nothing as to its
own position but sitting in heavenly places with Christ,
because it is now sitting in heavenly places in Christ. To be
along with Christ is our one hope” at where I am, there
ye may be also.” In the rst epistle to the essalonians,
the apostle says, “ en shall we ever be with the Lord “;
and what follows? Nothing! A great many things may be
happening: but the church’s hope is to be with Him where
He is, and like Him, when she sees Him as He is.
As to the “ calling.” e heavenly calling, though
embraced, does not at all ll up the thought. It does not
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in itself convey the thought of the church.
50
We might, as
a set of individuals, be called up, and look to be caught up
into heaven, and have a heavenly portion as the brethren of
Christ, without knowing that we were the body and bride
of Christ. e “ hope “ of the church is its marriage with
the Bridegroom, and that is in heaven; we may come forth
from heaven, for the kingdom and the glory, but our place
is in heaven, in the unity with Christ as one with Him. We
are builded together for the habitation of God through the
Spirit; that is the calling of the church down here.
51
As to “ present position and occupation,” there is one
thing makes a great dierence. When the Spirit of God
was working in the beginning of the gospel, the testimony
had the aspect of power, and produced a sensible and
50 We are constantly confounding in our minds the members of
the church and the church itself. A great many things are true
of the members that do not involve the church distinctively
(that is, as gathered into unity by one Spirit, baptized into one
body). I may speak about the various members of a corporation
without speaking of the corporation, its rights, etc., as such.
51 In Eph. 4 Paul beseeches “ that ye walk worthy of the vocation
wherewith ye are called... endeavoring to keep the unity of the
Spirit in the bond of peace. ere is one body, and one Spirit,
even as ye are called in one hope of your calling,” etc. With
regard to the distinction between Peter, Paul, and John, as to
the subject of ministry committed to them, Paul develops the
dispensation of God; Peter was a witness of the resurrection
of Christ. In Paul, it is not simply resurrection, but union with
Christ at the right hand of God; he was converted by hearing
Christ (whom he had never seen on earth) telling him that
(in persecuting the church) he was persecuting Himself. (Acts
4:4, 5.) at was the converting word. In John we get another
thing, an abstract statement of what the nature of God is, and
consequently what the nature of the children of God-love and
righteousness. God is light, and God is love; and the nature of
the children is deduced from the nature of God Himself.
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visible result; there was an ostensible gathering. e central
energy had the fullness of the truth, though there might
be feebleness at the extremity of the rays. But there is
nothing of this sort now. e sheep of God are scattered.
e camp has got wrong. e consequence of this is all
manner of degrees of knowledge. e very principle of
unity has a separative tendency. A man must now settle
himself upon the center of truth. If my soul is not prepared
to look to Christ, and to gather with Christ, and to take
His judgment, I shall be cast into the uncertain condition
of the diering judgment of every saint I meet with in the
day’s walk. Where Christ is the common object, there will
be a coalescing power. I nd the church of God in a unity
which attaches itself to Christ alone, as the one sole center.
e “ occupation “ of the church ought to be constant,
incessant reference to its Head. If its Head is not its rst
thought (and that is shown in thinking of its Head, and
lling itself into all the thoughts and mind and aections
of its Head), it cannot act for Him. is is its grand
occupation. “ We will give ourselves continually to prayer,
and to the ministry of the word.” I must get through the
crowd of Satan’s power, and I must get beyond the crowd to
my Head, who is the only source of power. We should seek
that kind of communion with the saints which living in
spirit with the Head gives. We should get all who hear to
join in the cry; Rev. 22. So should the church have its own
light, that all that is outside would be shut out. e apostle
was living in a world of his own-he was lled with ideas
of his own; but they were God’s ideas, and he had power.
It is not knowing the scene I have to act in that gives me
power (we get no strength from the contemplation of that),
but intercourse and living communion with the Head. We
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should get near enough to Christ to enjoy Him, and to
know Him truly, and to gather up all that is like Him.
If not separated by aection from the world, we shall
be separated by discipline in the world. He will vex our
souls to get us separate, if in spirit and in heart we are
not separate. “ Because thou servedst not Jehovah thy God
with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart … therefore
thou shalt serve thine enemies which Jehovah thy God
shall send against thee.”
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62512
e Counsel of Peace
Zech. 6:13
THIS chapter, written after the return of the Jews
from Babylon, and when they were seeking to rebuild the
temple, was intended to encourage them in that work.
It speaks therefore of Joshua, Heldai, Tobijah, Jedaiah
(those who had come from Babylon), by name. But “no
prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation
“; and although some event previously to take place may
occupy the chief part of it, the glory of the Lord Jesus
Christ is looked forward to as the ultimate point, the true
consummation. So here, after an allusion to the history of
God’s providence in the four great monarchies, and to the
judgment of Babylon, the prophet comforts the hearts of
those who were returned thence with a direct prophecy of
Christ.
Christ is the great object of the love of God, and the
Spirit of God in Scripture always looks on to Him. No
matter what the substance of the prophecy, no matter what
the circumstances of those addressed, He looks forward,
seeing all things as they concern Christ, and His future
glory. e Jews, for instance, had many deliverers raised up
for them of God in times of need (Neh. 9:27)-” saviors
who saved them out of the hand of their enemies “; but the
moment the Holy Ghost begins to speak of these many “
saviors,” He ever looks out further: they were all but types
of THE “ Savior.” When Adam fell, and judgment came
in, Christ is promised, the woman’s Seed, as the bruiser of
the head of the serpent. After the trial of Abraham’s faith
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133
in Isaac, the promise is made unto his Seed, “which seed
is Christ.” Again, “out of Egypt have I called my son,” we
are taught, referred to Christ. And so here: “He shall build
the temple of the Lord; even he shall build the temple
of the Lord; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and
rule upon his throne.” It is “the man whose name is e
BRANCH” who shall do all this. Zerubbabel is merely a
type. Nothing is spoken casually, but all with a view to the
ultimate purpose of the glory of God in Christ. Whether
it aect the destinies of man, of Israel, or of the church, all
center in Jesus; God’s thoughts about Jesus are marked on
all.
It must have been a great comfort to the saints of old to
have future glories thus opened to them, for whenever the
Holy Ghost had awakened spiritual desires in any heart,
those desires could not be satised with anything then
seen of temporal deliverance or blessing. Much had they
to thank the Lord for-to sing His praise for what He had
done; but there was always either the actual presence of
evil, or the fear of danger and evil still. In the days of Josiah,
when there was so great a returning to the ways of the
Lord, and such a passover kept that the like of it had not
been since the days of Samuel the prophet, yet even then
was Jeremiah uttering denunciations against the evil of the
people, and the Spirit of God, in denouncing their sin, ever
referred to the new covenant, holding out the Lord Jesus
as the One in whom alone the fullness of blessing was to
center.
And so with the church now. We have indeed greater
blessings and clearer revelations, but still there is evil, for
we are yet in the body. In times of the greatest revivals, there
has ever been that mixed with them which tended to evil.
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We have surely much cause to thank God and rejoice, but
nothing really to satisfy. We must still be looking onward
to the future blessings in Christ. Never, till He appears,
will the full desires of our hearts be given us; never, until
we “awake in his likeness,” shall we really be “satised.”
Nothing less will suce, because the Spirit of Christ is
in us. Constant dissatisfaction and constant thanksgiving
meanwhile; for, if we know Jesus risen, nothing short of the
full power of His resurrection can content. Our hopes run
on to God’s ultimate purpose of complete blessing.
And here we have unity of hope with the Jews. ey,
indeed, are looking for earthly glory-their city and temple
being rebuilt, etc.-that part of the future blessing in Christ
of which Psa. 72 speaks; and we also look forward to see the
earth “ lled with the knowledge of the glory of Jehovah,”
whilst Christ’s own proper portion in the heavenly glory is
our peculiar hope. Both earthly and heavenly glories meet
in Jesus, and will be manifested when He comes. He is the
Head of both. “e counsel of peace” is between Jehovah
and the Messiah.
But where is Jesus now? As “the man whose name is
e BRANCH,” the “priest upon his throne “-an earthly
throne-He does not yet rule; peace is not yet established
upon the earth, for Satan is yet exercising his power. But
there is a throne upon which He does sit. He has sat down
upon the “Father’s throne “-” at the right hand of the
Majesty on high,” and this “when he had by himself purged
our sins.” ere He is as the High Priest of His people:
And thus is given to us a plain revelation of “the counsel
of peace.” Peace is our portion even now. We are set in the
exercise of faith, by which we know and have this peace in
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135
our souls, whilst waiting for its establishment on the earth,
and the time of the manifested glory.
ere is a “counsel of peace” which belongs to us, an
assured peace, peace indeed in the midst of present trouble,
but still God’s peace. If it were not God’s peace, it would
be good for nothing. I may, it is true, have my spirit much
disturbed, and know trial of heart; but still I have a title to
perfect peace amidst it all-not only peace with God, but
peace concerning every circumstance, because God is “ for
us “ in it all.
Had not man been in rebellion against God, there would
have been no need for “the counsel of peace.” Adam in
paradise needed it not. But man has rebelled, and, though
its modications may be various, rebellion against God is
still the characteristic of the unconverted heart. Such was
his rebellion, that peace between man and God seemed
impossible. But now, wondrous grace! we see that there is
not only peace, but a “counsel of peace “-thoughts of God
concerning peace, thoughts which Jesus alone could meet.”
Lo, I come to do thy will, 0 God! “
Supposing God had made peace with Adam, the peace
could not have lasted: the enmity in the heart of man, or
that produced by the power of circumstances thwarting his
will, would very soon have broken it again. Look at Israel.
ey were placed in outward peace with God, owned as His
people, favored in every way; and yet what was the result?
Continual murmuring on their part, constant rebellion. As
to moral peace with God, they had scarcely undertaken to
keep His law when they set up a golden calf to worship,
and thus failed directly. And it would always be the same;
it must be so, for the very will of man is altogether wrong;
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136
“the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject
to the law of God, neither indeed can be.”
But now “the counsel of peace” is between God and
Jesus, instead of man, and hence security. It is not merely
peace, but “ the counsel of peace.” e word “ counsel “
implies deliberate purpose. What solidity must there be
in that peace which God had a “ counsel “ about, and all
the engagements of which the mind of Jesus fully entered
into and accomplished! I have said that peace is our proper
portion as the children of God-peace both as to sin and
as to circumstances. Now it is true that the latter we have
not outwardly yet, but God is taking up all that concerns
us, and has taken upon Himself to make “ all things work
together “ for our good; and the knowledge of this gives
peace (if we will use our privilege) in all circumstances,
be they even those of trial, perplexity, and sorrow. Was it
not so with Jesus? who can be so tried as He? “ Consider
him that endured such contradictions of sinners against
himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds “; yet He
had always peace. And so might we: “ ou wilt keep him
in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee, because he
trusteth in thee.”
But then it is most important to see that “ the counsel
of peace “ is entirely between God and Jesus. e moment
we begin to rest our peace on anything in ourselves, we
lose it. And this is why so many saints have not settled
peace. Nothing can be lasting that is not built on God
alone. How can you have settled peace? Only by having
it in God’s own way. By not resting it on anything, even
the Spirit’s work, within yourselves, but on what Christ
has done entirely without you. en you will know peace;
conscious unworthiness, but yet peace. In Christ alone
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137
God nds that in which He can rest, and so it is with His
saints. e more you see the extent and nature of the evil
that is within, as well as that without and around, the more
you will nd that what Jesus is, and what Jesus did, is the
only ground at all on which you can rest.
God could no more rest in anything here, than Noah’s
dove could nd a rest for her feet amidst the wrath and
destruction that deluged the world. But Jesus comes in,
and here-on this earth, where honor to God was wanting-
here He gloried God. When God’s eye rested upon Jesus,
He was perfectly satised. Till that moment God had not
seen anything in this earth of which He could say, as of
itself, in this “ I am well pleased.” He had gone on, it is
true, dealing with man in love and grace, but He could
nd nothing wherein to rest. “ ey are all gone out of the
way, they are together become unprotable: there is none
that doeth good, no, not one,” etc., was what God saw
when he “ looked down from heaven.” But when Jesus was
searched throughout, nothing was found but perfect love
and perfect devotedness to God; even when forsaken of
God, He still justies Him-” thou art holy.” Had it ended
there, had it been only Christ’s own perfectness, all the
result would have been to show out the more clearly our
sinfulness and ruin by the contrast. But according to “ the
counsel of peace,” He gave Himself. Peace was ever His; it
was for us that He “ made peace by the blood of the cross
“; and thus is He, unto God, a “ sweet savor of rest “ for us.
Our peace is established in what He did, and “ the counsel
of peace “ is “ between them both.” Jesus has accomplished
that which God purposed towards us. In order to this, it
was needful that He should “ bear our sins,” and this He
did as the “ sin-oering.” He was made “ sin for us, who
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138
knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him.” In the sacrices, when the oerer laid his
hand upon the head of the victim, there was in that act the
complete identication of himself with the victim. Now
there are two great characters in the sacrice of Christ:
the one, that of the burnt-oering; the other, that of the
sin-oering. We lay our hands on Him as the “ burnt-
oering,” thus identifying ourselves with Him. “ Accepted
in the beloved,” all His perfectness, all His “ sweet savor “
unto God is ours. But then as to the “ sin-oering,” it is just
the reverse with the hand laid upon the victim; it became
identied with my sins, charged with my guilt.
Well, beloved, the sacrice of the Lord Jesus had this
double character. He has completely accomplished the
purpose of God, all that which was in “ the counsel of
peace.” is “ counsel of peace “ was not between me and
God, though I have, as the fruit of it, the enjoyment of the
peace. I had not to do with it in any sense; it was “ between
them both.” All is done, and Jesus, both the accomplisher
and the accomplishment, in proof that all is nished, has
sat down on the throne of God.
But it may perhaps be added, Why, if the work is
perfectly accomplished, is He yet a Priest upon the throne?
He is not there at all as a Priest to work out righteousness
for us: that He has done, and done completely: “ this
man, after he had oered one sacrice for sins, forever sat
down on the right hand of God.” His sitting down is the
proof that He has nothing more to do in that way for His
friends, and now He only waits “ till his enemies be made
his footstool.”
But then, in order that we may have the enjoyment of
these things, He is acting in another way as Priest. Having’
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139
the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us, we consequently see
many things in ourselves contrary to Him-many things
that would hinder fellowship with God. Now here it is
that the present ministry of Christ comes in. We need His
priesthood in order to maintain our communion with God;
we need Him in our daily sins, as it is said, “ if any man
sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the
righteous.” We need the presence of perfect righteousness
on our behalf before God; who has ever before His eyes,
and that “ for us,” the accomplisher of “ the counsel of
peace,” “ Jesus Christ the righteous.”
Here then is “ the counsel of peace “ which was purposed
between God and Jesus. Here, and here only, have we
peace. If ever our souls have any idea of rest except in that
which is the perfect rest of God; if ever we are looking for
peace anywhere else, be it where it may, we have got out of
God’s way of accomplishing peace, o the ground of this “
counsel of peace.” He has not called us into “ the counsel,”
which really is entirely independent of ourselves-” between
them both “-accomplished, sure, and everlasting. Nothing
can ever touch it. God has publicly owned His acceptance
of Christ’s work, by seating Him at His own right hand.
e Holy Ghost is sent to witness to us that Jesus is now “
on the throne of God,” having “ by one oering perfected
forever them that are sanctied.”
We may have a great deal of trial (we know we shall),
trial from circumstances around, trial from within, exercise
of conscience, and the like; but still we have the perfect
certainty of God’s favor; and “ if God be for us, who can
be against us? “ With Paul we may reckon, because of His
having given Jesus for us, along with Jesus upon everything.
is is the true way to reckon upon His kindness-” Be
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140
careful for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and
supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made
known unto God; and the peace of God, which passeth all
understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds, through
Christ Jesus.” Observe, he says, “ the peace of God.” Again,
the word is “ be careful for nothing “: if one single thing
were excepted, God would not be God. Well, if exercised,
and troubled in spirit, tempted to be “ careful,” let us go to
God about it. Our wishes may possibly be foolish wishes:
still, let us go and present them to God; if they are so, we
shall very soon be ashamed of them.
We have need of this “ counsel of peace,” because all
that we are in ourselves is enmity against God. I cannot
go out of this “ counsel “ to look at my own heart for a
moment: it is “ between them both.” Is the Christian to
make Christ’s cross less complete? On that alone his peace
can rest. e moment we come to establish its perfectness,
the moment we seek to add a single thing, we are adding
to, or rather taking away something from, the perfectness
of “ the counsel of peace.”
Who or what shall separate us from the love of God
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord? shall tribulation, or
distress, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No,
these things shall, as means for mortifying the esh, only
minister to Christ’s glory. Shall death? It will only bring us
into His presence. Shall life? It is that by which we enjoy
His favor.
Nothing shall separate “! He is “on the throne” as the
eternal witness of peace accomplished, and thence He
ministers it to us.
e Lord give us grace to look at Him alone!
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141
62502
Parable of the Sower
Matt. 13
WE have here three reasons why the seed of God’s
testimony concerning Christ is unproductive, described in
the character and circumstances; rst, of those who hear by
the wayside, the hard rock, and the beaten path in which
Satan ever watches to catch away that which is sown in the
heart. In this he is compared to the fowls of the air, which
immediately devour the scattered seed that remains on the
surface of the earth.
Dear friends, what do we learn from this? at there
is nothing in the natural heart of man to aord root for
divine truth. No, everything within us is entirely dissimilar
to God, and therefore to everything that is like Him; and
hence we must naturally hate and reject that testimony
concerning Himself, which He has given in His word.
e Word signies Christ, through whom alone God is
seen and known by sinful man. I say, dear friends, there is
nothing whatever in the natural heart of man to receive
God’s revelation of Christ as a Savior; therefore he ever
must and will reject it, till God Himself imparts that
vivifying power through which alone Christ is seen and
valued. Everything in our hearts (I now speak of what we
are naturally) is unlike God, as much unlike Him as sin
is to holiness; and therefore we cannot admit Christ into
our hearts any more than the Jews could abide Him in the
world.
Dear friends, I say, By nature we are nothing but sin.
Man might consider us amiable, but everything that is not
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142
exactly like God He rejects and abhors; and, dear friends,
when He looks into our hearts, what does He see there?
Everything, I say, that is the very opposite to Himself. Can
a revelation from Him, can anything of which He approves,
be received for a while in this state? No, everything within
us must dislike it, and therefore I say, until God Himself
imparts power to receive Christ, our hearts will still remain
the hard beaten path trodden by the devil, who will always
destroy the seed which is there sown (as described in verse
19 of this chapter), “ when any one heareth the word of the
kingdom and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked
one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart.”
From this, dear friends, we learn that God alone can give
the seed of the word root within us, which, as the power
of God, Satan cannot destroy. Observe, it is true and real
seed that perishes after it was sown, not a false testimony,
not something like it, which yet diers from it. It is truth,
God’s testimony concerning Christ, that is received in the
natural heart and mind; but unless God Himself give it
root there, it lies like seed scattered on the surface of the
earth, and is immediately caught away by Satan.
A second reason for the destruction of this seed is given
us in the description of those who received it as on “ stony
places, where they had not much earth, and forthwith
they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth:
and when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because
they had no root they withered away.” Nothing whatever
to aord root for it in the natural heart. Here the seed is
not immediately destroyed by Satan, it dureth for a while.
Natural feelings and dispositions give it inuence: but
observe, dear friends, it is nature still- that which is unlike
God-what is entirely opposed to Him; and therefore the
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143
seed sown in such a heart cannot take root, and must wither
away. Seed on stony ground might have some earth, grow,
and produce a ower as beautiful as any that has root. But
let a scorching sun or unfavorable weather aect it, and it
will soon wither. us, dear friends, can the natural man
receive the word by the exercise of his intellect, and have
his natural aections so inuenced by it as for a while to
resemble those in whom the seed has a divine root.
I say, dear friends, the intellect and aections of the
natural man, according to his particular disposition,
whether more inuenced by his understanding or feelings,
may, for a while, be so moved by divine truth as to cause
him to resemble those who receive the seed into good
ground-no apparent dierence between them. I speak of
what they are in our sight. ey rejoice in Christ; they
profess to love Him, and are outwardly separated from the
world; they present fruits so like those of God’s planting,
that I say to human observation there appears no dierence
between them, but they have no root, and soon wither
away. e seed forthwith sprung up: why? Because it had
no deepness of earth, no solemn views, no serious sense of
their past alienation from God and present distance from
fellowship with Him. God can, and in some does, enable
His people to rejoice in Christ with exceeding great joy,
when they rst see and receive Him. But these instances
are few, and usually not followed by such good fruit as is
seen in those who receive the word with strong aections
of heart and mind at a sense of their past transgressions,
the dissimilarity of their past lives to everything that was
like God, and therefore to everything that He liked, and at
their present distance from that fellowship with God, to
which they are admitted through Christ.
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ose who receive the seed, as in stony places, know
nothing of this; they have no apprehension of the glory
of Christ; no fellowship with Him through the Spirit;
no communion with God: the seed has no root whatever
within them, and therefore, though it dureth for a while, it
must and will wither away. Why? It is declared in verse 21
of this chapter, “ When tribulation or persecution ariseth
because of the word, by-and-by he is oended.” All is well
with such as receive the word with joy, but have no root,
while they live at ease in the world. ey produce fruit as
fair and promising as any that is seen in the church; but
when they are exposed to worldly loss and persecution for
their profession of Christ, when trials and aictions and
the cross meet them in their path, they are oended. ese
are the scorching sun which withers the seed and all its
fruits. It has no root which could assimilate the heart and
mind to the mind and will of God, and hence they must
prefer all that nature loves and God hates, to a knowledge
of Him through Christ, and all the glories of His kingdom.
is seed was soon received, had no root, and when
tribulation and persecution arose, soon perished. is, I say,
dear friends, ever must and will be the case where the seed
is not planted and rooted by divine power-a power entirely
opposed to everything which is naturally within us. Unless
God Himself give us deepness of earth, by leading us
into a knowledge of what we are, and what He is, and an
apprehension of the glory of Christ, the seed sown in our
hearts will wither away; there are things which are too deep
for the sun of the world to reach and aect; without them
we cannot endure. In obeying Christ, He may require us to
act as though we hated father, and mother, and brethren,
and sisters, yea, and our own life also; and unless prepared
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for the sacrice, He declares we cannot be His disciples.
How can he be prepared for this, who loves nothing but
sin and the present world? and therefore, dear friends, I
again say, that unless God Himself plant and root the word
of His truth within us by a power that assimilates us to
Himself, we cannot endure or forsake all that He requires
of us as followers of Christ, and as His children called to
communion and fellowship with Himself.
We proceed to the third cause, why the seed is unfruitful.
“ And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprung up and
choked them.” What are these thorns? ey are particularly
described in Mark 4:19: “ And the cares of this world, and
the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things
entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.”
Observe, dear friends, the lusts of other things, not only the
cares of this world, but the lusts of other things, are equally
eectual in destroying it. What are these other things? “
Other “ is here contrasted with everything of which the
word testies: it signies everything but the word, all that
is not the word- to be plainer, all that is not Christ. Yes,
dear friends, the word, when described as choked, signies
the testimony concerning Christ; but Christ Himself is the
word presented to us in this testimony. To reveal Christ, to
bring us into fellowship with Him, to form Him within us,
is God’s purpose when He plants in us the seed of divine
truth; and therefore, dear friends, I again say, the lusts of
other things signify anything and everything but Christ.
No matter what it is, if the natural heart loves it, desires it,
nds pleasure in it, it is a lust that chokes the seed.
“ All that is in the world, the lust of the esh, and the
lust of the eye, and the pride of life, are not of the Father.”
To human sight it may assume a very pleasing appearance,
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what is called amiable, or it may assume the form of lawful
duties; but if these proceed from nature, if nature feels
ease and satisfaction in them, they are not Christ, they
are opposed to Him, and as certainly choke the seed and
prevent any fruit from it, as the cares of this world, the
deceitfulness of riches, or the most evil dispositions which
we condemn. Everything that is not the fruit of the Spirit is
esh. e Spirit reveals Christ, and forms Him in the heart,
and therefore everything but Christ is among the lusts of
the esh. All but Christ are the lusts described in Gal. 5,
in which it is said, “ the esh lusteth against the Spirit,
and the Spirit against the esh, and these are contrary the
one to the other.” Christ and nature are entirely contrary
to each other, for nature is the esh and its lusts, and it is
declared in Rom. 8, “ If ye live after the esh ye shall die,
but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the
body, ye shall live.” I. again say, that what the natural man
calls his lawful duties are among his lusts which choke the
seed of the word; they proceed from nature, they serve and
please it, a nature which is unlike God and Christ, and
therefore what they must hate.
e Christian has lawful duties to perform, duties to
parents and children, and other relations, and the Spirit
of God will teach him to discover and fulll them. ese
duties may then be called Christ, for they proceed from
Christ living in him, are done in obedience to Him, and are
the eects of His wisdom and power. I again say, everything
but Christ is the thorns that choke the seed and render it
unfruitful. It may assume the appearance of what is called
amiable, or it might appear unamiable, it is seen in both
forms, but I again say; everything within us and done by us
which is not Christ, are the lusts of other things described
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in Mark 4; and are the thorns which choke the seed and
prevent its fruitfulness, as much as any outward wickedness
that is generally condemned. Here, dear friends, are the
three reasons why the seed of the word is unfruitful: Satan’s
power; the natural enmity of our heart to God, to all that He
loves and is like Him; and the inuence of things seen and
temporal-usually and justly described as the temptations of
the world, the esh, and the devil.
We shall now notice the seed falling into good ground,
in which it brings forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some
sixty, some thirtyfold. If all that is in the natural heart hates
and rejects the word, why is it thus fruitful? Our Lord
Himself informs us, as declared in the beginning of John
15, “ I am the true vine and my Father is the husbandman.”
Here, dear friends, is the reason why the seed has a root
in any heart and produces fruit. Such is God’s value and
love for all the branches of the true vine, that He Himself
condescends to be their husbandman, rst, to impart to
them that power by which the seed has root and grows,
and when it becomes a branch in Christ to purge it that
it may bring forth more fruit. is power, as proceeding
from Himself, is like God, and loves everything that He
approves; hence it is the very opposite of all that is in the
natural heart-it brings into fellowship with Christ. Christ
lives in and through those who experience this power, for,
as we read in 1 Cor. 6, “ He that is joined to the Lord is
one spirit “; and according to their fellowship with Christ,
and their separation from everything that is not Him, they
bring forth fruit, thirty, sixty, or an hundredfold.
at the vivifying power of the Father is engaged, when
the seed takes root in the heart, is declared in two passages
of Scripture, to which I shall direct your attention: James
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1:18, “ Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth,
that we should be a kind of rst-fruits of his creatures “; and
also in 1 Peter 1:23: “ Being born again, not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which
liveth and abideth forever.” Here, you perceive that it is
the creating vivifying power of God that provides a root
in the heart of man through which the seed abides there.
“ Begotten,” “ born again “; a new birth by almighty power
is needful, and eected in every heart where the seed has
root. e resurrection life that is in Christ is imparted to
all for whom He died. With Him they live again, arise,
ascend, and sit in heavenly places; they are rooted and built
up in Him; He dwelleth in their hearts; because He lives,
they shall live also. e seed must remain in them, but He
Himself declared, “ Every plant which my heavenly Father
hath not planted shall be rooted up.”
I again direct your attention to His words in John
15. “ Every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it that
it may bring forth more fruit.” Dear brethren, though
we have fellowship with Christ, and sit with Him in
heavenly places, our earthly nature is still in a deling
world. e world and Satan act on this nature; these and
its own sin (for it is still enmity to God and all that He
loves) are continually drawing the believer to dispositions
and objects that dele the conscience, hide from him the
glory of Christ, and hinder the blessedness of fellowship
with Him and communion with the Father. How is their
inuence prevented? e Father purges every branch in the
true vine. While the esh lusts against the Spirit, the Spirit
acts against the esh, and these are contrary the one to the
other. e Spirit Himself directs the believer to everything
opposed to the esh, it lls him with communion and
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earnest desires to enjoy his fellowship with Christ and
the Father: Satan, the world, and nature work against this.
How is the esh subdued that God’s children may enjoy
their precious liberty? Precisely in this way: the Father
purgeth them that they may bring forth more fruit. He
sends aictions and trials, to increase their separation
from the present world, and to weaken the sin that works
in their members; then that word within them, which is
Christ, has dominion, and by Him they bring forth more
fruit. us does the Father purge every branch in the vine.
He plows up their hearts to remove from them everything
that prevents their fruitfulness; He suits the aiction to
the particular need for it, that it might root out of their
hearts the lust of other things which tends to choke the
seed. e other things, as I have said, are all and everything
which is not Christ. Everything but Christ prevents our
fruitfulness, the least contact with the world (for who can
touch pitch and not be deied?) everything nature desires
and loves. ese causes destroy not the seed where God has
given it root, for it is the incorruptible seed which liveth and
abideth forever; but, dear friends, they are the reason why
we bring forth fruit, some thirty, some sixty fold, instead of
that hundredfold which aords such blessedness.
I say again, the Father purgeth every branch in the true
vine, that it may bring forth more fruit. Dear friends, let us
notice His love and condescension in this; just think what
we are, and what He is; we, such guilty, weak, miserable
sinners, and He so exalted and glorious, and yet He
condescends to serve us! Yes, to serve us, for surely He does
this when He undertakes and fullls a service so important
as purging us that we may bring forth more fruit. Such,
I say, is His love for the vine and its branches, that He
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is their husbandman! Such are His purposes concerning
all whom He gave to Christ, and are one in Him, that
He is continually purging them from the inuence of
nature, and the world, and the power of Satan, who works
through both; and again I notice His wonderful love and
condescension in rendering them this service.
Dear friends, how are you aected by knowing that
the Father will purge you, that you may bring forth more
fruit? purge you from everything that nature loves?-from
all that assimilates you to the world? Can you say that you
desire this by whatever means He is pleased to use? Since
Christ Himself was not of this world, when He chose
entire dissimilarity to it, God cannot suer His people to
be assimilated to it; no, He will purge them to draw them
altogether from it, and then will they bring forth more
fruit. But, I say, how are your minds aected by this? Can
you say that you desire to be thus purged; that you love to
have your hearts plowed up, that God might remove from
them everything that prevents you bringing forth fruit an
hundredfold, everything that is not Christ and fellowship
with Him? Are you pleased with every trial and aiction,
however painful to nature, that subdues nature, draws you
from the world, assimilates you to God and to Christ, and
raises you to the glory and blessedness of fellowship with
them? I inquire not, does nature love it? is cannot be,
because the trial is sent to mortify and subdue nature, and,
therefore, must be painful. It is, and must be, as described
in Heb. 12 “ Now, no chastening for the present seemeth to
be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward, it yieldeth
the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them that are
exercised thereby.” And observe the apostle’s reasoning
in the preceding verses, “ If ye endure chastening, God
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dealeth with you as with sons, for what son is he whom the
father chasteneth not? Furthermore, we have had fathers of
our esh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence:
shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father
of spirits, and live? For they verily, for a few days, chastened
us after their own pleasure, but he for our prot, that we
might be partakers of his holiness.”
Dear friends, does this reasoning reconcile you to
everything by which the Father purges you, that you
might bring forth more fruit? I say, I am not inquiring,
does nature love it? but I ask, does faith approve of it? does
faith desire it? does the Spirit, who is opposed to all that
opposes Christ, lead you to present your hearts unto God,
that He might plow them up and purge them, ready and
thankful for anything and everything by which He will
prepare you to bring forth fruit an hundredfold? e Father
is the husbandman who waits on you, that He might thus
serve you. He plows, He waters, He purges every branch
in Christ. Let us, I again say, admire and adore His love
and condescension in this, and yield our hearts to Him
with gratitude and submission, that we may experience His
power in purging us, that we might bring forth more fruit.
To you who are strangers to this power, I address a few
words. To you in whom the word of God has not yet taken
root, I present Christ as.a Savior. Your sins are between you
and the Father. Until these are removed, you cannot have
any communion with Him. Christ can remove your sins,
and present His blood in their place. Believe in Him, and
He will do this; then you will have fellowship with Christ
and communion with God, and bring forth fruit unto Him!
e Lord direct your hearts to this! May He reveal Christ
to all among us who may not yet know Him! e Lord
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bless His word to all who have heard it! e Lord bless it
to all of us, and to His name be praise and glory. Amen.
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62531
e Wheat and the Tares
Matt. 13
THERE is something wonderfully gracious in the
way the Lord waits upon His people to instruct them: it
is calculated to draw out the aections and the minds of
believers in love and gratitude. But how often have they
cause for shame, that the occupations of their minds and
hearts render them insensible to the various ways, means,
and methods in which a God of love teaches them!
God is blessing them all the way, and His mercy is
exercised even in their wants. Do they feel and bewail
their ingratitude and ignorance? Who teaches like God?
His wisdom is the saint’s portion. Are they bowed down
under a consciousness of weakness and of bondage? “ My
strength is made perfect in weakness,” and thus, in every
way, He exactly suits Himself to their several necessities.
He never withdraws His care; He never turns aside from
them; still doing them good; and, though they may be
fearful and fainting, His love is still manifested. Jesus is the
fountain of all blessedness, sent to poor, weak, wretched
sinners, that they may have abundance of comfort, of peace,
and of enjoyment.
e knowledge of this knits and attaches the heart of
the poor sinner to such a rich Savior-makes him nd that
the way the Lord has led him has displayed to him the
character of the God who thus instructs him, that his very
sorrows and trials are a manifested proof of God’s free love
and favor, as succeeding circumstances display the riches of
divine grace. e way in which He leads us, the particular
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circumstances in which we are placed, the situations we are
in, are all so many methods and means of divine instruction
planned by a God of love.
e believer longs for rest from all that now oends,
but God leaves him here to teach him many lessons.
is world, constituted as it is at present, is a means by
which God teaches us what we could not learn in a world
of glory: the believer is instructed in the long-suering,
patience, and love of God, in a way he never could have
known elsewhere; his wants, his weakness, his barrenness,
his deadness, display most touchingly the wonderful
patience of God. And here too he learns the astonishing
proofs of God’s love in Christ; giving Him for such sinners
that they may be pardoned and freed; learning what God
is, in the Person of Jesus Christ, through all the particular
circumstances in which they are placed, notwithstanding
all our weakness, short-comings, and misdeeds. ere is no
feeling of hostility in God’s mind toward us- not even an
impatient word or look; all is love.
It is in the weakness and wants of His children that
God’s manner of love is even more drawn out, as the Father
of a family: the aections of a parent are the same for all his
children, but under dierent circumstances is dierently
manifested: the long and weak childhood of a child calls
forth all the tender sympathy and watchful care of a parent,
and knits the aections of a child to him. So the Lord,
amidst our weakness and infantine helplessness, guards us,
watches over us; and thus we come to learn the manner of
God’s love. en, as we advance under the watchful care
and training, and arrive towards maturity, we learn the
blessedness of His love, and we come to discern how the
Lord opens out the knowledge of Himself, putting us into
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a position of wondrous blessedness. “ Henceforth I call you
not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his Lord
doeth; but I have called you friends, for all things that I
have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.”
is is the manner and blessedness of God’s love to us;
and if the believer is insensible to this, he is in a sadly low
state; for nothing so much evidences the soul’s not being in
a healthful state, as to be insensible to the manner of God’s
love toward us, to be engrossed with what is about us here,
and not to be sensible that we are nearer to God than we
are even to the circumstances in which we are placed. How
wondrous to behold God taking pleasure in opening out
His mind and His plans to man! which we see evidenced in
this thirteenth chapter of Matthew, as in the explanation
to His disciples of the parables spoken to the multitude.
We nd here seven parables, which have been before
noticed, but the order of which it would be well to remark
again. e rst parable is not a comparison or likeness of
the kingdom of heaven, as the others, but a declaration of
the agency of the kingdom, and of its particular results-
the act described as being incidental to the Son of man
before His ascension, and its results also, such as might
be exhibited in individuals before as well as after it. e
kingdom of heaven was subsequent to this, and consequent
on Christ’s resurrection, when a new system of things was
about to be established.
e other six parables were not spoken at the same
time: three were addressed to the multitude, and three
to the disciples alone. Of these the rst three exhibit the
public character and result of this kingdom in the world;
and the last three symbolized its intrinsic value, and the
full development and results in God’s hands. e former
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fully developed its ostensible and visible manifestation
as seen in the world, and the latter, the real value of the
thing itself as known in the mind of God. is expression,
“kingdom of heaven,” as well as “ the kingdom of your
Father,” is peculiar to the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel
more especially of dispensation and prophetic testimony.
In what situation then is the believer while here?
Holding communion with an absent Lord in heaven-
brought into His family here-into His kingdom, and
taught, not to look for blessings simply upon earth during
his Lord’s absence, but to look for a time when His saints
shall know Him even as they are known, and shall never
be absent from Him. at is what they are looking for, and
into that situation they have been brought as the “good
seed,” partakers of the grace of that “ corn of wheat,” which
fell into the ground and died, that they might live.
“e kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that sowed
good seed in his eld.” And from verses 24-30 and 36-45,
we have the parable and its signication, as explained by
the Lord Himself. ese things speak their own meaning:
therefore they are simply brought before us as matters of
fact. He says, as putting any other construction aside, “ e
eld is the world.” In these parabolical expressions there is
a perfect harmony and conformity of meaning: if we can
clearly ascertain the meaning by scripture light in one, we
can readily imagine the same meaning of the same word in
any other place.
Now our Savior said expressly, “e eld is the world
“: this is its meaning, and no other, which brings before
us the theater or the scene where the transaction recorded
here takes place-” the world.” It presents us with the view
of a person sowing good seed in his eld; he that sowed
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the good seed is the Son of man, the Lord Jesus Christ. He
sowed it. It was good seed He sowed, and He sowed it in
His eld; and this is the world. He was entitled to this eld;
it belonged to Him. is then is the simple fact: the world
was the eld; the eld belonged to Jesus, and He sowed
good seed in it-something that had not previously been in
it-a something planted which was not indigenous to the
soil. Manifestly then it could not be the Jewish nation or
system, for that was placed previous to the period, here
alluded to, of the work of the Son of man. e world which
is here mentioned is spoken of as a place, not where the
seed had been sown and grown up, but where good seed,
not yet planted, was now to be put in; and this then is in
the world.
Let the child of God now look around him, and see
whether (with the exception of those who have been
manifestly brought into this new system) he sees anything
of this good seed in the world; does it look like a eld
sown with good seed? In how far it resembles it, those who
know the character of such as now possess the world can
best tell. e world then is His-the Son of man’s eld. us
this baes the wisdom and power of those who pretend
to claim any portion of it as their own, and who seek to
have it all, and are described as saying, “ is is the heir:
come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours.” It
is not theirs-it is Christ’s: His by an indefeasible right-by
an indisputable title His.
is indeed, when once established, is calculated
to overthrow the pride of vain man, who puts in his
pretensions for a share; who calls the world his own; but
it is not, it is Christ’s; and every one who takes it as his
own individual right is meddling with things which belong
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not to him, and of which he must give an account to the
rightful owner. e world then is this eld, and the eld is
Christ’s. “ While men slept, his enemy came, and sowed
tares among the wheat.” Here we have the character and
circumstances under which this change came about; these
men-these eld laborers-were put in trust, and the enemy
brought in the evil seed while these men slept.
Oh, how little are men aware of the indefatigable
perseverance of the enemy of souls! it is while men sleep
he does the mischief. It may not for a time be manifested;
but he has sown it, and it will soon spring up. Satan is not
hindered even by the good seed being there: “for when the
blade sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the
tares also.” God does certainly overrule it for His people’s
good; but the fact is there, that tares have been sown and
spring up.
ey may not be seen immediately; but still they are
in the ground, and much of it is occupied by them. e
men slept; the enemy entered unperceived, sowed the tares
among the wheat, and then went his way, having done the
mischief. And the man who cannot see that these tares
are now occupying the ground, and springing up, must be
wanting indeed in spiritual discernment.
And what need have we of continual jealous
watchfulness, that the ground be not more overrun with
them! what need to be awake, to be sensible of the position
we are in! that there is a positive separation between the
wheat and the tares! that there is a wall of everlasting
demarcation between them, and that we are not sensible
enough of this! Does not sad and bitter experience testify
that there is much moral evil countenanced? that there is
a very bad and low state tolerated among believers? that
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there is a mixing up of the world with the things of God,
an apparent shrinking and withdrawing from the Lord’s
work? Do we look for the cause? We nd the whole of it
here: the men slept, and let in the enemy; but it was His
enemy, as the Psalmist says, “ Remember how the foolish
man reproacheth thee daily.”
e Lord makes His cause and His people’s one; they
are His, and therefore their enemy is His. He calls them
“brethren”: “I will declare thy name unto my brethren.” e
saints of God get much courage from this declaration, when
they know that the battle is in the Lord’s hand. e saints
look on this little word, “His enemy,” with great delight. If
sensible of our deciencies and failings, and conscious that,
while we slept, the enemy came in, yet let us look to the
Lord; even though lled with shame in ourselves, yet let
us look to the remedy, and we shall learn here, by this one
little word, that it is His enemy, and, consequently, we have
the strength of Christ against him.
“ When the blade sprung up, then appeared the tares.”
is was the successful result of the enemy’s work; they
sprung up together. ere was not at rst any outward
distinction; they were all mixed up together. ere was no
remedy for that, as regarded the present state of things;
instantly to set the world right was not in the mind of God.
Man was found a faithless steward; he had been negligent,
and let in the enemy, and the eld was found overrun with
tares; but God’s plans were not frustrated by it.
e servants come and say, “ Sir, didst not thou sow
good seed in thy eld? from whence then hath it tares?
“ He said, “ An enemy hath done this.” e Son of God
looked down at His eld which He had sowed with good
seed, and found it lled with tares: but, though in that
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position, we nd it is not the wisdom of God to set the
world to rights by plucking up the tares. e servants said,
“Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? “ is is
according to man’s wisdom, who would set the world to
rights again by plucking up and rooting out heretics, and
purging out the wickedness according to their own desire.
“Nay,” said the Lord, there are circumstances existing at
present which made this proposal impossible to be acceded
to; they are now together, and let them both grow together.
If I were to give you power now to pluck up the tares, you
might unconsciously root up the wheat with them, which
cannot be; “let both grow together until the harvest.”
e Lord has graciously explained the meaning of the
word in verse 39: “e harvest is the end of the world.”
e term “world “ here is not the same word as that used
previously, where it is said, “ the eld is the world.” is
unquestionably is (as the literal translation signies) the
age, or dispensation, and should be read, “the harvest is
the end of the age.” In the rst instance where it is used,
it renders the meaning simply “the world,” which is the
scene of this great transaction. It is quite unconnected with
the idea of place, and conveys the time when it was to be
thus manifested- at the end of the age or dispensation,
and “at the time of the harvest.” Says the Lord, “ I will
say to the reapers [that is, after both are grown up, t for
the operation], Gather ye together rst the tares, and bind
them in bundles to burn them; but gather the wheat into
my barn.”
Now this presents us rst with the view of the gathering
together of the tares in bundles for the purpose of being
burnt, and then the gathering of the wheat into the barn.
After this is the destruction of the tares, as explained by
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our Lord: “ As, therefore, the tares are gathered together
and burnt in the re, so shall it be at the end of this age: the
Son of man shall send forth his angels [His messengers,
ministers, and ambassadors of His purposes in providence],
and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that
oend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them
into a furnace of re.”
And, after that (that is, after the burning of the tares),
“ then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the
kingdom of their Father.”
Here is the order: e tares are gathered in bundles to
be burned; the wheat is lodged in the barn; the destruction
of the tares, or their entire consumption, then takes place;
and, nally, after their destruction, “ then shall the righteous
shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”
In the third parable, spoken to His disciples alone, we
nd the Lord using terms analogous to these: e angels
dividing the two parties which were hitherto mixed up
together, gathering the good into vessels, and casting the
bad away and destroying them; and then shall the righteous
shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. is
brings before us the unhindered blessedness of the children
of God-of those who are alive to God. at time is coming;
and it is a thing greatly longed for by the saints. e present
position of the world makes it known to them. ey see
that the tares are ripening fast in iniquity, ready for the
destruction; and they see the ripening of the saints of God;
and, though now apparently and sadly undistinguished, the
Lord is ripening them for the harvest and will gather them
in.
e tares are making their progress, being brought
together ripe for destruction. ough they may think it
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is well, and no fear is to overtake them, yet certain and
sudden vengeance awaits them. ey say, and act on it,
that it will not come; but God is true, and His word shall
come to pass. Read Rev. 14:14-20. ere are the tares
then ripening, thinking no harm shall happen unto them;
strengthening themselves in their iniquity, and counting
the very providence of God (their being bound together
in bundles) the very occasion of their strength and power,
which is to prove their utter destruction. “ e heathen are
sunk down in the pit which they made.” “ough hand join
in hand, the wicked shall not go unpunished.” e wheat
are not left in the world in the great day; they are gathered
into the barn; they are taken out of the way, “caught up
in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.” ey witness
the destruction of the Lord’s enemies; and “then shall the
righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their
Father.”
Here we behold the blessedness of the child of God,
and the perfect character of that blessedness which the
future results of God’s love will evidence. Just remember
that everything that oends has been cast out; all iniquity
burnt up, destroyed; the saints safely housed in the barn;
and then shall they shine-observe, “ then shall the righteous
shine “-they are the righteous. But who are the righteous?
ose who are one with Christ: His character is brought
forward as “the Lord our righteousness,” and “ the Sun of
righteousness.” “ He shall be as the light of the morning
when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the
tender grass springing out of the earth, by clear shining
after rain.” 2 Sam. 23:4. And in these last words of David
we have, along with the description of the glory of the Lord
at His coming, a view of the destruction of the wicked: it
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is a similar passage to the one in the text, and refers to the
same event. “ But the sons of Belial [that is, the children of
the wicked one] shall be all of them as thorns thrust away,
because they cannot be taken with hands “-that is, they
cannot be drawn by the teaching and beseeching of man
to come to the right. “ But the man that shall touch them
must be fenced with iron and the sta of a spear; and they
shall be utterly burned with re in the same place “ (v. 6,
7), that is, in the same place where they are, similar to the
burning of the tares.
Christ is the Sun of righteousness, and therefore they are
righteousness; He is the Sun, and therefore they shine as
the sun: “When he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we
shall see him as he is,” and we shall be made like unto Him.
is blessedness was contemplated and spoken of by God’s
saints of old. We have it in the words of David: “ As for me,
I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satised
when I awake with thy likeness.” at was what he was
looking forward to-to shine as the sun, as the righteous; to
see God’s honor vindicated, Satan and his powers cast out,
and all God’s enemies destroyed, and he himself bearing
Christ’s likeness; then he would be satised. And Paul also
expresses himself strongly: “If by any means I might attain
unto the resurrection from the dead “; when I shall see
Christ as He is, and be like Him, shining as the sun, as the
Sun of righteousness. at is what I now see in Spirit, and
that is what I now believe in faith, and that is what I am
just looking for, to be like Jesus in His kingdom.
Is there in you, dear brethren, this earnest breathing
after this glory? this sensibility of enjoying these things?
Oh, they are calculated to bring much joy-very real and
deep comfort-to know that we shall shine as the sun, when
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the clouds of vengeance, which now threaten an ungodly
world, shall have been discharged in just judgment on
them: when these clouds shall then be carried away and
dispersed, and all iniquity cast out, then shall the righteous
ourish; then comes his time of much delight!
Brethren, are not these things calculated to rejoice the
heart of the believer? Further remark that it is said, “ In
the kingdom of their Father.” Here is great blessedness to
the child of God in this appropriating word of happiness.
It shows the position in which the Lord Jesus has placed
them- associated with God as their Father, in His kingdom.
We see the mighty result; not only that they shall be
righteous- shall shine as the Sun of righteousness, but be
brought into their Father’s house. “ In my Father’s house
are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told
you; I go to prepare a place for you.” He unites Himself to
them as one calling them brethren, calling them to look up
to God as their Father: “ I will declare thy name unto my
brethren “; and again, “ I go to my Father, and your Father;
to my God, and your God.”
ere are two things which in anticipation minister
great comfort to all believers; they shall see the Savior
whom here they loved, and they shall be found in Him,
participating in His glory, and like Him. is is what they
should be rejoicing in, pressing towards, and looking for. If
then indeed ye are children of God, what is grieving you?
ink of your high privileges: “ We shall see him as he is,”
“ be like him,” in the presence of the Father, in His house,
in the kingdom of our Father, having fellowship with Him
everlastingly.
is is the portion of the child of God, a portion we
are called on to rejoice in, even here, for it is ours; it is an
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inheritance reserved for us, and we are reserved to shine as
the sun in the kingdom of our Father.
e Church will not always have to mourn an absent
Lord. He will come to claim His bride-to take her to
Himself, that where He is, she may be also: so He prays,
“ Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me,
be with me where I am “: and in Him she is complete; for
the Father gave Him to be “ head over all things to the
church, which is his body, the fullness of him that lleth all
in all.” Here then is the position of the church with Christ;
one body, one mind, one in all things, one in tastes, one in
desires.
Believers thus taste the Father’s love most blessedly
by beholding the Lord so sacricing Himself as to bring
this love to them, purchased for their enjoyment and
inheritance. ey feel the Father’s love: “ I say not unto
you, I will pray the Father for you; for the Father himself
loveth you.” If we are believers, let us raise our thoughts to
the bliss that awaits us, and not be sinking to the bottom,
or oating on the surface of spiritual enjoyment.
It is no matter what are your circumstances here, what
are your cares or your conicts; it is but for a moment; the
portion of the saints is to rejoice. But what is it that you
are bowed down for? Is it a feeling of your own weakness?
Why, the very “ joy of the Lord is your strength.” Why are
you in aiction? What is it that keeps you down? Is it the
world of sin? at is your enemy; and that it is your enemy
is the cause of the greatest rejoicing: this is your condence,
and should be your delight, that it is a conquered enemy.
If you feel it is your enemy, you know it is His enemy, and
then you are brought into the same position with the Lord
Jesus; on one side with Him, ghting one common enemy.
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Jesus warned His disciples of this trouble, but promised
them His peace-promised to be with them by the Spirit,
and testied to them the result of all the work He was
doing for them: “ I have overcome the world.” ink, if
you be of them who are thus loved and thus made happy
here, what happiness yet awaits you when you shall shine
like the sun in the kingdom of your Father! Blessed indeed
shall we be in that day, when “ we shall see him as he is “;
rst, “ be like him,” and then “ see him as he is.” Oh, the
blessedness! when, after all troubles and conicts are over,
we shall “ awake in his likeness.”
Believers, is there nothing in this to quicken your joy in
meeting Jesus? Is there nothing in this to throw contempt
upon the world, and its unmeaning joys? e soul that
loves Jesus loves one who has conquered all his enemies;
“ He that ascended far above all heavens, that he might
ll all things.” In this is the Son of God’s love manifested,
in that He humbled Himself to descend to the children
of men, to bear their iniquity, to carry their sorrows and
troubles, to minister to their joys and comforts, and to bear
away sin from them forever! And their joy and condence
is, that the same Lord has ascended on high, having “ led
captivity captive “-having destroyed His and their enemy: “
Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
Is it any comfort to you, that the wisdom of God will
soon be seen in the world, to the destruction of all that
oppose it? Would you like to have the world thus sifted,
and all iniquity purged out? Would it rejoice your heart to
hear that Jesus was now coming? In fact, would you like
Him to come now? Oh! how sad, how very sad is it, that,
when He is just about to come, and His saints about to be
made entirely like Him, they should be mixed up in any
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way with the workers of iniquity, practicing their habits,
pursuits, or satisfactions!
Pray, brethren, that you may be led to a more simple
and entire conformity to the image of your Savior; that you
may be cleansed from the unsatisfying and unsanctifying
desires of the world, so that you may be ready to meet your
Lord at His appearing.
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62499
e Parables
Matt. 13:1-50
I HAVE read to you the entire collection of parables
brought together in this chapter, because they collectively
contain one general view of the plan of God, as developing
“ the kingdom of heaven “: that it is not an isolated
circumstance, but a connected whole, full of comfort to
the saints of God. It unfolds the distinguishing features
of the “ kingdom of heaven.” is term, together with the
“ kingdom of your Father,” is exclusively used by Matthew,
and particularly in this chapter, where are developed
the character and circumstances of the kingdom in the
dispensation of God.
“ Jesus saith unto his disciples, Have ye understood all
these things? ey say, Yea, Lord. en said he unto them,
erefore every scribe which is instructed into the kingdom
of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which
bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.”
Now, we know that a scribe who was taught from the
law of Moses was instructed in the mysteries contained
therein, which were to be unfolded in process of time, as
the Lord quotes: “ I will open my mouth in parables, I will
utter things that have been kept secret from the foundation
of the world.”
We nd there were seven parables uttered by our
Lord here; seven being a complete and perfect number,
symbolical of entireness and perfection, wanting nothing,
a completeness of intention and performance. us seven
Spirits of God are taken for a whole; seven churches,
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seven trumpets, seven plagues, etc. Some of those parables
were uttered for the disciples only, and the others for the
multitude, which we shall perceive by just looking at the
structure of the chapter.
In the rst parable we have a symbol of the world as at
present; of all who shall or shall not become partakers of
the kingdom of heaven. Here we have the full mind of God
upon the subject. e six others represent a likeness of the
kingdom of heaven. In the rst the man sowing the good
seed is just a statement of what our Lord was doing in the
world, “ the eld,” out of which the kingdom of heaven
springs up. He was there sowing good seed, while the devil
was sowing tares- mingling with them, and mixing with
them, but not of them; but of this there is no complete
development till the resurrection. is is the testimony of
the Spirit of God: at that time the wheat will be gathered
into the garner, and the tares afterward burned.
Now in the other parables we nd that which resulted
from the sowing of the seed absolutely and denitely. e
last three are addressed to the disciples alone, and not
to the multitude, as well as the explanation of the rst
of these six, as it says in verse 36: “ en Jesus sent away
the multitude, and went into a house with his disciples
“; and, after explaining to them the parable of the tares
and the wheat, He says to them, “ Again, the kingdom of
heaven is likened unto,” etc. e other three, spoken to the
multitude were, the tares and wheat; the little seed, or grain
of mustard seed, descriptive of the increase and growth of
this kingdom; and the leaven hid beneath, but working
unseen till the whole is completely leavened. e three to
His disciples alone were, the treasure hid; the pearl of great
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price; and the net cast into the sea. us He commences
with the sowing, and ends with the gathering in.
e rst three exhibit the development of the character
and habit this kingdom should assume in the world
ostensibly. And of the latter three, two are descriptive of
its high value in the sight of God, and the consequences
of that love: and the last displays the entire distinction and
separation between the children of the world and of the
kingdom. e explanation of one parable, given along with
this last parable, portrays the manner and mode of this
separation-of those who are children of God, or those who
are friends to God’s enemy, the devil: “ e friendship of
the world is enmity with God.”
You will nd, on examination, the analogy very strong
between the six; between the three to His disciples, and the
three to the multitude, to which the explanation of the one
is the key; from the rst, which is sowing the good seed,
to the last, which is drawing the net, of which the others
are the medium-the ostensible character; the organization
of the plan; the building up of it; the actual value of the
treasure; the beauty and excellency of the pearl of great
price; the management and development of that which is
the dispensation of the kingdom of heaven. ese we will
not go through now, only just to show the structure and
order of the whole. us the Spirit of God unfolds the way
in lively emblems, which are God’s most denite testimony
to the world, and which are acknowledged as such by all
when taught of God’s Spirit. Here we have the perfect
summing up of the dispensation, which is characterized in
Scripture as the “ kingdom of heaven.”
It is calculated for the joy and comfort of disciples,
though spoken to multitudes in parables: they press in
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the general throng, but they understand not, for they are
spoken to in parables. But, says Jesus, “ Unto you it is
given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.”
e world may despise them (it does despise them), it may
heap obloquy and contempt on them, for these are not of
the world, and the world loves its own. But the saints have
the inestimable, the profound, the incalculable blessing
of being children of the kingdom-children of God; they
have a joy and heavenly delight in retirement with Jesus-of
fellowship and communion with Him (of which the world
in its natural state knows nothing; of which it is unable to
form any conception); conscious of their association with
Him, of being in the same position with Him, of being
assimilated to Him; this is the constitution of their joy. ey
are made friends of God; they are in the same situation as
Abraham, when the Lord says, “ Shall I hide from Abraham
that thing which I do? “ e Lord condescends to open out
His mind-His plans-to them. Abraham was called “ the
friend of God.” Exactly in the same way does the Lord
now spread out the plan of His dispensations to His own,
as He says, “ Henceforth I call you not servants, for the
servant knoweth not what his lord doeth; but I have called
you friends, for all things that I have heard of my Father I
have made known unto you.” Now this is said for the joy
and comfort of you who are His disciples. Treasure it up
in your hearts, and, oh! feel the blessedness, the wondrous
blessedness, of being made the depositaries of the Lord’s
mind: “ for who hath known the mind of the Lord? But we
have the mind of Christ.”
Since this is your position, dear friends, be jealous of
squandering your aections, lest you dishonor your trust. If
you sin in the cold, heartless world; if you lightly esteem, or
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seek not continual enjoyment in, your high privileges, the
Lord can put no condence in you, Christ cannot trust you.
If you are amusing yourselves with the things around you
(no matter what), your minds must be opened to the world,
and this leads to the love of it; and this is direct usurpation
of Christ’s prerogative. Christ’s mind is not opened to the
world, but is opened to His own. He reveals their portion
to them, and He sends the Spirit into their hearts, enabling
them to cry, “ Abba, Father.” He makes known to them that
they have the inheritance of sons, shows them their family
interest in it, meets them all, as it were, and unfolds the
circumstances of His family, and points out to them their
individual interest in it; tells them that they are heirs of
this inheritance, and have a part and portion with Himself.
If this is our situation (and it is so if we are believers in
the Lord Jesus Christ), should we not be very jealous of
admitting anything into our souls that might disturb this
harmony, and so disable us from receiving communications
with delight- with the lial fondness of children? is is
what the world knows nothing about, but is the saint’s
privilege and lot, and neither Satan nor the world can take
it from him. e parable with which this chapter begins
introduces this glorious dispensation of which we have
been speaking: “ A sower went out,” etc. (v. 3-9).
e great principle upon which all the blessing of the
kingdom of heaven is founded is the sowing of the seed;
there is no external development of the position of man till
it is sown. e Lord Jesus Christ goes forth as the sower.
e seed, in itself, is a perfectly new and distinct thing; it
is not in principle assimilated to anything that was there
previously; it nds nothing there that it can call its own; it is
not a seed of the soil springing up from it, but it is the seed
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of God-it comes down from heaven. It is not a principle
in the soil which the Lord acts on and improves: when it
comes, it nds nothing akin to it there-nothing even like it.
It comes from heaven, and leads to heaven; for it is the seed
of eternal life. It is a perfectly new principle-extraneously
so. When put into the soil, there is then in the soul what
was not there before; it is no improvement or modication
of that which was previously there. It is eternal life. “ Of his
own will begat he us.” It is an implanted principle of life
which knows no end.
Now, in all naturally there is no seed of eternal life, as
life. We may have the seed of eternal endurance, but not
of life. But this life is wrought by the implantation of a
holy seed, by the power of the word of God, revealing what
Christ is to the soul. It is planted by the word of God,
watered by the
Spirit of God, derives its growth and culture from the
same God, and is found bearing fruit to the glory of God
until the end, when we come to the “ manifestation of the
sons of God.”
Now, this, which is God’s truth, breaks down all the
natural hopes of aspiring proud man, who thinks there is
that within himself which will lead to this, ignorant that
the only principle within him is one of death. But let him
once experience the implantation of this new seed, he will
then think very dierently. He will nd that he has now a
new life; that it is a given life (consequently it could not
have been there before); and, moreover, that it is “ eternal
life,” and that that life is in Jesus: “ he that hath the Son
hath life.”
ere is one broad principle with which it is most
important to be acquainted, namely, that it is nothing from
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within ourselves that originates this holy principle. And
we who are taught of God know this to be the case; for the
mind, once alive to God, is fully conscious that it does not
live by any power in itself, but from the power of the life of
Christ, which they were once conscious of not having, but
now have been given. ey now see how they stand in the
presence of God, not as Adam, for God has stamped death
on all that he, or his race, could bring before Him of their
own, which is sin; but they know, that though once aliens
and wanderers, they have been gathered into the ock, and
have been (not made better in their original condition but)
translated into another position, even into the kingdom of
God’s dear Son, who is now in glory.
ere is no communication then from man to God,
which can be the real cause or means of receiving heavenly
blessings; for man, by nature, has nothing to bring but sin,
which cannot draw down a blessing; for God has stamped
this judgment on it-” e wages of sin is death.” Now,
notwithstanding this truth, what is the expectation of the
natural man? Why, that though God has said this, yet in
his case He will not observe it; that God must set aside
the honor of His word, the strictness of His holiness, and
not give him the wages of sin, which is eternal death; that,
in his case, God will dispense with the quickening power
which He speaks of as necessary to life, and through and
for His Son He will show him mercy. But it is not so, it
cannot, it will not be so: “he,” and he only, “ who hath the
Son hath life,” “ they,” and they only, “ that hear the voice
of the Son of God shall live.” e perceptive power comes
to him from heaven, and he then has everlasting life; he
has what he never had before, but he knows that he has it
now. is is God’s truth in the face of a sinful and lifeless
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world, and testies the power and agency of the Spirit as
manifested in it. ey who hear, hear by His power: “ the
dead shall hear,” therefore the dead must be quickened to
hear.
is parable shows us the way in which the seed is
scattered. e Lord is here represented by a sower, and is
scattering the seed of His word. He that receives it receives
life into his soul, which was before “ dead in trespasses
and sins.” e Lord is scattering the seed now, whether
you believe it or not. He is testifying that you are naturally
enemies to God, “ alienated and enemies in your mind
by wicked works,” and that the only way of escaping the
punishment due is by the reception of this life which He
gives, which is in Christ and nowhere else.
e possession of this life is necessary to the entrance
into glory. Now where will you seek it, where will you nd
it, but in Christ? God has told you, that “ that life is in his
Son.” Have you then this Son of God? Do you know Him
as your life? Do you hold sweet communion with Him?
Have you a personal fellowship and enjoyment in Him?
Do you understand the blessing of identity with Him, so
as to comprehend His own words: “ Because I live, ye shall
live also “? If you do, you are blessed, for God is true, and
He has said, “ He that hath the Son hath life “: there is a
certitude, an everlasting truth, in it. e word sown carries
the knowledge of Christ to the soul, and that brings us into
relation with God; it opens out the blessing of life, and
shows us that that life is in Christ, and Christ only.
e Lord scatters the seed, but the enemy does his
utmost to hinder its progress; he tries to turn it aside, and
to prevent its taking root. e Lord scatters and divides
the seed, but it springs not up alike: there is a marked
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distinction made in the parable between the manner in
which the seed was received in the rst and last places
where it was sown, which we have in the explanation of
the rst. It is said, “ When any one heareth the word of
the kingdom, and understandeth it not “; and of the latter
it is said, “ He that heareth and understandeth.” And so
we see the work of the devil in the former: “ When any
man heareth and understandeth not, then cometh the
wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his
heart.” Oh, how subtle is Satan! he well knows that, if once
entered in, his power will be resisted; and he endeavors to
blind them, because he knows, that “ except a man be born
again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,” nor ever shall
see it; they cannot perceive it, and therefore he loves to
catch away from them the scattered seed, lest they should
see, and believe, and be saved: “ Except a man be born of
water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom
of God,” can neither perceive it, nor enter into it.
“ If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none
of his “; and when once we have it, what is the eect? “ He
hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath
translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son.” is is the
way, the particular process, which the Lord uses, which is
brought before us in the word with reference to the sinner’s
salvation. It is hard to receive, for we are very slow to hear
and understand, surrounded as we are by a world lying in
wickedness; therefore it requires the power of One beyond
ourselves to give us the knowledge of it.
We are in a far country; that is, we are not where our
heavenly inheritance is-in our Father’s house. We live
among those who have the guilt of rejecting the Heir of the
kingdom. Now, the heirs of the kingdom are there, but the
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testimony of God’s word declares that He is now gathering
them out of it, opening their eyes, and revealing Christ.
But this is not understood by the world; they are specially
distinguished by this, that they do not understand it. e
word has been sown, but it has not entered. ey know
nothing at all about the kingdom of God: they hear the
word; but it all passes away as though they heard nothing,
for they do not understand it. And while so, while in this
position of incapacity of comprehension, they have nothing
to do with it: it conveys no ideas of happiness to them-it
is associated with no portion of enjoyment to them. ey
are satised with the world: that they have, that is their
portion, they are looking for no other. eir position is just
that they know nothing in the world about the kingdom
which is set up in Christ, in which, if any one be, he is
blessed. But these receive it not; for, though the word of
the kingdom has been sown and scattered, the devil has
come and caught it away from them. is then is one very
important distinction, that you would do well now to
consider, that though the word is at this present moment
being scattered to all, there is a wonderful dierence in its
eects. If you just hear and do not understand it, you may
be sure there is one busy among you-busy in your hearts
to snatch out the very remembrance of the thing, lest it
should enter in. It fell only on the outside, for Satan keeps
it out, and they are well pleased to let him; and this is God’s
truth about the matter.
Brethren, the world is a lost world, and Satan reigns;
there is only one way of escape-by being taken out of the
position in which the world is placed and planted in Christ’s
kingdom. ere is no life but in Christ. Have you then
entered into Christ’s kingdom, or has the devil yet the key
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of your hearts? At that tremendous day, when the secrets of
all hearts will be known, then will the distinguishing fruits
be manifested, and many of the “ wayside “ hearers will
then, for the rst time, nd they have been mistaken, when
asked what they have been about here, and brought in
condemned by the Judge Himself. en will He recognize
none but those who are united to Him, one with Himself
in life, now forever to be one with Him in glory.
ese, and these alone, are His own-His crown of
rejoicing -the travail of His righteous soul; and they know
Him; they recognize Him, so as to be able to say, is
is the Lord we have been longing and looking for. ey
know His countenance; they are, from close familiarity,
well acquainted with His lineaments; they have had such
communion, such fellowship, with Him, that they cannot
be mistaken. Oh, the contrast between the sorrow (then
unavailing sorrow) and misery of those who knew Him
not, who have been ignorant of Him who comes to them
now as a stranger and a Judge!
e next verse shows that some fell among stony places;
and the explanation tells us, that they heard the word, and
anon with joy received it, but had no root in themselves but
endure for a while; and, when persecution arises because
of it, are oended. ese have heard the gospel extensively
preached, are mixed up with the people of God, and appear
to understand and enter into their joy. ey commence a
regular course, as if on the way heavenwards. ey hear of
God, of God’s love to sinners, of God’s wonderful love in
giving His only Son to die for sinners. ey hear of One
“ who loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own
blood.” ey hear of One, “ who, though in the form of God,
thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made
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himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a
servant.” ey hear of One, calculated, when thus spoken
of, to win the natural aections, just as the exhibition of
these beauties in any other being would do; and their
natural feelings are awakened, but nothing more. “ ey
have a name to live,” and yet are practically dead; they have
heard “ a very lovely song,” and are pleased; they have heard
of Christ’s demeaning Himself to the capacity of a slave,
that He might exalt them to heaven; suiting Himself to
their situation and wants; doing wonders in all the world;
and the mere external apprehension of these things made
a way to win the natural aections. ey could not deny
them as matters of fact-of historic faith; they were drawn,
as it were, by the “ bands of a man,” but that was all; their
feelings were excited, but they have never mourned for sin;
there was no consciousness of their particular individual
share in the suerings of Christ; there was no internal
perception of love, leading the soul to seek the object of it;
there was no feeling of life, making them know that they
were living on Christ for all things, making them feel that
the sins that were on them had been placed to His account,
bringing Him “ into the dust of death.”
is humbling work they know not; when Satan’s
dominion is broken down in the soul, and Christ admitted
as a Sovereign and a Savior; when He becomes all to the
soul, and the soul rejoices in that portion. And the day of
trial, of aiction, of tribulation, or of persecution manifests
this, and the day of the Lord’s erce wrath terminates it;
this apparent joy comes to nothing, for they knew not
Christ; the seed was only on the surface-the root of the
matter was not in them: theirs was only the manifested
outward joy of natural feelings awakened; they had not
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the joy of the inner man of the heart; the surface of their
aections was pliable and soft, but their heart was still hard
as a stone-it was a stony heart-the stone had never been
removed; therefore there was no warmth, no love, no life,
no Christ within; they had Christ without, but the stone
within. No Spirit’s teaching, no work in the conscience;
they had nothing to look to for comfort or assurance, when
the great question, the great controversy which is between
God and man, came to be decided; not being associated
with Christ, they just came to nothing. ey had no root,
and they all fell away.
Now the next class have less of this character which is
described in these last. e seed fell, but it was received
into a ground previously occupied and overrun with
thorns. ey appeared well; had received the seed, as far as
human observation could go; and there were indeed roots
in these, but they were the roots of something else-” some
fell among thorns “; they were growing there before the
scattering of the seed. e thorns had pre-occupied the
ground; they occupied all the ground, and were nourished
from it. Doubtless, when the word was rst received on
the soil, these thorns might have appeared feeble, and of
very little importance, perhaps supposed to be plucked
up; but they left the roots there, which sprung up, to the
rejection of the good seed-choked it-and so no fruit came
forth. ese are they who profess to hear, understand, and
receive the word of the kingdom; who seem to set a value
upon the great gospel plan of salvation; who go on for a
while prosperously, but the latent enemy has been and is
working underneath and soon shows himself. He ings
into the balance the trials, cares, pleasures, prots, lusts, and
deceitful tricks of this world, and the progress of the seed
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is choked up and becomes unfruitful. ey are occupied
with the things of this world-its sorrows, its sadness, or its
delights; they are buried in them; the things in which they
engage are those which choke the seed-things associated,
not with Christ, but with that which He will judge.
It would be the saints’ delight to have the weeds plucked
up by the roots; they know the value of the true seed, and
therefore are jealous of admitting or having anything in the
soil which may render it unfruitful. ey well know that if
the thorns are there, their natural tendency is to choke the
seed; and therefore they desire their entire departure.
Is this your estimation of the worth and value of the
true seed? God takes care of His own seed; He husbands
it, He waters it, He is very jealous over it; and when He
sees a thorn spring up, even in the good ground, He says in
aectionate remonstrance, “ ou art careful and troubled
about many things, but one thing only is needful “: and
leads them then to say and feel, “ We are debtors, not to the
esh to live after the esh.”
If anything keeps the seed from springing up, having
occupied the place where it should be, that is not of God,
He says, “ How hardly shall they that have riches enter
into the kingdom of God! “ e gathering them, living for
them, and enjoying of them choke the seed, shut up the
mind from the things of God, and make it rest in what
is an abhorrence in God’s sight. “ One thing is needful
“; and we see how the Lord vindicated Mary’s choice: “
Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken
away from her.” And in that day, when all worldly wealth,
riches, and honors can no longer be esteemed, even by the
possessors of them, then the till then unseen (unseen except
by faith) realities of the true riches hid in Christ will be
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wonderfully exhibited, when they who have chosen Him
for their portion shall have their portion, and all others will
be destroyed.
ere is one class more to which we must direct our
attention, and they are distinguished here, as “ he that
heareth the word and understandeth it.” And here one
delights to rest on the blessedness of the hope of glory
implanted in the soul of the true believer; his heart is
opened-the seed descends, and abides, springing up and
bearing fruit. ey understand that they are in a world
which wearied Christ, and they too are wearied of it;
they seek a separation from it; they understand that Jesus
was “ holy, harmless, and undeled “; and God the Spirit,
dwelling in them, leads them to follow in His footsteps.
ey understand from the word of grace that the Lord
Jesus has set up this spiritual kingdom in the midst of a
world which has rejected Him, and in this His grace settles
them-no rest in any other portion; their controversy with
God, and their question with hell, has been settled by Jesus.
ey understand that the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ their
Lord, has sealed with His own blood their forgiveness,
and this takes the spring of their hearts, and sends their
aections out again to center on Jesus.
ese are the things which the saints understand; and
the devil cannot dispossess them of them. Were they only
on the surface, he might catch away the word, or cause
them to be oended, or choke its fruitfulness; but, being
planted within by the Spirit of the living God, and taking
root, Satan in vain assaults, for there the Lord reigns,
who has proved Himself stronger than Satan. Satan may
torment, but cannot overcome; for, though choking cares
may intrude, and noxious weeds will show their heads, the
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possessors of this heavenly seed are willing-are longing-to
have them all plucked up and burned, with all the briars
and thorns of nature. ey “ have tasted that the Lord
is gracious “; they understand His word, and they love it
amidst distresses, trials, and sorrows; they know that Jesus
came to unbind the heavy burdens, and soon He will
come again to set His own free from every fetter. In the
contemplation of this the believer will rest His soul on
Jesus, viewing Him as gathering in His own elect, when
His oppressed, persecuted, but very dear children shall see
and inherit the kingdom of their Father.
ey have then passed through the cross, they have left
everything behind at the “ door,” which is Christ. Guilt
cannot pass through Him; sin can no longer show itself;
being purged, it has no longer any hold of the believer: he
is standing in the favor and smiles of God, being included
in the body to which Christ belongs. He has entered
by Christ, and is therefore recognized as His. And this
blessedness he has in anticipation and perspective here-
the reality is there for-him; that he knows, for he has the
dawn of it within himself, the seed of a divine nature. He
is waiting for the coming of the “ Morning Star,” when the
seed He blesses will be known. And in this the believer
rejoices, being conscious of having life, of being quickened,
of being in the second Adam. He is also conscious he has
not the glory at present; but he knows he has “ eternal
life,” the fruits of which he is called upon to exhibit while
here, as described in the Epistle of James; which he desires
and seeks for, and to which it is his delight in his measure
to attain. is is the character, the hope, the attainment
of the believer; of one who has received the good seed,
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understands the word of the kingdom, and brings forth
fruit according to his measure.
In closing this testimony, let us remember, that “ he that
hath the Son hath life “; he actually possesses it at present-
that is the fact. e word of God says not shall have, but
“ hath eternal life “; and God the Spirit testies of this
to our souls. He testies of the electing love of God, of
the redeeming grace of Jesus, and enables us to recognize
ourselves as “ accepted in the Beloved,” having received and
believed the word of the kingdom, and this in the face of
a world lying in wickedness, on which judgments are now
about to be executed.
e times portend great things: the dark and heavy
clouds are gathering in the air, and hanging over a guilty
world, which shall soon be discharged in tremendous
judgments; the day of God’s long-suering will soon be
over: now, “ now is the accepted time.” If ye have resisted
the voice of truth, the voice of the Holy Ghost till now,
resist it no longer. Judgments are coming, more terrible
than on them to whom it was said, “ Ye do always resist
the Holy Ghost.” I say not, ye do- but do ye yet resist His
power? I say not, it is the case-but is it the case? Is it not
very possible that some, even among you, are still rejecting
the counsel of God against yourselves? If you say you are
not, let me ask, Have you received and understood the
word of the kingdom? With what are you seeking to please
God? Honor? God does not want honor. Or wisdom? God
does not want your wisdom, nor learning, nor outward
profession, nor knowledge. ese you may have, and be
admired for the possession of; and you may have nothing
that assimilates you to God. If you know not the hidden
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life, you know nothing: the princes and wise men of this
world knew not, and so they crucied the Lord of glory.
Have you been doing this? If so, even now turn to the
Lord Jesus. Look at the testimony of Him in every passage
of His word, and you will see that it is one whole testimony
of love. It shows the work of the Lord Jesus undertaken
and accomplished for sinners, the Spirit’s witness of Him,
the Father’s love in sending Him. Till this is understood,
the testimony of God’s witnesses is spent in vain, as far as
regards those who receive it not, and threatened vengeance
awaits them.
May the Lord introduce and nourish this seed in your
souls, give you the tastes, desires, and aims of His people,
and ll you with unspeakable, everlasting blessing hereafter.
Amen.
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62505
God’s Grace and Man’s Need
Matthew 15:1-28
HERE we have the wonderful contrast between the
ways and actings of man’s heart towards God, and the ways
and actings of God’s heart towards poor guilty man. ese
two things must be brought close the one to the other, and
be shown as they rightly are. Men’s hearts were not fully
put to the test before the Lord Jesus came (John is: 22-24):
“ If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not
had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin. He that
hateth me hateth my Father also. If I had not done among
them the works which none other man did, they had not
had sin; but now have they both seen and hated both me
and my Father.” It was all fully brought out then; and what
man’s heart was was plainly proved. When he saw God, he
hated Him.
Although God was present in the midst of Israel, He
was not openly revealed. He was hid within the veil, within
which the high priest, shrouded in a cloud of incense, alone
approached His holy throne. Neither did man’s heart come
up there to see the holiness of it; nor did man come down
fully to man. It was not the full revelation of God. It was
that which could leave man in a good deal of darkness,
and God hid; and therefore that which could not clearly
detect man’s heart. Consequently He says, “ If I had not
come, they had not had sin “: not that they had not sinned;
but that the Lord would not hold them nally guilty until
He had manifested Himself in Him of whom He had
spoken to Israel. But when God was made manifest, man
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hated Him. God had before revealed a great deal, but not
Himself. He revealed much in the gures of the law, and
which foreshadowed and veiled better things; and we nd
the use man made of it. I am not here speaking of the law,
as trying man’s conscience; though, in passing, we may
notice that too, as bringing in-not sin, for that was there
already-but transgression. e use God made of it was to
prove man a sinner. It was used to make manifest-in fact,
to create-transgression.
To turn for a moment to the use man made of the
law, in contrast with God’s purpose in it: God used it,
as we have seen, that the oense might abound-that sin
might appear exceeding sinful. Man set about to make
himself righteous by the very thing by which God was
proving him a sinner, and sin exceedingly sinful. is you
are doing, if you are seeking to satisfy the demands of
God’s righteousness by your own ways. Man seeks to save
himself by the righteousness of the law; but God’s use was
not that, for He never thought of saving any but by Jesus.
When a child is forbidden by its parent, by an express law,
and breaks the law, it not only makes manifest the evil
disposition that is in its heart, but there is then positive
disobedience, and the consciousness of sin, in that which
the child does. It might have followed its inclination in
many cases before, without consciousness of sin; but now
not so: the conscience is aected and deled; and by the
law we are under condemnation and death.
To return to the gures and shadows of better things.
Man took those very ceremonies and sacrices, which were
typical of that one sacrice which sin had made necessary,
and by them, their conscience nothing satised, tried
to eke out their own righteousness; and they follow the
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same course now. We know that there were a great many
sacrices for sin under the law: for God has tried this way,
that we might know its incapacity of bringing us to Him.
To employ similar means is mere superstition, and denial
of Christ. Men rst set about to be righteous by commands
which they cannot fulll; and then they seek to add
ceremonies, to eke out a righteousness of their own. at
is the sum of the religion of so many-making an attempt
at keeping the law, and adding ceremonial observances
thereto, and then attaching the name of Christianity to it,
while all God’s truth is shut out.
Further, after all, the conscience never will be satised;
because there will be the dread of that day when God shall
make manifest the secrets of the heart. e soul is not on the
road to have a conscience at peace with God. Traveling on
this road, the man will go on from one thing to another. He
may add ceremony to ceremony, and tradition to tradition,
but he has only got farther from God-he has only got
more between God and his conscience, and no forgiveness
after all. e conscience gets satised for a moment or
two by man’s dealing with it in this way; but there is no
peace with God. When sin is brought into the presence
of God’s holiness, the conscience, if not despairing, gets
hardened. See what a state those Jews were in who could
go and buy Christ’s blood for thirty pieces of silver, and yet
have scruples of conscience as to where the price of blood
should be put-refusing to put it into the treasury, because it
was the price of blood! Anything will suit man, provided it
is not his conscience in the presence of God. Where He is
detecting the state of heart, and making it know complete
forgiveness, so that it can be in His presence without sin, it
is another thing. Nothing is more simple than this, glorious
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as is the grace that has wrought it; indeed, it is too simple
for those who are not taught of God to love the truth. But,
simple as it is, man’s conscience is thus in the presence of
God, and anything suits man rather than that.
ough God is innitely high, He is very simple to
man’s wants, and to man’s conscience. e washing the
hands is not that which signies, but that which comes
from the heart. Here we have something more simple than
all the intricacies of ceremony and tradition. God’s light
deals with realities; and God’s purpose is, by the powerful
light of His Spirit, to bring into the conscience of man all
the dierent evils of his heart. When God’s light shines in,
that evil of which the conscience before took no notice-a
vain thought or the like, that passed and was forgotten-is
now made manifest. at which comes out of the heart is
what deles a man.
God is dealing with realities. He wants nothing from
man. He is showing him what he is. He is bringing into
man’s conscience what is already in his heart. When God’s
light shines in, it detects what is in the heart, and thus
there is a manifestation to a man’s conscience of all that
comes out of his heart. at light soon teaches him the
vanity of washing his hands, and such things (v. 2-8). It
tells him that to draw near to God with his mouth, and
honor Him with his lips, while his heart is far from Him, is
all in vain. It shows him that all mere ceremonial oerings
and prayers are worse than useless. “ is people draweth
nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with
their lips, but their heart is far from me.” e light detects
the evil of man’s heart (v. 11-20): “ Not that which goeth
into the mouth, but that which cometh out of the mouth,
deleth a man. For out of the mouth proceed evil thoughts,
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murders,” etc. us God’s light comes in and shows what
comes out of the heart. Take the rst index of what is there,
when seen and expressed in the light-an idle word, perhaps
(James 3). But farther, the Lord does not say, simply, You
have done this or that, but He traces the evil to the root.
He traces the conduct or the words
of man to some source-to what? to the heart! If there are
idle and corrupt words, there is an idle and corrupt heart;
and out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
at is what man’s nature is, what he is. So that, though
men have the fairest conduct outwardly, God unmasks
what is within, and shows the vanity of all their outward
ceremonies as a means of eking out a righteousness of their
own. He regards not the mere outward conduct of man,
but measures the heart; and tracing all the evil to that,
asks, Why is this? For out of the heart of man proceed
evil thoughts (v. 19), and there He closes with man. His
purpose, in all these dealings and ways with man, is to
show him what he is before God.
en we turn to the other side of the picture, in which
God’s heart is brought out (in the case of the woman of
Canaan) (v. 21-28). is woman had not the pride of human
distinction in which the Jews gloried. She was neither a
Jewess nor a Pharisee-quite the contrary; she belonged to
a city which God had held up as a most reprobate city;
Matt. 11:21. She was a Syro-Phoenician--Canaanite--of a
race held in the Old Testament to be accursed (Gen. 5:25-
27), whence nothing of repentance could be expected. e
Lord comes into the coasts of Tire and Sidon, peopled by
the descendants of Canaan (“ cursed is Canaan “). at is
where grace ever comes. And she was one of these outcasts
in the fullest sense of the word. She had no privileges, no
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claims. Well, she recognizes Him here as the Lord, the Son
of David, and salutes Him as such. As such she knew what
mercies He had brought among the Jews; and she comes
and asks for blessing. He does not answer her a word. He
takes no notice of her whatever. His ear was closed to her
request, at least so far as that He gave her no answer. A
repentant Jew might have appealed to Him under this title.
He was in the place of the promise which Messiah came
to accomplish. “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of
the house of Israel,” v. 24. But for this there must be some
claim to the promise. If you meet Christ on the ground
of what He is as promised to Israel, you must have some
tness for the promise, some claim to it. If you are seeking
by righteousness to get the help of grace, that is not my
errand, says Christ; I am not sent but unto the lost sheep
of the house of Israel.
Why is there no answer? the heart may say; for she
had recognized His lordship. She had, and could have no
claim on or connection with Him on that ground; with the
Son of David a Canaanite had nothing to do. e disciples
were anxious to get rid of her by satisfying her demand,
but He would not allow it; He holds to God’s order. If she
came to the Son of David to get help, she must come as a
Jew. But here (v. 25) she gets a step farther, she ceases to
address Him as the Son of David (the ground on which
she supposed, giving Him the due honor, she might expect
something), and her sense of want constrains her to cry
out, “ Lord, help.”
Are there none here expecting that, because they entitle
Christ aright, because they give Him His due title, and
honor Him, He must answer them, and are astonished
that He does not? e poor woman felt her sorrow; she
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wanted something, and there was the simple expression of
her need; but, even then, He answers, “ It is not meet to
take the children’s bread, and to cast it to the dogs.” My
errand is from God; I do not go beyond that. Her owning
and addressing Him as the Son of David was in the way of
righteousness, which was true. Her need still makes her go
forward, and she says, “ Lord, help me! “ But He answers, I
am come to the children-to seek for fruit on the vine which
God owns. You might think God would own righteous,
well-conducted people, and that they might then take the
fruits and blessings God attached to that. But you have no
claim on that ground: you are sinners. As far as God’s ways
were revealed outwardly, the Jews were God’s people. But
she was outside everything-a dog. She is looked upon as a
dog, and she now takes the place of a dog. What now, being
a dog, could she hope for? Why not give up hope? Why,
because she abandons all title and claim in herself, but the
need which cast itself on pure bounty; and there was, she
asserted, an overowing abundance of grace, which could
even give some supply to the dogs: “ Truth, Lord; yet the
dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”
ere was bounty in the house of God for dogs
themselves. Be it she was a dog; she made no pretense to
take the children’s place, and therefore it was no answer to
her to call her that, because the Master could look beyond
the children, and there was an overowing supply of grace
and fullness that did not leave even the dogs without
provision (v. 27). And such was the poor woman’s real
state. She knew the Master of the house was innitely rich.
She knew God and Jesus ten thousand times better than
the disciples around. She knew that there were bounty
and plenty enough in the Master’s house, and from that
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super-abounding supply of grace He could let the dogs eat.
e vilest and the most hopeless could nd food in the
Master’s house. e real understanding of God is according
to our understanding of our total vileness and nothingness.
Israel had never understood divine love as it was here
exhibited to the dogs-fathomed by her need- fathomed
by her wretchedness. She reached up to the source from
whence even the children are fed-the fullness of the love
of God Himself, which did not shut even dogs out from
His bounty. She passed by all dispensation, even to what
God Himself had done, seeing He had come down, not
to hide His holiness, but to show what He really was;
and when the sinner was brought to a confession of her
own nothingness, He swept away everything between the
sinner and Himself, as He did with the woman of Samaria.
She had arrived at what God was. He had done away
with that which brought man a little nearer to Him, that
is, ordinances, etc.; and He now comes down to show
what He is, and what man is; and when man comes to
his true and real standing, God is there to meet him in
all His unlimited grace. Law was given by Moses, and
was but a veil; but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
e full truth of what man’s heart is is brought out by the
revelation of God in Christ. Now there was not any one
between God and man to veil His holiness or to conceal
His love; not even any oft-repeated sacrice; not even a
Moses with a veil on his face; but man must deal with God
Himself-with God in Christ. And here, you see, the Lord
would not satisfy this poor woman on any other plea but
on that of her own real character. He calls her really what
she was, and she understood that there was in God’s heart
all that the Lord Jesus Christ had seen in it when He was
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in heaven, for He was here to show it. And, supposing she
had been something more than a dog, she would not have
needed so much grace. It is our vileness which brings out
that wonderful grace which God gave. For, if she had been
in less need, what would have been the consequence? Why,
that there would have been less grace manifested in God.
And what is the great truth in Christianity that is
brought out by all this? at the veil is rent from the top
to the bottom; and that man, as he is, is in the presence of
God- the man is there unveiled. What have we got in the
cross? e rst thing is, God dealing with man in His own
presence? But how? Did He come to require anything?
Nothing; how should He come and require it? In a certain
sense He did require fruit from the vine, but there was
none. What then did He come for? why did He come into
a world full of sin? what did He seek there? He sought
sinners! Did He come here ignorant of the extent of their
sin? No, for He knew what was in man’s heart full well
before He came. He knew their sin well. He knew all that
would come upon Him. But what stops the sinner? Not
that he is to come to God- we see the Lord Jesus Christ
come down to him in his sins. Is there anything between
Him and the sinner? No, my friends-nothing; not even His
disciples. ey might quiet and get rid of importunity, but
neither show God’s holiness nor reveal His love. It was the
prerogative of His own love to come and touch the sinner
without being deled by the sin: just as He did to the leper.
e leper exclaimed, “ If thou wilt, thou canst make me
clean.” e Lord puts forth His hand and touches Him,
saying, “ I will; be thou clean.” And remember, if He came
to show God’s love to man in his sins, so that his heart
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might be won, and have condence with God, He came to
take away sin from man by taking it upon Himself.
e veil of the temple being rent from top to bottom,
I see the holiness of God: but the very stroke which has
thus unveiled the holiness of God has put away the sin
that would have hindered my standing in the presence of
that holiness. I see what God in His love has done for us
in the Person of Christ. I see that the bruising of His Son
has taken place. Here I get God Himself coming down to
me, and I am enabled now to go back with Christ into the
rest of His holiness. In the death of Christ I see the fearful
vengeance of God against sin; and the rending of the veil,
which displays God’s holiness and love to man. And so
the more the eye of God scrutinizes and searches me, the
more it brings out the blessed truth, that the blood of Jesus
Christ cleanses from all sin. It shows the whiteness of the
robe that has been washed in the blood of the Lamb.
If I hesitate to stand in His presence, I am putting in
question the value of Christ’s precious blood. You may say,
I hope to be saved. You cannot hope that Christ will die
for you! It cannot be a matter of hope whether Christ is to
die! e way the heart reasons is, I am not hoping Christ
will die for me, but I hope to get an interest in Him; I want
a proof of His love. When you question this, you question
whether Christ has become the friend of publicans and
sinners; and, further, you question the power of His blood.
Suppose you had a title to demand some proof of His
love, what could you demand more than what God has
given? He has given His own Son. You could not ask so
much as He has already given. But if I am seeking that
God should tell me something else, I am seeking some
other revelation than what He has given me. He rests my
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peace on believing the one He has given. e soul that has
come to God knows that He is love, and it is to Himself
we are come.
e very way in which I know God is through faith in
His Son. I know His own love, that He thought of this,
and did it for me. Why is it the soul does not get this
wondrous simple peace, to be in His own presence without
a cloud on His love? Because we are telling to God, and to
our poor hearts, something short of this-that we are dogs.
Grace is to the sinner, and to none other. If I can stand
before God in my own righteousness, grace is not needed.
He will bring down your hearts to your real contrition.
ere He can act in the fullness of His grace, according
to the need of the heart that has discovered its need in
His presence. He is manifesting that grace according to
the value of the sacrice, now that He is at the right hand
of God. Not merely now that God can come to the sinner,
but the cleansed sinner stands accepted in the presence
of God-accepted in the Person of Jesus; and that nothing
stands between us and God. e Lord give us only to own
the fullness of His grace, and see the way in which we are
debtors to Him, who was willing to suer all things that
He might present us spotless to God. Amen.
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62517
e Marriage Supper of the
King’s Son
Matt. 21:23 to Chap. 22:14
IF all things were not entirely, out of course, every
principle of human nature astray from God, there would be
no need for all the painstaking on the part of God of which
we read in these chapters (and that after all with such
strange results), no need of these, in one sense, sorrowful
and assiduous, eorts to call people back unto Himself. We
might have° supposed, as we sometimes see in the case of
a self-willed child, that the moment the father’s voice of
love and entreaty was heard, instant obedience would be
produced, because a sense of relationship was there. But
no; these constant eorts, this “ changing of the voice “ (as
Paul has it), serve but to show that all sense of relationship
between man and God is gone. at voice touches no spring,
there is not a chord upon which He can act-the echo of the
heart is gone. Where there is the appearance of an answer,
it is but hypocrisy. I am not saying that God cannot change
the heart, but that there is entire alienation of the heart
from God. e Lord in these chapters goes through these
various eorts and their result in a very full and distinct
manner indeed, both as regards the responsibility of man
and the actings of His own grace; and He does it in the
simplest way by appealing to man’s conscience just as he is.
We read, “ And when he was come into the temple,
the chief priests and the elders of the people came unto
him as he was teaching, and said, By what authority doest
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thou these things? and who gave thee this authority? “ (v.
23). God comes into the world to do good, and man asks
by what authority God does good in the world! Jesus had
been showing His power previously (v. 12-14), but now
He was quietly teaching in the temple. ey were vexed
to see the veil of hypocrisy drawn aside, and the nger of
God put forth in the cleansing of the temple from these
things by means of which they had made it a house of
merchandise, and therefore they ask Him this question.
e Lord appeals to no miracle-He has done plenty, but
He appeals not to miracles. “ Jesus answered and said unto
them, I also will ask you one thing, which if ye tell me,
I in like wise will tell you by what authority I do these
things. e baptism of John, whence was it; from heaven
or of men? And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If
we shall say, From heaven; he will say unto us, Why did ye
not then believe him? [for John bore testimony to Jesus].
But if we shall say, Of men; we fear the people: for all hold
John as a prophet “ (v. 24-26). at is, He at once, by means
of the question which in divine wisdom He puts to them
in reply, brings out the real state of their conscience. “ And
they answered Jesus, and said, We cannot tell. And he said
unto them, Neither tell I you by what authority I do these
things “ (v. 27).
us, at the very outset, He puts this great truth before
all, that the conscience of man is bad in not submitting to
the righteousness of God. And that is the case always. Man
cannot deny that things come from heaven, but he will not
believe. If pressed to the utmost (look at the extreme case
of indelity), men love darkness rather than light, just as it
is said, “ Even as they did not like to retain God in their
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knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind,” etc.
(Rom. 1).
Having laid down this in direct application to their own
conscience, He could now tell them that which follows,
“ But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and
he came to the rst, and said, Son, go work to-day in my
vineyard. He answered and said, I will not; but afterward
he repented and went. And he came to the second, and said
likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not.
Whether of them twain did the will of his father? ey
say unto him, e rst. Jesus said unto them, Verily I say
unto you, at the publicans and the harlots go into the
kingdom of God before you. For John came unto you in
the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the
publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye
had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe
him “ (v. 28-32).
In this rst parable the Lord puts a case according to the
dierence there is between formal righteousness and the
repentant sinner; between the person who goes through
the world decently, desiring to make a fair appearance,
and the one who, acting against all the dictates of natural
conscience, sins willfully, and then repents.
In the second son we have that which is descriptive of
the general character of decent ‘ people. ey go on quietly
and in outward order, professing to own the will of God,
and to serve God; they say, “ I go, sir,” but after all, from
morning to night, and from night to morning, they are
occupied in doing their own will and nothing else.
In the other son there was the positive delight in doing
his own will (just, alas! the description of the wilfulness
of the human heart: he said, “ I will not “), delight in
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breaking through all righteousness as it regarded the
relationship between himself and his father, but withal
the consciousness of this, and the owning afterward that
it had been broken through (not merely that he had done
a wrong thing, but that he had disobeyed the father), and
repentance on account of it.
ere was no regard in the self-righteous Jew, with
all his profession, for the righteousness of God; but the
publicans and the harlots believed John. Now there was
no regard in the former for the ordinances of God; in the
latter there was no regard for the common decencies of life,
but when they heard the ministry of John, who came in the
way of righteousness, they repented; and this repentance,
touching the root of all sin, referred itself, not merely to
acts of sin, but towards the Person sinned against. e one
decently owned God, and left it there. e others indecently
and outrageously sinned against God, but “ repented, and
went.” ey recognized not merely certain particular faults,
sins in conduct, but sin against God, that they had failed in
rendering that which was due to God. We see then that the
only repentance which God owns is that in which there
is the recognition of sin, and the recognition of Himself
as the One against whom we have sinned. e state that
the publicans and harlots were in brought them to this
certainty, that if God spoke, they had nothing to say for
themselves, there was nothing which they could do, except
indeed to put their hand, as Job says, upon their mouth,
and say, “ I am vile.” And this they did, whilst the scribes
and Pharisees remained as insensible as possible, not only
to God’s word, but also to the full operation of God’s grace;
they were as insensible to it as if there had been no such
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thing. is is the rst part, the rst case of God’s dealings
with man, brought before us by our Lord here.
We next get certain dealings on the ground of
responsibility, then dealings on the ground of grace: the
one in the latter part of chapter 21, the other in the early
part of chapter 22. First, as to responsibility the Lord says,
“ Hear another parable: ere was a certain householder,
which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and
digged a wine-press in it, and built a tower, and let it out
to husbandmen, and went into a far country: and when
the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the
husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it “ (v. 33,
34). It is quite clear that this applies to the Jewish people in
the rst place; yet as to the general principle of the parable
it is true of all who have heard the name of Christ and
have refused to believe in Him. It is not merely a case of
relationship, as between a son and a father (that we have
seen before), but it contains an appeal to the conscience
of persons on the ground of certain things God has done.
It was God that had planted the vineyard, hedged it
round about, digged the winepress in it, built the tower,
let it out to husbandmen. He had put this vineyard into
the hands of certain persons, and having done much for
it (everything that He had done for the Jews, as we see in
Isa. 5:2, almost in the same words), He naturally looked
that it should bring forth grapes to Him. So it is, as to
the general principle, in Christianity. It is not a question
of natural conscience merely; God had let something out
to husbandmen. is was a new thing. He did not leave
men to the light of their natural conscience. He had taken
the greatest possible pains with them, done everything,
so that He says, “ What could have been done more to
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my vineyard, that I have not done in it? and then, putting
them on the ground of responsibility, He comes looking
for fruit. We shall see just now that God has abandoned
this ground. He produces fruit, but He has abandoned the
ground of seeking for fruit.
God had done everything possible for the Jewish people
as His vineyard, and then the thing that He naturally looked
for from them was that they should bring forth grapes. He
sent the prophets rst (the way the prophets are looked at
here is, that they were seeking fruit), “ and the husbandmen
took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and
stoned another. Again, he sent other servants more than
the rst: and they did unto them likewise. But last of all
he sent unto them his son, saying, ey will reverence my
son,” v. 35, 37. We nd Christ Himself taking them up
upon this ground. He came (though not as to ultimate
result or purpose) to seek for fruit in His vineyard (it is not
a question of grace), and having come to seek fruit, they
say, We will get rid of this Son. “ When the husbandmen
saw the son, they said among themselves, is is the heir;
come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance.
And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard,
and slew him,” v. 38, 39. e end of responsibility, and of all
this patient dealing of God with the Jewish people on that
ground was, that they were glad of the occasion to kill the
Heir, in order that they might seize upon the inheritance. “
When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will
he do unto those husbandmen? ey say unto him, he will
miserably destroy those wicked men,” etc. (v. 40, 41).
Here then again we mark this great principle, that in
whatever way God looks for a response from man He nds
none. ere is such a thing as God’s looking for fruit from
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that which He has planted and nurtured in the world, but
there is no fruit to be had from man towards God. e
husbandmen’s will was entirely against it. ey did not
recognize the authority of God in His vineyard: they liked
to have it for themselves. e will was entirely and absolutely
wrong. e truth was, the husbandmen were opposed to
the planter of the vineyard, and therefore the relationship
was not owned, etc. e eect of the ordinances God had
given was only that of bringing out the enmity and hatred
of those to whom He had entrusted His vineyard. e Lord
ends this part of man’s history with the question of seeking
fruit and nding none. He places man in a certain religious
position, giving him many external advantages, and looks
consequently for fruit.
Now, beloved friends, there are many hearts looking at
that as their position: the ground they are dealing upon with
God is that of seeking to return fruit. ey feel that God
has given them certain spiritual advantages, opportunities
of hearing, and the like, and that therefore they ought to
return fruit to Him. And so they ought. But then, although
such are not in a condition of soul answerable to that of the
husbandmen who killed the heir, they have mistaken, and
that altogether, the ground on which God is dealing. And
it does not stop here, for the soul may even deal with Christ
Himself as with one who is seeking fruit, just as much as
with the law and the prophets. It sees in the perfectness of
Christ a claim, in the love of God a claim. It thinks that
if God has so loved as to give His Son, if Christ has so
loved as to shed His blood, there must be this claim of fruit
from it to God. Most truly there is, in one sense, but claim
does not produce fruit. Surely there must be fruit found in
every believer; but if we stand before God on the ground
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of having to meet His claim, it is all over with us. It is a
very dierent thing whether there is the claim of fruit, or
whether fruit is produced through the work of the Spirit
on the soul.
And further I would say, that where there is honesty and
sincerity of heart, and the conscience is touched with the
testimony to the love of God, seeing the innite greatness
of that love as manifested in the Son of God having come
down from heaven to die upon the cross, in the way of
claim the only eect is to make it say, Well, it is all over
with me if there is no return! And so it is all over with it on
that ground. I repeat, the soul sees the love, but it sees also
the innite claim that that love has upon it, and therefore
that all is over with it, and it feels no hope. All this is upon
the ground that God is claiming fruit. ere is the sense of
God’s amazing love in giving His Son to death for sinners;
the soul sees His graciousness in this, and feels that it
ought, in return for this love, to produce the fruit that God
is looking for, but that it does not; consequently all this
exercise of soul ends in nothing but the sense of deserved
condemnation and judgment. Claim on a person always
results in judgment to that person, if he is unable to meet it.
If God is dealing with us in the way of claim against us, the
result of that is to bring us in guilty in not having answered
at all to the claim which God has against us. We have made
of the love of God in Christ a severer and more terrible law
than that given by Moses, when the soul puts itself under
claim to that love; and therefore we feel condemned and
get into despondency. e Lord has tried man by the law,
and it has ended in nothing but judgment. e more you
elevate the claim of God, the more you elevate your own
condemnation. If you put the love of God in the place of
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law, the greater the love that has been manifested, the more
guilty are you in rejecting the claims of that love.
In the beginning of the next chapter the whole thing is
changed. It is not claim at all: God is presented as dealing
on dierent ground altogether. “ And Jesus answered
and spake unto them again by parables, and said, e
kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made
a marriage for his son, and sent forth his servants to call
them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would
not come,” v. 1-3. True, they would not come; but it is not
at all the presenting of certain claims on the conscience of
men. It is something the king is doing and inviting to. He
tells them that he is going to glorify his son, and therefore
that he must have around the marriage-table of his son all
that which would make the marriage glorious and blessed-
what is suited to the glory of that son. It is all grace. How
clear that everything in a case like this comes from the
person who makes the feast. ere could be evidently no
such thought as that of the guests invited having to provide
the entertainment. Why, it would be an insult to the king.
ere can be consequently no thought of claim here, or
of the allowance even of the guests bringing anything
towards the feast, neither the thought of a suitable return
on the part of those invited. Everything is done on the part
of him that invites; and, I repeat, all such other thoughts
would be a positive insult.
is parable then brings before us, not the question of
God’s dealing with the natural conscience of man, neither
that of the owner of the vineyard looking for and not
receiving fruit (the Lord has closed that altogether with
the last chapter), but that of the king acting according to
the riches of his own house in order to glorify his son.
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is was the very thought of the king in preparing the
supper. Was it merely that he was going to make certain
people comfortable? No; it was about his son. And in order
to glorify that son he must have full blessing at the table-
what shall I say? happy faces around it, hearts without one
care, without any shade of anxiety upon them, free from
every suspicion of his love. e “marriage” of his son must
be honored in having all these things accompanying it.
e application of the parable is as simple as possible:
and that is the ground on which God is dealing in the
gospel, and not as claiming fruit. I do not say He does not
produce fruit, but it is not a ground of claim in any shape.
Man has failed altogether, not only in not producing fruit,
but also in not owning the claim which God has upon
him; and if he does own the claim, he gets into despair on
account of it. I have put that case. But now all this is over,
entirely over, and God is set forth as glorifying Himself in
having others made happy around His Son.
If I speak one word, or have a thought about claim, in
connection with the ground of my standing in the presence
of God (though I admit the principle most fully), it destroys
the
whole ground upon which God is acting in the fullness
of His grace. It is quite clear that one who had allowed for
a moment the thought of having to provide his share of the
feast could have no real sense of the honor of the person
who invited him to the feast (the man who had brought it
would have been kept at the door); there would have been
the entire undervaluing both of him who had made the
supper, and of the supper.
And it is also true, moreover, that if a guest who had
been invited by the king were a rich man, and sought to
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come in in costly raiment of his own providing, or, on the
other hand, a poor man, who attempted to wear his ragged
garments, it would in either case have been an insult to the
king, a despising both of the “robe” provided and of the
thing invited to. He who invites to the wedding is the only
one who can provide the guests with a garment suited to
the occasion. All is entirely set aside, both as to the thought
of our capacity (because of anything we are in ourselves),
to come in, and as to the fear of our state shutting us out.
Our blessing depends on one single thing, the suciency
and the grace of him who invites.
“ Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them
which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my
oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come
unto the marriage. But they made light of it, and went their
ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise: and the
remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully,
and slew them. But when the king heard thereof, he was
wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those
murderers, and burned up their city,” v. 4-7. Here again we
get a notice of the manner of God’s patience, and also an
evidence of what the heart of man is. Just as the Lord had
taken them up (the Jews) before on the ground of God’s
claim to fruit through the ministry of the prophets, and by
His Son, so now He takes them up on this other ground
of the invitation to the “ marriage supper,” “.and they made
light of it.”
“ All things are ready “ (that is, there is nothing more to
be done); this was specially the message when the apostles
went out after the crucixion. e feast was ready. e
principle of man’s heart is seen, not only in despising the
claim, but in slighting the grace of God, and in killing His
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witnesses. e carelessness that would make a sinner despise
the king’s grace is exactly the same thing in principle that
would make him kill the Son. “ ey went their own way,”
both in one case and in the other.
But then we have this blessed truth: God did not give up
one particle of the fullness of His love, or of the blessedness
of His purpose as regards His Son. He is dealing upon this
ground, I must have people around me, and blessed there;
I must have the “ marriage “ of my Son honorable. Yes;
God, so to speak, must have His house lled. “ en saith
he to his servants, e wedding is ready, but they which
were bidden were not worthy. Go ye therefore into the
highways, and as many as ye shall nd, bid to the marriage.
So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered
together all, as many as they found, both bad and good: and
the wedding was furnished with guests,” v. 8-10. Now there
is the present going forth of the gospel into the world-the
great character of the gospel.
e rst principle is the full out-owing of grace, the
activity of God’s love going out into the world and bringing
in to partake of the blessings which Himself has provided.
His love goes out in simple grace to nd “ good and bad,”
as it is said, to partake of the goodness of His house. at
is the principle God is acting on in the gospel. It is quite
clear that He provides everything. He is not claiming fruit
but providing blessing.
“ And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw
there a man which had not on a wedding garment: and
he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither, not
having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. en
said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and
take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there
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shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” v. 11-13. Here
we nd a sad fact: not the principle of God’s dealing, but
a fact. One case is sucient to show the principle. e “
wedding garment “ was there, the provision for the guests’
blessing made by the King. He takes notice of all present,
and Christ was not possessed by this individual. e only
eect of his being there was to make it more distinct than
ever, to prove the more, that he had nothing to do with the
“ wedding,” for he had not on the “ wedding garment.” He
might have had the most splendid garment; but whether
his raiment was splendid and costly, or the vilest rags in the
country, those of the poorest beggar, it mattered not-it was
not the “ wedding garment.”
If our souls are not in the spirit of the “ wedding for his
Son,” there is a clear proof that our hearts have not entered
into that which God is doing. ere is the principle of
the whole matter in the question, “ How camest thou in
hither, not having a wedding garment? “ He has given up
the ground of claim in dealing with us; He is asking for
nothing; and more than that, He will receive nothing from
us. We cannot pretend to go and carry Him anything; if we
do, we insult Him.
Have our souls entered, beloved friends, into God’s great
thought? He is thinking about His Son; His heart is set on
glorifying His Son, and that by the joy of those who are
brought in to the “ wedding.” A soul not in the spirit of the
“ wedding,” the nearer it might be to the Son, the more in
company of those seated at the table, the more manifestly
would it be seen that it had nothing to do with being there.
Were the guests at this table merely for the purpose of
feasting? Surely not. ey were there for the wedding of
the Son, and to. do Him honor. Unless our thoughts and
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spirits are clothed with Christ, the nearer we be, the more
evident would it appear that we have nothing to do with
that feast. To be there, and present at the table, we must
be able to enter into the one thought that is governing (so
to speak) God Himself in all His counsels; and this is the
glory of His own blessed Son.
In going to a wedding, the man who only thought of the
feast would not have entered into the spirit of the thing; and
the man who took something towards the entertainment
would but insult the maker of the feast: nobody wanted
anything of him. e eect of understanding rightly
that God is glorifying His Son Jesus is to make us put
aside every thought but that. Let us be the most vile and
wretched sinners in ourselves (as Paul says, “ of whom I am
chief “), all anxiety will be taken from our hearts, everything
of uneasiness, and uncertainty, because the invitation is
there. And it is God that provides for all in the house “
the wedding garment,” a robe suited to His own presence.
Supposing the king’s invitation had come to some poor
man clothed in rags, should he have said, Oh! that cannot
be for me; I am a poor man! at was the king’s aair; or,
I cannot enter the king’s palace as I am; my garments are
not t for his presence! no matter. at, I say, was the king’s
aair, and it was the king who had invited him. He would
go on the king’s invitation the moment he believed it; for
the only thing that was necessary to t him for a seat at
the marriage table was that which the king himself had
provided, and he would count on the -king for it.
Beloved friends, that is all we have to do. “ ey which
were bidden were not worthy “; but the house must be lled.
Surely we shall daily learn more of the blessings connected
with the King’s house, and we shall count it blessed to be
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there; but the whole aair is, God is glorifying His Son
Jesus, and we have nothing to do but to rejoice in His grace.
It is He who has thought of the “ wedding “ for His Son,
who has thought also of the dress of the guests (providing
everything needful to t the guests for their presence at it);
and we have nothing to do but to have done with ourselves,
and to think of the worthiness of Him who has invited us.
Our title to be at the feast is the invitation of Him that is
glorifying His grace in the “ marriage “ for His Son. What
an unworthy feeling for one instant to call this in question!
He gave His Son; He sent His Son into the place of our
sin and misery to bear that wrath upon the cross which was
due to us; He has raised Him again from the dead. What
do you fear? Are you hesitating about your own worthiness,
saying, Oh, but my state of soul is not such as bets one
who is called to the marriage supper of the King’s Son! No
matter, in that sense, what the state of your own soul is; “
they gathered together all as many as they found, both bad
and good.” No matter, if invited by the King, whether the
invitation meets you in the “ highways “ as a beggar, or as
a prince, so to speak. What is it you are doubting about?
Has God made a mistake in inviting you? Surely you are
not worthy to be before the King; but He has called you
without expecting to nd any worthiness in you; He knew
what your unworthiness of heart was before He called you.
He is calling sinners by a love that has been proved
stronger than death. e Son of God went down into the
dust of death for sinners, the Son of God went down under
the power of Satan (though He could not be holden of it)
for sinners, the Son of God went down under the power of
the wrath of God for sinners. What more could have been
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done? Christ is risen again, and is alive at the right hand
of God. “ All things are ready; come unto the marriage! “
God invites on the ground of what has been done, and
not on that of anything yet to be done. e only question
we have to ask ourselves is, whether or not our hearts have
submitted to His righteousness. Surely what He gives is
that which produces fruit. When at the “ marriage supper,”
the King desires that cares and sins and anxieties should
be all forgotten; He will have around His Son happy faces,
hearts free from distrust and free from doubt. Everything
can be forgotten, save that we are there. If you see this,
beloved friends, I do ask you, Are your souls happy? Do
your faces shine with gladness now, as those who know
that their place is to sit around that table?
God’s heart is set upon the glory of Christ in connection
with the joy and blessing of those whose hearts have
submitted to His righteousness, and He has provided for
it. If your hearts are occupied with the glory of Christ, you
will not be thinking in one sense of what you are, or of
what you were; your thoughts will dwell upon the blessings
into which you are brought through grace, of which Christ
is the source and the center in the presence of God.
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e Ten Virgins
Matt. 25:3
THERE are just two classes of characters which we
meet with in the world: rst, those who have never heard
the way of truth and salvation, and in consequence are not
manifestly interested in it; and, secondly, those who have
heard and professed to receive it. But the principles of the
latter individually are very dierent.
e general character of the one part is summed up
in the charge brought from scripture-” they profess that
they know God, while in works they deny him “; while
the others are really and in truth waiting for His Son from
heaven and the kingdom of God. is is what they desire
visibly to behold, as is declared in John 3:3, “Except a man
be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God “; and to
be brought into it-as in verse 5, “ Except a man be born of
water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom
of God.” e perception therefore of this kingdom, and the
entrance therein, arise manifestly from their being “born
again.”
Many are inclined to look upon the new birth, which is
here referred to, as a change of views, desires, and sentiments
only. It is a change, if indeed that can be called a change
which is an entirely new creation; as it is written, “created
anew in Christ Jesus”; it is a “translation”--”hath translated
us into the kingdom of his dear Son”--a transferring,
a putting into a dierent position, which the Gospel of
Matthew strikingly brings before us.
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e Lord Jesus is represented in dierent points of view
by all the evangelists; and the reason the Holy Ghost has
been thus pleased to exhibit Him is for the manifestation
and furtherance of the Savior’s glory; for He lls up every
blessing-all the greatness, wisdom, love, and power of the
eternal Godhead are unfolded in Him. In Him dwells all
blessedness, and from Him it is communicated; and the
believer, who has found and known Him, nds Him to
be such; his delight is in setting his mind on Christ; he
feels and rejoices in his identication with Him in all
things, and in his oneness with Him. Christ is his center of
attraction, and he is revolving round Him as the object of
supreme delight.
Now the Gospel of John presents Christ to our view as
the Son, and delineates all His oces and works as such,
having authority, and exercising it as the Son. Luke displays
Him as the last Adam-the Lord from heaven-tracing His
genealogy, not downwards as Matthew, but ascending to
the great original thus, “ which was the son of Adam, which
was the son of God,” going about doing good continually
and accomplishing all righteousness. And in Matthew
we have Him exhibited as the Messiah, the object of the
prophecies, the substance of the shadows and types of the
Jewish ritual: and as He was the looked-for seed, typied
of old, and promised to Abraham and David as their seed,
so we have in this Gospel His descent from Abraham
and David according to the esh. But the mention of the
kingdom of heaven is peculiar to this evangelist. In chapter
13 we have it much noticed: “ To you it is given,” said Jesus,
speaking to His disciples, “ to know the mysteries of the
kingdom of heaven.”
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Now the disciples, in common with the whole Jewish
nation, fully expected an earthly kingdom; but, as they
had entirely overlooked those prophecies which foretold
Christ’s coming in humiliation, they were bewildered; and
therefore this subject with which the Lord engrossed their
minds just met their necessities; showing them how the
kingdom in mystery would be set up during the absence of
their rejected Lord.
Now the period of the kingdom here referred to must
be looked upon as the time of the development of the
purposes of God, from His rejection by the world in the
Person of His Son, to Christ’s coming again in glory, when
the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of
their Father-a kingdom into which they are admitted, and
none else. And this shows us the complete, entire disunion
and dissociation of the children of God with the world.
What is the position of the world as it now stands? What
is its natural positive position? It is in a state, not merely of
hostility against God-not merely in its standing chargeable
with alienation from all holiness, of open rebellion and
outrage -but in a state of absolute exclusion from the
presence of God, absolutely and denitely excluded from
God’s presence.
e word of God says, “ He drove out the man.” He had
lost his innocence and purity, and was no longer t to live
in an innocent world. A plain precept had been given, and
willfully, in deance of God, broken. e matter of fact as
to eating the fruit was simple, but involved momentous
consequences. Even the fact of its abstract littleness
heightened the culpability of the oense; the action, looked
at in itself, was trivial, and yet it was the extent of every
possible indignity which, under existing circumstances,
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could be oered to the majesty of heaven. e less the
motive and inducement to sin, the greater is the guilt of it.
Such however was man’s depravity; and the world, as we
now see it, is the result of such sin. Man sinned, and God
drove out the man, because in his then state he could not
dwell in His presence; “ and he placed at the east of the
garden cherubim, and a aming sword which turned every
way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”
In this excluded state is the world with which we are
conversant-full of toil, sorrow, sin, and misery. But the evil
was not of God, it did not originate in Him-this was not
God’s doing. But after this delinquency and exclusion was
there no reaction-no return to purity? No!-the world was
never again to be an innocent world; what had once become
radically guilty could never again become radically pure;
the very source of innocence, being once deled, could not
by any possibility become again holy. Innocence, once lost,
is lost forever. Man could do nothing. God would indeed
come to put away sin; but how? By the sacrice of His own
dear Son, bringing in a new dispensation of unbounded
mercy, and setting up a kingdom, and gathering out of the
world the subjects of this new dispensation.
e world had sinned, but was not left there. God
manifested Himself, and made known His purposes;
rst, to Adam, when He called him-” Where art thou? “
and brought his sin before him; then in the calling out of
the world, and preserving Noah, the type of the church,
after the ood; His calling of Abraham and the Jewish
nation, giving laws, and exhibiting Himself in types and
ceremonies as the object of the believer’s faith. At length,
when all these displays of superlative love had but more
glaringly manifested the total enmity of man’s mind, the
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Lord sent His Son: “ I will send my beloved Son; it may be
they will reverence him.”
In this stage of the world we behold man, as it were,
in a fresh position of more determined enmity and
ercer malignity, in league with Satan, and full of deadly
animosity. e world’s feeling now is, “ is is the heir;
come, let us kill him.” And when was this foul principle
exhibited? When the Lord comes in sympathetic mercy
to meet the wants and bear away the sins of His people. It
was then they declared they would not have Him. When
He comes to reconcile, and to display the tenderness of His
sympathetic love, then nothing would do but they must
get rid of God. When He comes into the very midst of the
suerings and woes of a world lying in wickedness, they
refuse to have Him. He was God, and therefore (as far as
man could do it) they turned Him out of the world.
Now in this last act of man we do not see simply
rebellion, or even deance, but absolute rejection of God.
ey used the opportunity of His humiliation to heap
indignity and scorn upon Him; and at length, as far as they
were concerned, drove Him out of the world in which we
are now dwelling. “ We will not have this man to reign over
use “ is practically its determination.
Now believers are associated, in thought, feeling,
aection, and interest, with Him who is the object of the
world’s determined enmity; they are subjects of another
kingdom and another King; the King whom the world will
not have to reign over them is the King they own and serve.
ey see that the world which surrounds them is a judged
world; that it has been convicted of rejecting all right and
truth; as our Lord Himself says, “ Now is the judgment
of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast
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out.” e judgment was passed when Christ exclaimed, “It
is nished “; in the very act of His crucixion was their
judgment sealed. e most determined and inveterate
enmity of man against God was at its height on the cross
of Christ; man’s malice could go no farther, and God’s
love was there also manifested in the highest degree. Sin
abounded, but love much more abounded; the very act
which exhibited enmity of the deepest dye on man’s part
opened the highest love on God’s. Here they met, as it were,
in a center-at a point, each drawn to the greatest possible
extent; and here love obtained the victory, triumphed over
sin, and brought in everlasting righteousness.
And this judgment of the world is known to all believers;
yea, the Holy Ghost Himself convinces them of it. “When
the Comforter is come, he shall reprove [or convince]
the world of sin,” said Christ;” of righteousness, and of
judgment … because the prince of this world is judged.”
So that they are convinced they lived in a judged world, a
world found guilty of, and condemned for, rejecting God,
but on which sentence has not as yet been executed. It is
now just in the position between sentence having been
passed and the nal execution.
In the very act which thus displays man’s rage the
believer sees also his own perfect acceptance; that God,
in whom he delights, and in whom he rests, has risen in
mercy above man’s depravity and triumphed in love over
the bitterest hatred. e summit of malevolence the most
abominable, when the Savior’s side was pierced, was met
by a tide of blood and of water, to sanctify and to purify
the unclean: this is the glory, the blessedness, of the child
of God.
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But from the parable before us of the ten virgins we
necessarily perceive that there are those who, though
associated with the people of God in profession and
outwardly appearing to belong to them, are not in reality
alive to God. ey appear to be looking for His coming,
but they are not longing to behold Him or to go in
with Him to the marriage. It is not the earnest desire
of their hearts to behold Him as He is; their souls have
not gone forth, crying, Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.
ey more resemble those servants who exclaimed, “ My
Lord delayeth his coming,” and then followed on in their
own pleasure. But they know not the delight, the joy, the
heavenly happiness of waiting in longing expectation to
see His face, and dwell with Him forever!
But we have in this account of the ten virgins an evidence
of the extent to which even outward profession may go.
ough there were but ve wise, yet they all went forth to
meet the bridegroom-yes, ostensibly for the same purpose,
they all “ went forth.” ey were alike in companionship;
they had all the lamps of profession. In what then did
they dier? In this: they had not just the one thing, the
only thing, that tted them to receive the bridegroom.
ey were without the light wherewith to usher in the
Lord; they wanted the very thing which alone could make
them suitable companions for the Master; namely, the
participation of the divine nature, the impartation of light,
the indwelling of God the Holy Ghost. ey wanted the
xedness of the aections wrought in the soul by the oil of
gladness, the unction of the Spirit, which lled the souls of
the wise virgins, and which waited but for the appearance
of the bridegroom to emanate in a ame of glory. is was
what they wanted; this is what the believer has; and this it
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is that makes the mighty dierence between him and the
world.
“ At midnight the cry came “: the heavenly virgins arose.
ough conscious of much weakness in themselves, they
rise at the cry of their beloved; for there is that in them
which answers to the cry. e foolish virgins trimmed
their lamps; but their lamps failed to burn! And is there
no remedy then? None! According to the Savior’s awful
declaration: “ He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and
he which is lthy, let him be lthy still.”
Here nishes the total distinction between the tares
and the wheat. Now it is openly seen that their objects,
hopes, and associations were totally dierent-opposite and
irreconcilable. One is of the world, the other of God; one
is quickened by Christ, the other is reserved to be burned.
“ Bind the tares in bundles, and burn them; but gather the
wheat into my garner.”
And why are the wheat still spared, but as witnesses of
the grace of our Lord; to display to the world the image of
Him, whose they are, and whom they serve; to manifest
the inseparable union existing between them and their
glorious Head, as He said Himself, “ that the world may
know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou
hast loved me “?
And are you, believers, thus distinguished in the midst
of a world judged guilty of the crime of rejecting the
Lord of glory, and turning Him out of the world? You are
walking in a condemned world, on which sentence has
been passed, but the execution of it is still averted, until
the last of Christ’s saints is gathered into the garner. Are
you conscious of this, and yet are you, can you, be living
in association of pursuits, feelings, desires, or appearance
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with them? e believer’s delight is the Lord’s glory.
Where is the Lord’s glory-in an association in any way
with His enemies? No. e saint that looks with delight to
his Lord’s coming is one with Him in feeling and desire-
the Lord’s will is his. Now do you contemplate the time
when He will come to receive you to Himself and when
subsequently all that oends Him shall be swept away, and
His own shall reign with Him? Can you contemplate with
delight that period, when all that oppose the truth of God,
everything that you now behold belonging to the world,
shall be destroyed by the brightness of His coming, shall
be consumed by the breath of His mouth? All things that
oend shall no longer dwell there.
is is the saint’s whole delight; this is what he is
looking and longing for, and hastening unto, namely, the
coming of the Lord. Is this your personal desire? Is this your
habitual experience? en are you crying, Tarry not; come,
Lord Jesus: even so, Amen? en are you aiming at greater
meetness for your heavenly Master and Bridegroom? and
are you trimming your lamps to have them in readiness to
meet and light your Lord when He shall appear?
Let this be your desire, your joy, your delight: that you
may be found watching and waiting to go in unto the
marriage supper of the Lamb.
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62504
Two Warnings and an
Example
WE have here an example in the case of Jesus, and two
warnings in Peter and in Judas. In Peter we may learn the
weakness, and in Judas the dreadful wickedness, of the
esh. We get in Jesus what we should aim after. In Judas we
see the mere professor, in Peter the saint sifted. All three
are before us in a time of searching trial, and the result
of trial is seen in each. We ought to remember that we
have received the Holy Ghost, which Peter had not when
he denied the Lord; yet, having the Holy Ghost, we may
still learn a lesson from Peter’s esh. And is not the entire
worthlessness of the esh among the last things we learn?
In Peter we see what the esh is. ere is no real living
upon the hope of the glory, except in measure as the esh
is mortied and brought under subjection.
I would dwell, rst, upon Judas’s apostasy. He had all
the appearance to men of being as the other disciples; he
had companied with the Lord, he had been one of those
sent forth to preach the gospel and work miracles; but his
conscience never was before God. He might have truth in
his understanding (and, indeed, the understanding does
not generally receive truth so readily where the conscience
is aected). Again, Judas could not have walked three years
with Jesus, and seen His grace and love, and not have had
his aections moved. But then his conscience had never
been brought into exercise before God. So it is with many.
If we watch the saint receiving truth, we shall often nd
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him slow of apprehension. ere is something to be judged
before God; something which condemns him, and which
involves sacrice. For instance, we see most clearly that the
precious blood cleanses from all sin; but only let us commit
sin-and how slowly do we apprehend that blessed truth so
as to get the comfort of it! In the latter case the conscience
is at work. In like manner the aections of the unconverted
may be moved -a great company of women followed
Christ at the crucixion, bewailing and lamenting Him!
So we read of “ anon with joy “ receiving, and “ by and by “
[or anon, for it is the same word], when tribulation arises,
turning away.
e natural man wants something to satisfy self before
God; and, until he has done with himself, he will be looking
for a certain measure of righteousness before God. He may
have been, in connection with this want, instructed in the
gospel, and thus the understanding may be clear, and the
aections moved: but, unless the conscience be bare before
God, there is no life. Here was Judas betraying his Master!
After all, what was this? Nothing more, at the bottom, than
what was in every heart. Judas loved money-no uncommon
lust. And the love of money in a saint nowadays is as bad,
or worse, as being done more in the light.
ere was sin in Judas’s nature: which sin showed itself
in the shape of the love of money. e next thing was, Satan
suggesting a way of gratifying this lust, for he loved money
more than he loved Jesus. And now we nd the result
of outward nearness to the Lord while the conscience is
unaected-it was to make Judas reason upon circumstances.
He thought, probably, the Lord would deliver Himself,
as He had done before; for, when he found it not so, he
threw down the money, and said, “ I have sinned in that
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I have betrayed the innocent blood.” He continues in this
nearness to Christ, until, thirdly, we read that “ after the
sop Satan entered into him.” In the condition of hypocrisy
he gets his heart hardened; and then Satan gets between
his conscience and all hope of pardon. Many a natural man
would not betray a friend with a kiss, as Judas soon after
did. His nearness served to harden him; and he actually
took the sop from the hand of the Lord! Even natural
feeling was silenced. So it is when the unconverted man
gets into a similar position. He becomes more vile than ever.
His heart is hardened. Hypocrisy, and at length despair,
ensues. Such is the esh and its end. And the esh cannot
be bettered by ordinances, even where Christ Himself is.
Such is the esh-I can hardly say, when left to itself, for
man is never left to himself, he is never really independent.
He has the will to be so; therefore he is perfectly a sinner,
but if disobedient, he is servant to his lust, “ disobedient,
deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures,” and slave to
Satan. A natural man has a conscience and shame. He will
not do in the light what he would do in the dark. But the
outward form of Christianity, where it has not touched
the heart, only makes this dierence, that his conscience is
seared, and he is only more subtly the slave of Satan.
I turn now to the contrast aorded by what is seen in
Peter with what we see in our blessed Lord. In Jesus we
see the obedient, the dependent One, expressing His entire
dependence by His praying. And there was seen an angel
from heaven strengthening Him. He felt the weakness
which He had given Himself up to bear; He was “ crucied
in weakness.” “ All my bones,” He says, “ are out of joint,
my heart is melted like wax in the midst of my bowels.”
“ My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; tarry
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ye here and watch with me.” So in the earlier temptation,
we hear Him answering the devil out of the word of God.
Jesus might have sent Satan away by divine power, but this
would have been no example to us. So, in this chapter, we
see the Lord praying!
If you compare what Peter is doing with what the Lord
is doing, you learn the secret of Peter’s weakness and the
Lord’s strength. What was the eect of trial upon the
weakness of Peter’s esh? He had said, “ I will go with thee
to prison and to death “; but the Lord has to say to him, “
could ye not watch with me one hour? “ ey were sleeping
for sorrow. Here was neither prison nor death! “ Watch and
pray that ye enter not into temptation “ (not merely that
there be no transgression). Peter entered into temptation;
Jesus never did at all. Yet the trial was far greater to Jesus.
Jew and Gentile were against Him, and behind them the
power of Satan. “ is,” said He, “ is your hour, and the
power of darkness “; and again, “ my soul is exceeding
sorrowful, even unto death.” Where does He take all this?
e Lord does not sleep and seek to forget His sorrow.
He goes and prays to the Father. His eye rested not on the
circumstances to think of them. He looked to His Father.
Not that He did not feel; for He said, “ Father, if it be
possible, let this cup pass from me.” It was weakness here
as man, and that is real strength.
Remember, if we are in entire dependence, the
temptation does not meet us at all. Jesus does not say, ‘ shall
I not go through all these trials? ‘ but “ the cup which my
Father hath given me, shall I not drink it? “ He does not
see Pilate or Judas in it; it was not Satan that had given
Him the cup, but His Father. So with us; if in a frame
of entire dependence, temptation does not touch us at all!
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Trial comes; but, like Jesus, we can say of it, “ the cup which
my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it? “ Every trial
becomes a blessed occasion for perfecting obedience, if
near God; if otherwise, a temptation! Jesus was walking
with God. It was not that He did not feel weakness. “Tarry
ye here, and watch with me,” shows the weakness of human
condition fully felt. As in Psa. 22:14, referring to the cross,
He says, “ I am poured out like water, all my bones are out
of joint: my heart is melted like wax in the midst of my
bowels.” And yet He shrank not from suering alone when
love to His disciples called for it. “If ye seek me, let these
go their way.” But being in an agony, He prays the more
earnestly; it drives Him to His Father; and that before the
trial comes. en what is the next thing? When the trial
actually comes, it is already gone through with God! He
presents Himself before them saying, “whom seek ye? “
as calmly as if going to work a miracle. Whether before
Caiaphas or Pontius Pilate, He makes a good confession;
owns Himself Son of God before the Jews, and King before
Pilate.
How comes this dierence? In the rst place with
Peter the esh is sleeping; he goes to sleep to get rid of
the pressure of circumstances. Peter has not gone through
the trial with the Father. At the moment when Jesus is
going to be led away, the energy of the esh wakes up, and
Peter draws the sword. e esh has just energy enough
to carry us into the danger where it cannot stand-that
energy deserts us then. How little real communion is here!
When Christ was praying, Peter was sleeping; when Christ
was submitting as a lamb led to the slaughter, Peter was
ghting; when Christ was confessing in suering, Peter
was denying Him with cursing and swearing. is is just
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227
the esh: sleeping when it ought to be waking; in energy
when it ought to be still; and then denying the Lord when
the time of trial comes. With Christ it was agony with the
Father, but perfect peace when the trial came. Oh, if we
knew how to go on in all circumstances in communion
with the Father, there would be no temptation that would
not be an occasion of glorifying Him!
e great thing was, Peter had not learned what the
esh is: he did not keep in memory the weakness of the
esh; and thus the condition of dependence was hindered.
He seems to be sincere in wishing to own the Lord Jesus
and not deny Him. ere was more energy of natural and
very true aection in Peter than in those who forsook the
Lord and ed. He really loved the Lord. Peter fails, not
from self-will, not from willing to sin, but through the
weakness of the esh. In Christ there was no possible
moral weakness, because He always walked in the place
of weakness in communion with His Father. Jesus goes-
through agony itself-with the Father. Peter fails, though
but the shadow of temptation comes to him. All Peter’s fall
began by want of dependence, and by neglecting prayer.
We must be watching “ unto prayer “; not merely ready
to pray when temptation comes, but walking with God,
and so meeting it in the power of previous communion
and prayer. Without continual prayer, and constant sense
of entire weakness in self, the more love to Christ, and
the more good-will to serve Him are in a saint, the more
certainly will he, by that very good-will, be led into the
place in which he will dishonor Christ! e other disciples
that ed did not so much dishonor the name of their
Master as Peter did.
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It was thus Peter had to learn the evil of the esh.
Jesus, on the contrary, ever walked in the confession of
dependence- always praying. And what use did the Lord
make of His knowledge of Satan’s purpose to sift Peter?
He prayed for him! e more knowledge, dear brethren,
the more prayer! “ I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail
not.” As the result of this intercession, Peter learned the
evil of the esh more deeply than the others, and was able
to “ strengthen his brethren.”
We are incapable of ministering truth to our brethren
unless we are conscious of weakness in ourselves. Without
the prayer of Jesus, where would Peter have been? He
was running nearly like Judas. Oh, what a blessed thing
to be kept in entire consciousness of weakness, instead of
running on like Peter into a place where we cannot stand!
How good to be afraid to take a single step without the
Lord’s guidance! e esh is ever playing us false-it is good
for nothing. e eect of keeping it in the Lord’s presence
is to have done with it-to be cast on the Father. ere is no
wisdom that will stand us in any stead but the wisdom that
is from above. e Lord knew what the esh was, and what
Paul needed, when he had been caught up into the third
heaven. To be taken up to a fourth? No; but a messenger
of Satan to buet: that is, he needed to be brought down.
ere is the thorn in the esh given him; there is to be the
consciousness that the esh is worth nothing.
We may notice that there are three ways of learning the
powerlessness and wretchedness of the esh: prior to peace,
often in desperate struggles (for knowledge and conscience
are distinct things); when we have peace, before the Lord
in prayer and communion, not daring to take a step till
He leads us, and then He is gloried in us in grace and
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229
obedience, whatever the trial; or in the bitter experience
in which Peter learned it, when esh is not judged in
communion with God. is last will be the way, so long
as we are judging of things instead of judging ourselves.
When we are faithfully judging ourselves and walking with
God, we shall enter into no temptation. Trial may come,
but there will be full preparation to meet it; not that we
may be able to say, Now I am prepared for this or that
temptation. We are in no certainty from one moment to
another as to what trial may be coming; but we shall have
the strength of God with us in it. erefore our only safe
place is watching and prayer-yes, prayer before the assault-
prayer that may amount to agony; for so Jesus prayed!
We must expect to have our souls much exercised; often,
it may be, when trial is there, casting about as to why this
trial is sent. It may be for a fault; it may be for some careless
or hard state of soul. It may be, as Paul’s, to keep down the
esh; it may be preparatory to some coming conict. But
in these exercises of soul we must keep before the Lord:
then, when the trial comes for which the Father has been
training us, there will be perfect peace. e Lord will make
you bear in spirit with Him, when exercised, the burden
which He will make you bear in strength in the battle. Do
not shrink from inward exercise; settle it with Him. ere
is no limit to our strength for obedience when our strength
is the Lord’s.
“ If it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” None of
our souls can estimate what that cup was for One who
had dwelt essentially in the Father’s love; but the most
spiritual will most acknowledge it. en the Holy One was
made sin; no gleam of light on the soul of Jesus. At the
thought of it, when pressed by Satan on His soul, we see
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Him sweating as it were great drops of blood. He did not
think lightly of sin! e Prince of life was brought into the
dust of death” all thy billows passed over me.” At the cross
Jesus bore what you will never be called to bear. Beware
of denying Him. Many do so in detail who in the main
acknowledge Him.
Our happy privilege is, not to be occupied with the trial
as a trial, but to see in every trial an opportunity of obeying
God, and to say of each, as Jesus did, “ e cup which my
Father hath given me, shall I not drink it? “
“ Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling,
and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory
with exceeding joy, to the only God, our Savior, be glory.”
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62503
Christ As the Searcher of
Heart
Mark 10:1-46
IT is a wonderful thing that the Lord came into this
world and took all our sorrows and trials, but was entirely
above them all. He was thus able to take up everything that
was of God, and at the same time to show what the state
of man really was, just as the word of God divides soul and
spirit, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the
heart. As the perfect light and mind of God, it comes and
dissects our hearts, recognizing everything that is of God,
and showing what we are.
Here the Lord judges all that would attempt to take the
cross in a legal sense, that which would deny God in natural
goodness, and also the thought that there is some good in
man. He has no idea of anything good in man for God,
and at the same time all that is of God is put in its own
proper place. He owns everything that God establishes in
the world, and yet probes the heart to the bottom. ere
were some who condemned everything, as if God had
made nothing good. God never denies nature, because He
made it; but Christ goes deeper, and puts the probe to the
center of man’s intents and thoughts, yet He knows how
to divide between them, and thus shows His perfectness.
He was the perfectly obedient Son, who must be about
His Father’s business. He had power to own everything
that was of God, and, if there was occasion, to be subject
to it; but He had power too to detect everything of man,
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and that we have to learn, to have ourselves totally and
fully judged. ere is progress in seeing it, but we cannot
go to God at all unless self is judged. ere is a danger too
of not getting with God above the evil. Here the Lord, in
the exercise of His own blessed grace, can take notice of
His own works-all He has done and all He has made; and
it is just this One who can also discern what man is. He
can say, “ Consider the lilies “; not that they were of any
value. But I nd the blessed Lord, the Man of sorrows,
who felt the sin all around, who looked for comforters and
found none, and (except where His grace wrought) getting
nothing but hatred for His love, yet so completely with
God practically (He was God over all) that He was above
evil. at principle is fully manifested in Him, and is to be
looked for in us. It is not condemning the sins of nature
and recognizing it, nor yet saying that man is all bad, or I
falsify the holy nature of God. What meets the power of
evil is, that He gave His life a ransom. But there is evil all
around us, and it is apt to hinder our being gracious, and
to get power over us, and that hinders our having power
over it, and over ourselves, and judging ourselves, as well
as presenting grace, and basking in the sunshine of God’s
favor.
Our natural tendency is to get pleasures for self.
Innocent they may be, but they take the heart from God;
they are spoiled by sin. People ask the harm of these things.
e question is, What use are you making of them, and
where is your heart? e moment there is a turning from
the cross (death to everything), our Lord says, “Get thee
behind me,” for that is all He has. He is going to Jerusalem,
and they are amazed, and as they follow they are afraid.
ere I get the way the cross makes me afraid of following
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Christ; but He says, If you do not take it up, you cannot be
my disciple. e Lord judges man totally, and utterly; we
cannot go too deep. People say, If man is not good, he can
be made so. But the thing Christ brings us to is, “In me
dwells no good thing.” ere is no good in talking of good
fruit when the tree is bad; there are self-will and lusts. en
we see that before we take up the cross for ourselves there
is the cross for us. He suered, and gave His life a ransom.
ere my sins were put away, and the old nature judged. I
have died, and my life is hid with Christ in God. I am alive
to God, not to Adam. at separates me from the world.
Christ is my righteousness and my life up there. He has
given me His Spirit, and I look down from there in grace,
being an object of His favor, at what is of His hand in the
creation. When I have got out of it, I can look at it. He
had a divine view of the world. He can judge man’s heart
as man’s heart, and at the same time admire the beauty
of the lilies. ough He was with God, and was God,
He could not despise the work of His hand. Everything
was corrupted, even the brute creation, through man; but
whenever anything had the stamp of God, He could see it.
We have to learn this, and it is dicult; but I do look that
Christians should walk with God. Either a man is letting
his mind go after what the esh likes, or he is applying the
cross to it. If you admire a ower you see, all right; but if
you care for it, all wrong. I can see the hand of God in its
beauty, but if I am thinking of the thing it is not the beauty,
but my own will and inclination. e Lord runs the sharp
edge of His word in, dividing between soul and spirit.
First, He takes up marriage, and says, God allowed
divorce for the hardness of their hearts; but it was not so
at rst. ere is natural aection; but if it gets hold of us it
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may become idolatry. A child or a husband may take our
heart from God, but being without aection is one of the
signs of the last times. In the last days men are not only not
spiritual, but they are not natural. e Lord puts His seal
on every relationship. It is an awful thing, even if a child is
not converted, to see it failing in aection to its parent; and
the nearer the relationship, the more dreadful it is. God
owns the relationships, and it is a sign of the last days to be
wanting in the aections proper to them.
en we get the Lord greatly displeased at the disciples
sending away the children, not that there was no sin in
the children, but they were the expression of what God
had created-the condingness of a child without the
distrust that grows up with one. e world lives in distrust
(miserable at root), but that is not the case with a child.
It has no distrust, but a disposition to believe everything
(it often gets cheated); and the Lord says that is what He
likes. Unless you receive the kingdom as a child you will
not enter it.
en I nd a thoroughly lovely character, and the Lord
“beholding him, loved him.” It was not the love of God to
the world, nor the special love of relationship and grace
for His own; but the Lord loved what was lovely-a ready,
willing mind to learn everything. e young man had no
idea of the ruin of man. He does not say, “What shall I do to
be saved?” or Christ would have given him no such answer.
He takes him on the ground of a Jew (v. 19), and the young
man answers, “All these have I observed from my youth.”
e Lord does not say, You have not; but beholding him,
He loved him. He saw what was lovely in his character
(and we ought to see natural loveliness); but his conscience
must be touched, and his heart was unknown to himself.
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“Sell whatsoever thou hast, and take … up the cross,” v. 21.
He went away sorrowful. e instant the state is detected
the loveliness vanishes. His character was lovely in its
ingenuousness; but when it is searched and detected his
heart comes out as a thing in which there was nothing for
God. He deceived himself as to man’s state; but there was
natural loveliness in him (and we often meet unselsh,
amiable characters). How does the Lord meet it? He says,
“ere is none good save one, that is God.” ere is no
such thing as a good man in the world. You are totally on
wrong ground. ere is none good but God is a principle.
Why do you call Me good if you come to Me as a man?
e Lord takes him up on the ground of law that he was
on, and says, Don’t say man is good, but keep the law.
Another thing comes out. e disciples say, “Who then
can be saved?” And the Lord tells them, “With men it is
impossible.” ere is no such thing as being saved on man’s
ground; but God can save by His Son. at is another thing
(v. 27). By man it is impossible; but the means of being
saved has reached man. He can get eternal life; but when
his heart is detected it is totally wrong. is young man
turned away with sorrow and grief; for his heart was with
his money. e gospel does not deny natural loveliness;
but that will not do with God. It will not do for Him to
have no vile ones. He looks for the vilest sinners (the thief
on the cross, for instance), and takes them to paradise. He
does not take the pretty owers and leave the weeds. What
man calls goodness is often abominable selshness; and
they say, If that man does not go to heaven, who will? ey
do not know the heart a bit. e supreme goodness of God
takes up the one that will not have God and Christ, and
will have his lusts and pleasures, and saves him. “ All things
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are possible with God.” e gospel does not build on what
is there, but judges it. e owers of a wild apple may be
as pretty as others, but there is no fruit on it. What Christ
says is, Where is your heart? Have you not a will, and the
thoughts of your heart and your conduct in everything
moved by it? And the answer of it is only hatred to God.
at is very humbling, but it puts the gospel on the
right ground. ere was unspeakable love to sinners, with
all their sins. He was ever moved at oppression and sorrow-
never at insult or outrage to Himself, but always moved
with compassion for man-” Ye know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ.” He brings all this goodness to where we are,
but He must detect the conscience. He will not build the
goodness of God on ours, and deceive us. e Lord lays the
young man’s heart bare. He does not drive him away; He
never drove any one away; but he went away because his
heart was never reached. Self must be detected-” All things
are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom
we have to do.” When I learn His goodness in coming in
grace into this world to win our hearts, I say, “ Search me,
O Lord, and try my heart.” I know He has not come to
impute sin, and I come into His presence with an open
heart. e moment I fully trust this blessed love of Christ
my place is that of the man to whom the Lord imputes
no sin. He has given His life a ransom, and put it all away.
He lays bare our hearts, but gives us condence; so that we
desire to have everything out before God, and the whole
ground we stand on before Him is “ truth in the inward
parts.” He stood where I was, and now I stand where He is,
and that is the only place I have before God. e Christian
stands between accomplished redemption and the glory, at
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liberty with God and from the world and sin. We may fail
and grieve the Spirit, but there we are set.
e disciples are thinking, What is the meaning of this,
that this lovable character is driven away, and cannot come
to God? Well, the very grace that has come to seek and
save, drives away the natural heart because it cannot bear
it. It detects the heart, and must claim it for God both as
Creator and Redeemer. ey were still looking to tack the
new thing on to the old, looking for the glory in a carnal
way. e Lord says, You must take up the cross and follow
me. If you follow Me, I can give you the cross; that is all I
have to give you now. He takes the lowly place as to man
and the world; death was all He had for those who followed
Him (v. 38-40). “Can you drink of the cup that I drink of?
“ ey say, “Yes,” deceiving themselves. He says, “Ye shall
indeed drink of the cup that I drink of “ (not atonement,
but suering) -you will have to suer if you take up the
cross and follow Me really. You shall be like Me, and close
to Me too; but what you must reckon on is the cross, if you
are going to glory. “If any man serve me, let him follow
me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any
man serve me, him will my Father honor.” Not that there
is not joy, “a hundred fold now in this time”; but He says,
I must have your hearts: I have to die, and if you are going
to follow me, the road I am going is to the cross, that is the
path I am going to the glory. Are you ready to take up your
cross, or have you a question if the cross is right, or if there
is any other road? e Lord knew none, and I know none.
ere is another point. If we were perfect, all would be
simple; but we have a great deal to learn and to detect and
correct. At this time the Lord set His face steadfastly to go
to Jerusalem, and the disciples want to know the meaning
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of it. “e Jews sought to stone thee, and goest thou thither
again?” “As they followed they were afraid.” Not only will
and lust were detected, but they were afraid of following
Christ. Do not you know what that is? e instant you
are following Christ there is the consciousness that the
world is against you. Nicodemus went to the Lord by night
because he was afraid to go by day. ere is the instinctive
consciousness that the world is against us, and we are afraid
to confess Christ in our habits, our houses, etc. It is very
base, but there it is. Paul says what things were gain to him
he counted loss for Christ; he did not go away sorrowful. He
says, I am glad to get rid of it (it is dross and dung) “to win
Christ.” ere was the energy and power of the Spirit. Did
Paul follow trembling? Not at all. Five times forty stripes
save one-beaten, stoned, all sorts of things! It was all on the
road, and he had real liberty, “always bearing about in the
body the dying of Jesus.” ese disciples did not dare leave
the Lord; they kept in the way, for here was eternal life
in Him and nowhere else; but they had no liberty. When
He spoke of the cross Peter says, “at be far from thee “;
and the Lord says, “ Get thee behind me, Satan “-the very
man who had confessed Him as the Christ, and to whom
He had said, “ Blessed art thou.” But if he will not take up
the cross, he is “Satan.” “ou art an oense unto me.” e
cross deals with all that is of man, and where there is the
willing spirit and blessed free liberty with God, the power
of Christ rests upon us, and it is no sacrice to give up
human righteousness, or all I possess if need be, that I may
win Christ; they are only weights as I run the race.
Natural aection we are to have by the power of God;
but the Lord is in heaven, and the cross is the path, because
though we are in a world where there are a thousand
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needed things, and all richly to enjoy, when it is a question
of what our hearts are, there is none good. Christ has been
rejected, and I am dead to the world, sin, and the law, and
alive to God. It should be so more practically every day
with willing hearts. Our steps are feeble, but He shows us
the way, and we delight in His love. Of course the Spirit
reproves us, instead of bringing us joy, if we are grieving
Him.
How far have our hearts believed this voice of the
blessed Son of God in such love, when He puts forth His
own sheep, going before them, meeting the dangers and
leading them in the path? How far are our hearts in truth
and simplicity disposed to follow Him, to think His love
not mistaken in the path He has marked out? It is real
deliverance from the esh; but we must trust His love.
When my heart thoroughly trusts Christ, it is His cross and
His reproach; and it has the sweetness of Christ, and all is
sweet (we may be cowards in it), and we judge everything
that hinders His leading us in the path.
e Lord give us to trust Him, that we may have courage
to follow Him, and learn what this poor world is!
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62506
Parables of Luke 15
IT is a wonderfully blessed thing to have One (the
thoughts, and words, and ways of One down here, in His
actings among men) who could so well manifest God, as
the Lord Jesus.
We may look at the sin of man, at our sins, as a question
to be judged of in the light of righteousness before God,
and most important it is; but still, in one sense, God moves
above all the evil, and asserts His right to show what He is.
And blessed is it for us, that God will be God in spite of sin.
God is love; and if He will be God, He must be love, and
that notwithstanding all the reasonings and murmurings
of the heart of man against Him. God will act upon what
I may call the feelings of His heart, and make them nd
their way into the hearts of men. And that is the reason
there is such a freshness in certain passages of the word
of God, however often we recur to them, because God
especially reveals Himself in them. God never fails; the
moment He speaks and reveals Himself, we have always
the full blessedness of what He is. It is Himself who has
come forth, and that with power to our hearts-the blessed
God. He will take no character from man. If He has to deal
with sin, and show what it is, and how He has put it away,
and the like, still above and through all He will manifest
Himself. Now this is where our hearts get rest. We have
the privilege to have done with ourselves in the house and
bosom of God.
In a certain sense He hid Himself. Man could not have
borne the manifestation of God in the brightness of glory;
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241
so He hid it in grace in the Person of the Son of man.
He clothed Himself in esh: but the eect of the wicked
and heartless reasonings of man’s corrupt judgment was
this; it forced Him to show Himself what He really was
as God. When He presented Himself as Messiah, the Son
of man, the fulller of the law, and the like, this was not all
the fullness of God. Man was always rejecting, constantly
nding fault, carping at certain things with which he could
not agree in the ways of Christ; but by thus pressing upon
and urging Him, man only forced Him back as Christ to
press out from Him what He really was as God. In the
chapters which exhibit this, the soul is arrested and nds
itself with unhesitating certainty in the presence of God
Himself-in the presence of love. ere we get rest and
peace.
So in this chapter. He was forced to tell all the truth.
God will be God. If there was that which could make God
merry and glad, as it is expressed in the parable (and such
was the case in the welcome of the poor prodigal son), He
would have His own joy in spite of the objections of men.
It is God’s own joy to act in love; and that is just what men
object to. ey do not deny that He is going to judge (I do
not of course speak of professed indels); nor as a general
principle do they object to God’s being righteous, because
their pride makes them think they can meet Him on that
ground; but the moment He comes to have all His own
full joy, and to bring out that which is the joy of heaven,
man begins to object. It must not be all of grace; not God
dealing with publicans and sinners thus! and why not?
Because, what then becomes of man’s righteousness? God
dealing in grace makes nothing of man’s righteousness; “
there is no dierence; for all have sinned, and come short
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of the glory of God.” Christ manifesting the light proved
this; pharisee and publican were alike detected; and man
hated it. e thing that levels down the moral condition of
man, bringing in grace to the sinner, is what man cannot
bear. It is the setting up of what God is, and the putting
down man.
What man is always seeking to do is, to make a
dierence between the righteousness of one man and
another, so that character may be sustained before men.
Slighting God’s righteousness and magnifying our own,
always go together. In John 8 we nd brought by the
scribes and pharisees before Jesus, one who by the law was
worthy of being stoned- undeniably guilty-that He might
be obliged to deny either mercy or righteousness. is was
their motive. ey thought to place Him in an inextricable
diculty. If He should let her o, He would break the law
of Moses; but, should He say, ‘ let her be stoned,’ it would
be no more than Moses had done. How does He act? He
let law and righteousness have all their course; but tells her
accusers at the same time, “ He that is without sin amongst
you, let him rst cast a stone at her.” Conscience begins
to work; not rightly, it is true, for their character was what
they cared about; still it would speak; and they get out of
the presence of light, because the light made manifest what
they were-it proved them sinners. From the eldest to the
youngest, all went out. He that had the reputation of the
longest standing was glad to be the rst to go away from
that eye which could penetrate and detect what was within;
and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the
midst. He would not execute the law; for He came not to
judge: “ neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more.”
at which is produced is only love. Whenever one stood
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243
before Him, or had anything to do with Him as a detected
and confessed sinner, it was always grace, and all grace. e
more the discovered sin, the more grace was revealed, free
and unqualied.
‘ en drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners
to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured,
saying, is man receiveth sinners and eateth with them.”
And after all it may seem strange to many that, if God
did come down here, He should take no notice of the
righteousness of man, but be found in the company of
publicans and sinners. Why, that would upset all the moral
righteous thoughts of men; and that is what God has to do,
because they are wrongly based.
In all the parables of this chapter put forth by Jesus,
because grace had been objected to, in His dealings with
publicans and sinners, we have this one great and blessed
thought-God manifested. ‘I will suppose,’ it is to say, ‘a man
in the worst and vilest possible condition you please; one
reduced to the degradation of feeding with swine. But then
there is something still behind all this that I am going to
bring out; something which even your own natural hearts
ought to recognize-the father’s delight in receiving back
a child. Would not a father’s heart justify itself in its own
feelings of kindness, let the condition of the child be what
it may?
After weariness of heart in the world-after the Lord
Jesus had gone through the world and found no place
where a really broken heart could rest (He could nd
proud morality enough, but no place where a poor, wearied,
broken heart could nd sympathy and rest, to open it and
give it life)-He came to show that what could not be found
for man anywhere else could be found in God. is is so
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blessed! that, after all, the poor wearied heart, wearied
with itself, with its own ways, wearied with the world and
everything, can nd rest in the blessedness of the bosom
of the Father; and what it could not do in any other place-
tell itself out-now that it has found God, it can; and that
in truth of heart too, as we read in Psa. 32 “ Blessed is
he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not
iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.” So long as
I am afraid of being blamed for what may be discovered,
there is guile in the heart; but the moment that I know that
all is forgiven, that nothing but love is drawn out by it, I
can tell out all to God. e only thing that produces “ truth
in the inward parts “ is the grace that imputes nothing. is
is the secret of God’s power in setting hearts right with
Himself-” there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be
feared.” ere is all the dierence possible between nding
a man ying from God by reason of his conscience, and his
nding in God one who says “ neither do I condemn thee
“; what in truth relieves and heals a conscience completely
convicted. We cannot in our actual state, if under the law,
and acknowledging its righteousness, take it into our own
hands. If I take the law to smite you, I must kill myself;
it is too sharp to handle. e man who would stone the
adulteress must put his own head under the weight of the
blow. “ 0 wretched man that I am! “ If I am a man, I am
undone.
We have three parables presented to us in the chapter.
e source of that which is taught in them all is love. e
rst parable is that of the shepherd who sought the sheep
that was lost. e second that of the woman who sought
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245
the piece of money that was lost. e third, the father’s
reception of the returning prodigal.
In the last it is not a question of seeking, but of the
manner of the father’s receiving the son when he had come
back. And this is of much importance. Our souls need to
understand it aright, as well as to know the great cardinal
truth that God seeks the lost. ere is many a heart that
longs to go back, but does not know how he will be
received. e Lord Jesus tells us the grace and love of God
are shown out, rst in seeking, and then in the reception. In
the rst two parables we have the seeking; in the third, the
reception by the father. One great principle runs through
them all; it is the joy of God to seek and to receive the
sinner. He is acting upon His own character. No doubt it
is joy to the sinner to be received, but it is the joy of God
to receive him: “ it is meet that we should make merry and
be glad “-not merely meet that the child should be glad
to be in the house: the father is the happy one. e return
of the prodigal is joy in heaven, whatever men, whatever
Pharisees, may think about it.
Beloved friends, this is a blessed truth! It is the tone that
God has raised, and that every heart in heaven responds to.
It is something wonderfully lovely to be let into heaven in
this way; and that, too by One who knew heaven so well.
e chord which God strikes Himself heaven responds to
and re-echoes, and so must every heart down here that is
tuned by grace. What discord then must self-righteousness
produce! Jesus tells forth the joy and grace of God in thus
acting, the joy of heaven, and puts all this in contrast with
the feelings of the elder brother-those of any self-righteous
person-though the description be of the Jews.
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It is this note sounded from heaven in love, that we read
in the heart and ways of Christ down here: “ e Son of
man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” And
oh, how sweet! In one sense it is more sweet to have it here
than up there. It is down here that this love of God (and it
must be here, if man is to be reached) is astonishing; it is
natural in heaven. It is here, on earth, amongst us, that God
has manifested what He is-that He has delight in saving
lost sinners; “ which things the angels desire to look into.”
e rst thing the Lord Jesus does is to justify God in
being good to sinners. He appeals at once to the natural
heart of man. “ What man of you, having an hundred sheep?
“ etc. e shepherd puts the sheep upon his shoulder, and
brings it home rejoicing-have I not a right to seek lost
sinners? Is it not a right thing for God to come among
publicans and sinners? is may not suit a moral man, but
it suits God; it is His privilege to come amidst sin-to come
near to ruined sinners-because He can deliver out of it. e
shepherd lays the sheep upon his shoulders and rejoices;
he goes out to seek it, charges himself with it; he takes the
whole toil of it. It was his own interest to do it, because he
valued the sheep; it was his, and he brings it home again
rejoicing. us He presents the shepherd here. And thus it
is with “ the Great Shepherd of the sheep.” He presents it
as His interest to “ seek and to save that which is lost “: He
even makes it His interest in the sense of love; the sheep is
His own, and He brings it home rejoicing, bidding others
to rejoice with Him. ere is the strength and power of
salvation.
But how does the Lord set about it? We tell people
sometimes to seek Christ. Well, in one sense that is right;
for it is quite true that “ he that seeketh ndeth “; but He
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never said, “ Come unto me,” until He had rst come to
them- come “ to seek and to save that which was lost.”
He did not say it from heaven, for the sinner could not go
there; but because the poor sinner could not go to heaven
to seek Christ, Christ came to the earth to seek him. He
does not say to the poor leper, Come up to heaven; but
comes Himself down to the leper in all his need, and says,
“ Be thou clean.” Had any other laid his hand upon the
leper it would have made him as unclean as himself; Christ
alone could touch the power of evil in the leper and have
no contamination, but dispel it. He says, “ Come unto me,
all ye that labor … and I will give you rest.” It is not to be
found here, any more than it was for Noah’s dove amidst
the deluge. I have tried the world all through, and it is a sea
of evil without a shore; Come to Me, and you will nd rest.
Who but Jesus could have said this?
ere is another thing in the second parable-
the painstaking of this love, its eager diligence with
determination to succeed in seeking that which has been
lost. It is not a sheep, but money in a house. Everything
is done to get the money. e woman lights the candle,
sweeps the house, she could not stop in the task of love-
diligent active love, until the piece was found. It was her
aair and interest again, because the money was hers. And
then we have the joy when her possession is recovered;
her own joy and the tone given to those who are called in
to have communion with it: “ Rejoice with me, for I have
found the piece which I had lost.” And that is the way of
the Lord.
us we have the same great principle in this parable
as in the former. ere is the patient activity of love in
the use of means by the Holy Spirit until the result is
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produced. In both parables we see the absolute actings of
grace, without any reference to the eect in the heart of
the sinner; also, in both this great principle (common, as
noticed before, to the three), God’s own joy in love. It was
the joy of the woman, as of the shepherd. us the result
of man’s pharisaic objection to grace was but the bringing
out of the declaration by Jesus of the energetic power and
activity of this grace, as well as the good will. ere was
entire inactivity in the sheep and in the money. e piece
of money, as the sheep, could do nothing. e shepherd
and the woman alike did all; it was their joy, who had lost,
to get them back again, because they valued them.
Worth nothing, in a certain sense, to God’s love the
sinner is immensely valuable.
It is true, at the same time, that there is a most important
work-an eect produced in the heart of the one who has
gone astray and is brought back again. On this account
we have the third parable, which shows the feelings of the
wanderer; and further, the manner of his reception. e
father’s heart and the prodigal’s are both laid open. Not
only are the inward workings of the prodigal told out, but
we have also the manifestation of the father’s heart. In a
word, it is not the estimate formed by the one brought back
about the love of the father, that gives the answer to all his
thoughts, but the manifestation of his own heart by the
father. ere is this one simple fact- the father is on his
neck kissing him! and that tells him what that heart is.
In this last parable the Lord takes up a case, meeting
the objection of the Pharisees to His receiving publicans
and sinners. He says, as it were, I will take the case of a
man brought to the utmost degradation-eating husks with
the swine (we must remember what swine were to the Jew),
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there too of his own choice. Why was the picture drawn
thus? To show that nothing could put the sinner beyond
the reach of grace. Trace it as far as you please; God will
act as God at the end of the story. Let us look a little at the
case in detail (v. 11-13). is is just our history as men. e
son here was happier far, as a man, when going from home
than when returning; he was doing his own will. And this
is the secret of all sin. But remark, whether we are living in
vice or not, we have all turned our back on God. e young
man was as great a sinner when he stepped rich across his
father’s threshold, as when feeding with the swine in the
far country; he had chosen to act independently of God,
and that is sin. He reaped the fruits afterward of this, no
doubt, but that is not the question. Nay, in one sense, the
very consequences of his sin were mercies, because they
showed him what his sin was.
But man makes a distinction between sinners. So the
Lord puts a case where the sinner is gone, even in man’s
judgment, to the fullest degree of evil, and shows it does
not outreach the grace of God-a case which wonderfully
exhibits the truth, that “ if sin abounds, grace does much
more abound.” When he rst left the house he showed
where his heart was- alienated, revolted, gone; his back
was turned upon his father and his father’s house, and his
face was towards the far country. He went forth to do his
own will. A parent’s heart will understand it. Our child sins
against us-we feel it. We sin against God, and do not feel
it. We are all of us in that sense children, that “ have turned
every one to his own way.”
“ And there,” having reached the far country, he went
on gaily in his own will as long as he could; “ he wasted his
substance in riotous living.” Any person who lives beyond
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his means looks rich for a time; so does the sinner, wasting
his soul, seem happy. But if he thinks himself happy, he
does so because he has got to a distance from God, where
he has no restraint upon his will. But then, after all, he is in
the devil’s country, and enslaved to him. Liberty of will is
just slavery to the devil.
“ And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine
in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and
joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him
into his elds to feed swine. And he would fain have lled
his belly with the husks which the swine did eat: and no
one gave unto him.” ere is no giving in the “ far country,”
not even of husks. Satan sells all, and dearly-our souls are
the price. You must buy everything. e world’s principle
is ‘ nothing for nothing ‘; everything must bring its price.
Your gratications there must be purchased at the sacrice
of reputation and soul. If you sell yourself to the devil, you
will get husks: he will never give you anything. Would you
nd a giver, you must come to God. Hearts are not easy
in the world; leave a man for a few hours to himself, and
he will soon be in want; but it is never the eect of this
merely to bring back to God. “ He began to be in want,”
but his will was not touched yet. ere are very few hearts
that have arrived at a certain time of life, that have not “
begun to be in want.” ey go to seek in pleasure or in vice
(in one thing or another, it matters not what; last of all, in
God) something to satisfy them. e last thing the world
thinks of is God: and then only when they are convinced
that nothing else will do. ey never think of the Father’s
house, for they know it not. If indeed they think of God, it
is in judgment, not in grace. A man of the world says, You
must have everything that is in the world to know that the
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world cannot satisfy you; but the knowledge that all the
world cannot satisfy would never turn a man to God. He
must know more, even that he is perishing; not merely not
satised, but ruined. So it was with the prodigal.
“ When he came to himself, he said, How many hired
servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare,
and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father,
and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against
heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be
called thy son; make me as one of thy hired servants.” He
awoke to the consciousness, “ I perish with hunger “; and
then it was he thought of “ the father’s house,” the very
place he had been so anxious to get away from at rst.
He had not yet understood how he would be received, yet
he did understand that there was love in that house (the
very hired servants had bread enough and to spare); and
he did understand, too, not only that he was hungry, but
perishing with hunger. He wanted the goodness of that
house; his was no mere abstract delighting in it. Wisdom
and philosophy never found out God: He makes Himself
known to us through our need; necessity nds him out.
Who is it that really discovers the value of bread? e
chemist? No; a hungry man. e sinner’s heart-yes, and the
saint’s heart too-is put in its right place in this way. I doubt
much if we have ever learned anything solidly, except we
have learned it thus. He knew that all was goodness there,
the very servants were happy, and it was all over with him
where he was; the need of his condition, all told him he
must get back: “ I will arise,” etc.; but he did not yet know
the extent of that goodness. Every soul that returns to God
is thus brought to the thought of goodness in God.
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We see the same thing in Peter (Luke 5). He goes and
falls at the feet of Jesus, and says, “ Depart from me, for I
am a sinful man, 0 Lord.” What an inconsistency! at the
knees of Jesus, and yet telling Him to go away. And there is
often this apparent inconsistency where there is a work in
the conscience and the aections. God becomes necessary
to us, and yet conscience says, I am too sinful. Peter felt
his own worthlessness, and that Jesus was too holy, too
righteous, to be with such an one as he; and yet he could
not help going to Him.
Well, the prodigal goes back, glad to be in the father’s
house, but having no true estimate of the father’s heart.
No more worthy to be called a son, “ make me as one of
thy hired servants,” was still his thought. He measured the
father’s love in some little degree by the sense of what he
had done and the evil in which he had been; he thought to
get into the place of a servant. Now there are a multitude
of hearts in this state, lowering down the standard of what
the Father must do to some sort of adaptedness to their
tness (I am not speaking of positive self-righteousness);
they have still the remains of legalism, and would take the
place of a servant in the house. Now God can only receive
us in grace, because we have spent all, ruined ourselves, and
forfeited every claim upon Him. Look at the history before
us. is “ make me as one of thy hired servants “ will not
do for the father, if it would do for the son; it would be
constant misery to the father’s heart, as well as degradation
to the son to receive and treat him thus! his very condition
in the house a constant memorial of his sin! Neither would
it be testimony to the servants in the house, as to the
father’s love. e father cannot have sons in his house as
servants; if boundless grace brings them, he must show the
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manner of the reception to be worthy of a father’s love. e
prodigal was not yet brought to thorough humbleness-to
feel it must be grace or nothing. But the father does not
even give him time to say, “ Make me as one of thy hired
servants! “ He lets him tell out the confession of his sin, “
I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no
more worthy to be called thy son,” but no more; for he is
on his neck kissing him. How could he say, “ Make me a
hired servant,” when his father is on his neck, producing
the consciousness that he was a son?
e prodigal’s judgment about the father must now be
drawn from what the father actually is to him, and not from
any abstract reasonings about it. e one was a father, if the
other was not a son. And that is the true way of receiving
the gospel of the grace of God. It is not the working of my
mind as to what I am before God, but the revelation by
the Holy Ghost of what the Father is to me; and if He is a
Father, I am a son. I dwell on this, because I know there are
so many souls who have not, as it were, received the spirit
of adoption fully; neither knowing what they are as sons in
the house of the Father, nor nding their rest in the love
of the Father.
See again the manner of the reception of the prodigal
here. He determined in his own mind now renewed what
he would do, what he would say, and the conditions of his
reception: he says, “ I will arise,” etc. But before he has
time to reach the father’s house and say all this, “ while
he was yet a great way o,” we read, the father saw him,
and had compassion on him. e son’s path is now lost
in the father’s love: the father runs to meet him, falls on
his neck and kisses him. ere is nothing in the son but
confession of unworthiness. Once received, we are left, as
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it were, to discover what were his thoughts and feelings by
the knowledge of the father’s. And so entirely is it in the
estimate of our salvation: we are left to discover what we
are in the revelation of the love of the Father. e father is
on his neck, while all the rags of the far country are upon
him. Was it for anything in the son? No; it was because of
the love that was in his own heart. e father does not stop
to ask him anything: he knows he has acted very wrongly,
it would have been no use to say, You have disgraced me,
dishonored my name; he could see that very well. It was
no question of tness or worthiness in the son: the father’s
heart did not reason in that way; he was acting from himself
and for himself-worthily as a father. He was on his neck,
because the father loves to be there. It is the love that is in
God, not any loveliness in the sinner, that accounts for the
extravagant liberality of his reception in Christ.
It is the knowledge of the Father’s love that makes me
feel what I am. But if I know my sins are forgiven, and the
Father is on my neck kissing me, then the more I know of
my sins, while I know the Father’s love, the happier I am;
Luke 7:47. Suppose a merchant having liabilities which he
knows himself unable to meet; he would be afraid to look
fairly through his books: but suppose on the other hand
the debt was discharged, and that he had the certainty of
an immense fund of riches after all was paid-if some friend
had done it all-he would no longer be afraid to look at
them. e discovery of the extent of his obligation would
only serve to enhance the sense of his friend’s love. If,
instead of £1,000, he found his debt had been £10,000,
he would say, Why, this is better than I thought; and if,
on looking further, he found the amount £100,000--Well,
there never was a friend like this friend of mine! Grace has
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put all away; therefore the whole eect of the discovery of
sin, when we know forgiveness, is but to enhance the love
and heighten the joy. If the Father is kissing me, the very
consciousness that He is doing it while I am in my rags,
proves what a forgiveness it is.
ere is not another in the whole world who would not
have thought of my rags, before he was on my neck.
But he does another thing. e servants are called now
to introduce him into the house ttingly. “ But the father
said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put
it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his
feet: and bring hither the fatted calf and kill it,” etc. God
shows His love towards us as wretched sinners, but then
clothes us with Christ. He brings us into the house where
the servants are, with nothing less than all the honor He
can put upon us. His love welcomes us while in our rags,
but here the same love acts in another way. He introduces
us into the house as He would have us be there, with His
mind expressed about the value of a son. We read here the
description of the robe, the ring, the shoes, the fatted calf,
and the feast of joy that welcomes the returning prodigal.
e father’s mind was, that a son of his was worth it all;
and that it was worthy of him to give it. How little worthy
would it have been of a father, acting in grace, to keep him
as a servant in the house!
ere are, perhaps, some who would think it humility
to desire the servant’s place in the house. But it is not so;
it is only ignorance of the Father’s mind. I read, “ that in
the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of
his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.”
Now if you begin at that end-the Father’s mind and grace-
would it have been worthy of Him to have put us in the
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house with a constant memorial of our sin and shame-of
our former dishonor and degradation? If there was any
sense of shame, the merest trace of the far country, would it
have been worthy of the father? No! “ e worshipper once
purged has no more conscience of sins.” e condition that
nds its place in God’s house must be worthy of God.
Take another case. Perhaps our wretched unbelieving
hearts may say, Ah, that will be quite true when there-
when really in the Father’s house. Let me ask what faith is.
Faith judges as God judges. I see sin in the light of God’s
holiness. I judge it most truly when I see its opposition
to Him, and the dishonor it puts on Him. I learn grace,
too, in the heart of my Father. He that believes sets to his
seal that God is true. Faith is the only thing that gives
certainty; reasoning does not. Reasoning may be all quite
well for the things of this world; but if God speaks about
anything, faith believes; faith sets to its seal, not that it may
be perhaps, but “ that God is true.” Now having this, I am
as sure that it is true, as if I were now in heaven.
“ Abraham believed God,” not in God (though that is
also true), but God: he believed that what God said was
true. And this is what we ought to do: the rst point is to
believe God. What then does He tell me if I am a believer
in His Son? at my sins and iniquities are remembered
no more, and I believe it; that I have eternal life, I believe
that too; it were sin to doubt it. If I do not believe what
He assures me of, I wrong God. It is a sin not to believe
myself a son- that I am in God’s presence without a spot
of sin, through the blood of the Lamb. Faith believes this:
God has said it. If it were only my own righteousness, it
must be torn to shreds; but it is the blood of the Lamb: and
what has that done? -cleansed half my sins? e question
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is, What is God’s estimate of the value of the blood of
Jesus? do you think that God limits the ecacy of His
blood? No He says, it cleanses from all sin. If we go on to
see further, it is-who His own self bare our sins in His own
body on the tree. Is it some of my sins? It is my sins. If my
soul knows on the one hand the value to God. of the blood
of the Lamb, I know on the other hand that it all results
from the love of the Father. It would be an evil thing to
doubt this love, as it would have been an evil thing in the
prodigal, when the father was kissing him, to say, I have the
rags of the far country upon me. Did he then think of his
rags as a reason why there should not be that expression of
the love which was in the heart of his father? us when I
see here the character Christ gives of what God is towards
me as a sinner (and He was forced to do this by the self-
righteousness of the Pharisees-of man), the doubts of my
heart are silenced before such grace.
Is there one who would say, that divine grace sanctions
sin? Let him read his judgment in the spirit of the elder
brother here. Yet let even such an one see how grace speaks
to him. “ erefore came his father out, and entreated him.”
We see the patience of love towards this wretched man-
not merely a poor prodigal-but this wretched one who
shared not in the general joy. e servants were glad; they
say, “ y brother is come, and thy father has killed for
him the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and
sound.” All catch the tone of joy but one; and who was
he? e man who thought of self and self-righteousness: “
therefore came his father out and entreated him.”
Take care of that, lest your hearts be turning to sourness
the love and grace that God shows to a fellow sinner. “ He
would not go in.” e father reasons with him-” it was meet
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that we should make merry and be glad; for this [not my
son, but] thy brother was dead and is alive again; and was
lost and is found.” Love is high enough up for anything;
but in vain, he could not enter into the spirit that actuated
all in the house, from the father down to the lowest menial.
He remained without, and had none of the happiness and
none of the joy; there was in him manifested opposition
of heart to the riches of the father’s grace; and this is man.
Do you know God thus? You would know yourselves
too. Be it so; it is indeed well; but do not call God’s heart
in question because of that. How can I know God’s heart?
Is it by looking into my own heart? No; but by learning it
in the gift of His Son. e God we have to do with is the
God who has given His Son for sinners; and if we do not
know this, we do not know Him at all. “ He that spared not
his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he
not with him also freely give us all things? “ (Rom. 8:32.)
Do not be saying to God, Make me as one of thy hired
servants. All true service must result from the knowledge
of Himself. Do not be putting the estimate of your own
hearts on God’s goodness. Our hearts have such a tendency
to turn back to legalism, and think it humility. e only real
humbleness and strength and blessing is to forget self in
the presence and blessedness of God. We may be brought
thither by a humbling process; but it is not in thinking
evil of self merely, that we are truly humble: we have the
privilege of forgetting ourselves in the manifestation of the
love of God and our Father, who is love to us.
e Lord grant you, through Jesus, to know, as poor
sinners, God thus revealed in love.
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259
62511
e Prodigal With the Father
Luke 15
I TAKE this chapter because one nds that there are
many sincere souls who are not in the second condition of
this repentant prodigal-that is, when he had been kissed,
and robed, and was in the house with the Father-they have
not real peace with God. ey are still lingering on the way;
and if they know salvation is a real thing thus given, they
are not living in the enjoyment of it. As to their state of
mind, they have not eaten of the fatted calf, nor have they
got on the best robe; they are not living with the Father on
the ground of what the Father has shown Himself to be.
It is striking the moment the Father comes, except the
confession of the son, you hear nothing about him; all
is about the Father. From the time of his confession the
whole scene is the Father’s mind, and the Father’s ways-
what His heart is, and what His house can aord; and that
is the true Christian state, and what the heart has to be
brought to enjoy. I take up that special point of view now.
Many are sincere, yet are not on this ground, and the Lord
shows us that this is so; we should ever cry, “ Abba, Father,”
as having this conscious place with Him.
ere are two very distinct states in the prodigal; only
in the second do we really learn the father’s thoughts and
feelings, and not the prodigal’s, but the eect upon him;
and there he rests. We do not nd judgment here, it is all
grace. Judgment is a real thing, and the Lord will lay hold of
the conscience by it; but it is not the subject here, salutary
as it is. Neither is it the blood presented to God, as meeting
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260
that judgment, all true and important as it is; but God in
justifying grace, and then the way the soul enters into the
enjoyment of that grace. We never should lose sight of the
other; but the side on which the gospel is presented here
is not that judgment is outstanding, and that the blood is
there to meet it, but the joy of divine love in blessing the
wanderer brought back by grace.
And we must not confound this with the government
of God. He may be angry even with His own child. It is
dierent from the manifestation of His nature, so that
there is no possibility of allowing sin in His presence. In
the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed, and the
wrath of God is revealed, and that from heaven; not merely
judgments and punishment, not merely dealing with man,
but the nature of God being perfectly revealed, so that He
cannot have a single sin. “ For the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness, and unrighteousness
of men.” In the holiness of His nature He abhors and
rejects the sin, and in the righteousness of His nature He
judges it. Hence, when we speak of the Christian state, we
walk in the light, as He is in the light. It is not now certain
conduct that has to be measured and dealt with. God has
no measure with sin (there are indeed “ many stripes “ and
“ few stripes “). He is a holy Being, and there is positive
rejection of all sin in His nature. Even in paradise, it is not
now merely innocence; it came out previously; but man
left that state and then judgment comes on him, and he
is to return to the dust from which he was taken-present
judgment that marked God’s displeasure. It is dreadful
enough to see that God may chasten His own; but to nd
that people are shut out from the presence of the Lord
forever, from God’s favor, that is what is so terrible. ere
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261
is no veil over the glory of God. If you have to do with God
at all, you must deal with Him, not as under the law, when
there was a veil and God was hidden, but now He has come
out, and wrath from heaven has been fully revealed. is is
not the side we have here, but the grace which goes out to
seek, and how the soul is brought back to enjoy this grace.
We have the whole Trinity in this chapter, but not as
a doctrine; the good Shepherd looks after the sheep; the
Spirit seeks for a soul, and Grace receives it when it comes
back. We nd the activity of God in grace, in Christ, &Id
in the Holy Spirit; and lastly, the way the soul is received
by the Father. In the rst two you have not the whole truth:
you have in the last. e shepherd has ‘lost his sheep; he
goes after it wandering farther and farther away, and brings
it back, while the sheep never lays foot to the ground. e
woman cares for the silver piece, seeks diligently until she
nds it, when there could be nothing that passed in it-
the simple power of grace bringing back what is lost. en
there is another-thank God, not a new principle, but a
most blessed and lovely one, that runs through it all, that it
is not our joy to be saved, but God’s joy to save!
e Pharisees and publicans murmured. It is a righteous
principle, and some may have it in their hearts still, that
people must be righteous for God. e Pharisee thinks he
has righteousness for God; we have that described in the
elder brother. You do not need to be a Jew to be a Pharisee-
what the Lord speaks of as a whited sepulcher, full of all
uncleanness. e elder brother is the Pharisee in all ages;
it is the most hateful thing that exists. A Pharisee has no
sense of sin, else he would know that he was a sinner; no
sense of holiness, or of love; there is nothing more foreign
to the heart and mind of God than his state • it is the most
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262
thorough selshness, and not a thought of anything else”
ou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with
my friends.” When he says, “ Child, thou art ever with me,
and all that I have is thine,” he refers to the Jews; the law,
the prophets, Christ Himself as coming in the esh, the
worship of God, the word of God, all He had was theirs.
e use they made of it was another thing; they had got
enough to be proud of it, but not to enter into the Father’s
heart; that was made known to the servants. “ y brother
is come, and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because
he hath received him safe and sound.” at ought to have
touched his heart. He should have said, If my father is
happy it must be right; but he objects to everything. e
Father went out even to this Pharisee; but nothing could
win the self-righteous man; his heart is unwinnable by
God! He had no sense of righteousness or holiness, or
he would know perfectly well, that if all that was in his
heart was brought out, he would be ashamed of himself
and go and hide. e Pharisee has no thought of that; he
is hypocritical, only making the outside of the cup clean, as
if God could not see its inside as well as its outside. But if
man’s righteousness was the way to God, why should He
have given His Son?
e Lord here takes up the way in which the soul
returns to God, and He chooses the case of one who had
gone to excess of riot as the prodigal eating husks with the
swine. Many have not done that, but He takes this case
to show that grace reaches him there, and that is God’s
delight-the joy of God, to bring him back and receive him.
Remark this-the moment the soul has got hold of what
God is, the grace of God has found entrance into the heart.
It is not feeding on husks which is the worst thing; nor is
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there any real dierence in people; some are upright and
honest, others are sunk in debauchery; but as regards the
heart, when you come to the root of the matter, there is not
one bit of dierence. Suppose
I was brought up among thieves and drunkards, I would
be a thief and a drunkard. It is a great mercy to be separate;
that is connected with circumstances.
Here, in the rst act of the young man, the whole
mischief was done. To turn his back on his father was doing
his own will. Scripture says, there is “ no dierence “ before
God; there is in wickedness and vice, of course; but all have
sought their own pleasure and their own way. When he
crossed the threshold he was in will as much a sinner as
when with the swine. ere are dierences among men;
quite true. And man reaps what he sows. But as regards
his state of soul, the young man was as much a sinner then
as when eating the husks; and what is more, he was nearer
returning when there; there was no pretense then that he
was not perishing. It is the principle of all men, everywhere,
to say, “ Give me the portion of goods that falleth to me.”
We like our own will; we like to be free from God to do our
own will. It is perfectly immaterial what it is; that is our
history as men: “ we have every one turned to his own way,”
and that brings these wretched fruits. at is what all are;
some have come back; but looked at as children of Adam,
you have your back upon God, and your face on your own
pleasures. ere is no return till that is confessed.
e Lord takes the case of one who has gone to excess.
e point was, leaving his father’s house, and his getting
back there. Suppose a son goes o in wild wickedness from
his father’s house, he may not have been a thief, or the
like, but he is always doing wrong, till he comes back; and
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nothing will be right until he comes back. “ If thou wilt
return, saith the Lord, return unto me,” Jer. 4:1.
Now, as to his return: “ ere arose a mighty famine
in that land.” Another thought as to the heart is, it never
returns to God till there is a famine in the world. As
long as people are in health, very rich and gay, they ruin
themselves. When that is gone-when the natural pleasure
gone, what then has the heart? It has spent itself, and is
going to die! “ ou fool! “ that is all the Lord has to say
to that! (Luke 12:20). He had got to Satan’s world, and the
heart nds nothing there to satisfy it. You see those that
can spend their substance; and there is a certain gaiety of
nature which seems like happiness; but leave such only for
a day, and you will nd how their heart has its canker at the
core. ere is in many a
heart the sense that there is a famine in the world. Why
are there so many concerts and crystal palaces? Because of
the famine. ey try to keep up their heart, to do without
God; but it is all in vain; they cannot! ey would not have
to take so much pains to make themselves happy, if they
were so. ey may get on merrily, but all these “ articers in
brass and iron “ are but eorts to make a city without God,
and suciently pleasant to forget Him!
When the famine was there, he began to be in want.
at never turns the heart to God: “ And he joined himself
to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his elds
to feed swine.” Drinking and pleasure and excitement did
not satisfy; “ and no man gave unto him.” ere is no giving
there; there is selling oneself. When the heart is away from
God, this want never turns it to Him, but to what satises
the esh. “ He would fain have lled his belly with the
husks that the swine did eat “; a description of where he
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had got to, the sense of famine not bringing him to God
at all.
“ When he came to himself,” there is a total change. He
was like a mad man before; identied with the place where
the famine was. e goodness of God comes into his heart,
he says, “ How many hired servants of my father have bread
enough and to spare? “ Not, I shall get it, or I would like
to have it, or How should I be received? But the sense of
goodness is awakened in the soul, and this produces a want
of another kind-a sense of the blessedness of God! When
the Holy Ghost works in the soul, there is always a want.
I want more holiness, more grace, I want God. He sees
blessedness with God, and would give anything to be back
with Him. e servants had bread enough and to spare;
there is goodness with God.
Wherever there is a revelation of self, and man is
conscious of his real state, there is always a sense of the
goodness of God. He is in the frame of mind you nd at
times in souls-Well, if I perish, I perish at the cross. It attracts
him. Conscience is awakened; but the heart is attracted, “ I
will arise and go to my father,” that is everything. He had
turned his back on his father, left God behind him; now it
is not that he has got to his father, but his face is turned
towards him, and his heart too, and that is an immense
thing! He has not peace yet; but it is an immense thing
when God and the soul meet; when want of holiness and
want of love is created, and there is
a revelation that has attracted the soul to God. at
which characterizes him when he came to himself is, that
he thinks there is goodness, and abundance, and plenty
there. He did not know that he would be let in, but there
was the goodness there to be let in to. “ And I perish with
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hunger “-I have got away from God, and I am perishing as a
man living without God-” I will arise and go to my father.”
e moment it is so, God and the soul have met. Orthodox
as the Pharisees were, they had not God. Nicodemus says,
You must be a teacher come from God; but the Lord says,
You have not the principle which connects you with God;
I cannot touch esh; “ ye must be born again.” God and
the soul have met, the quickening power of God gives
consciousness that he is perishing, and there is a distinct
result, “ I will arise and go to my father,” not I will get
better, change my ways. He must change his ways; but that
is not what is in his heart. “ I will arise and go to my father.”
It is want of God that characterizes him. e sense of love
that makes the heart want God, a totally dierent thing
from the desire to mend myself-that is the work of the
Spirit of God. e next thing is honest confession-” I have
sinned against heaven and before thee.” It is often a long
while before we get up to this and say, I have no title; and
if so, how can I be there?
at was what the Lord was doing with the Syro-
phoenician. He said, “ It is not meet to take the children’s
bread and cast it to dogs.” “ Truth, Lord (she replied), yet
the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master’s
table.” I have no title; I am just a wretched dog; but there is
goodness enough in God for those who have no title.
It may be a long process before the soul comes to that
point of full blessing. Without a holy nature we cannot
enjoy Him; but you cannot make righteousness or a
ground of acceptance out of it. e prodigal has nothing
to say to the blessing till everything is spent. e pride of
the human heart nds it very dicult to get there. Some
things are t for God, it says. Are you t for God? I ask. It
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is not what is in God meets your case, but what is in you
will, you hope, meet God’s case. is is all wrong, totally
wrong from beginning to end-” Without holiness no man
shall see the Lord.” You must come down; you have no title
to anything whatever, and all depends on simple grace to
those that are entitled to nothing but wrath.
Another thing, we have seen the young man’s heart
brought to turn to God. His eyes were opened, and God
had met him; he had not yet met God. He acknowledged
his sins; all quite right; the consequence is, he begins to
reason how he will be with God when he meets Him. “
Make me as one of thy hired servants.” What does that
prove? at he had never met God at all. Lowliness,
confession, is all right; but making terms shows he had not
given up all hope in self, but thought he might have some
small place, some little corner in heaven. God’s presence
is there, and can you pretend to be t for His presence
with all these rags?-every proof of having been in the far
country? With his heart drawn to God, he confessed he
was unworthy, yet still hoped. All proved he had not got to
his father. e father had met him and touched his heart
in grace, but he had not, in conscience, come to God at all!
at is what I press.
ere was a work of God in the man’s soul, a sense of
sin, of perishing, of bread in his father’s house; but this
thought, because he had not met God, was all wrong; it
was reasoning how it would turn out when he came. He
had no terms to make with his father when he met him.
You nd numbers of sincere souls, who have seen the
goodness of God and yet only hope in a general way; they
have not met God to nd out what God’s thoughts are.
ey are reasoning from their condition, partly fearing,
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partly hoping for a poor servant’s place. All proves they
have not met God, though God has met them. He had
met that young man. All perfectly true; but he was not
judging from what God was, and had been; he had not
given himself up as nothing but sin, so as to know what
God was to those who have nothing but sin. “ He arose and
came to his father.”
Now, in a certain sense, he disappears when the father
comes in sight, and the whole blessing comes from, and
is the result of, what the father is to this poor creature. All
right his returning; but what is the eect of it? To bring
him to his father with all the traces of the far country, in a
condition totally unt to go into the house. It would be a
disgrace to have him in the house with those lthy rags-a
perpetual dishonor. en the elder brother might reproach
and say, Look at this wretch; is he t to be in the house
with you? e eect of the experience of God’s work in our
hearts is to bring us to God in our sins. Did he not come
in rags and nakedness the whole journey, just as he came
out of the far country? Until we submit to that, we never
get peace. We are saying, Make me a hired servant. It is not
self-righteousness, but reasoning from our thoughts and
feelings as to what God will be. But that is giving God the
character of Judge; and if He is our Judge, it is everlasting
destruction to us.
Are there not hearts who may read this, right in purpose,
thinking of their state and condition, and how it will turn
out when they meet God? Why not confess you have not
met Him yet? (I do not say He has not met you.) You have
never known Him. Why not put yourself just in the state
the Lord is insisting on? “ When he was yet a great way o,
his father saw him.” Now he comes to be kissed in his rags.
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e father deals in absolute grace with him just as he was.
e eect of this kind of experience is to bring me to Him
in my rags, and to nd Him loving me, such as I am, in a
condition totally unt to be in the house.
But he did not bring him in in his rags, but “ fell on his
neck and kissed him.” e father acted from his thoughts and
feelings and mind, and the only eect of the wretchedness
of the son was to draw out the compassion of the father!
at is what I learn in Christ. “ While we were yet sinners
Christ died for us.” e very essence of Christianity is that
we have not to meet God as a Judge; and that because we
could not He has come to meet us in grace. Sovereign grace
has dealt with sinners, to show that God in love is greater
than their sins! e simple but blessed footing we are on
with God, is not what we are for God (this has to do with
government), but what God is for us. He “ commendeth
his love to us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died
for us.” He does not look for righteousness, but He brings
it; He will have the fruits of it afterward; but the grace of
God brings salvation. e very essence of Christianity (by
which we too have to act in grace) is, not what God nds,
but what He brings.
He is brought to confess what he is, but with the father
on his neck; and he does not then say, “ Make me as one of
thy hired servants.” Why? Because he had met his father,
and he had acted as a father. He could not say, when he
was kissing him, Make me a servant; it would be slighting
grace! Ah! he had met his father, and knew his position.
How? By being with him, and nding what his father was
for him.
e whole thing depended on what his father was for
him.
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Now, are you content, that your position and acceptance
should depend on what God is for you, and not on what
you are for God? Are you content to give up all title to
His grace? If there is pride, and the old man still working,
you will say, Must I not have this or that? Try your hand
at it, and see what it will come to. e Lord wants you
so to learn that you will never think of saying, Make me
a servant. You will then have learned the Father’s heart,
and your relationship, a son’s place, because you have
found it in the Father’s house. us, grace has gone out,
and righteousness has gone in! “ Bring forth the best robe
and put it on him.” at which the father has to put on
him is out of his own treasure (the young man had got his
share before, he had nothing of his own); it was that which
was put on him when he came back, that when he went in
he might be a witness to the whole house of his father’s
thought about him; that it was the father’s joy to have him
there in honor. We come in, not simply with our rags o,
but with Christ on; we are “ made the righteousness of
God in him.” He brings us to His own presence in the
fullness of His own grace; and He puts the best robe on
us, so that all may say, ere is a son the father delights in.
ere is nothing now about the son feeding on the fatted
calf, but the father and servants. No doubt he did so; but
this is the way God receives a person; it is His own delight
to have him, and the greatest delight of God is Christ; and
He puts that upon him. We thus have righteousness, and
glory too, in due time.
us there is a total dierence between God meeting
the soul, and the soul meeting God. All the reasoning you
nd, how it may turn out, and the like, characterizes the
state when God is meeting it in sinfulness. It is experience
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we get when the son was on his way to the father. I may
get on slowly, or get on quickly, but that is experience, and
experience is not righteousness. You never nd in Scripture,
Being justied by experience, we have peace with God; it is
“ by faith.” Faith in what? In what has passed in my heart?
en I may doubt about my own heart, Surely it is not
what I ought to be; all that does go on in the heart. But it is
not the father’s dealing with the son-not a bit. Experience
was there, but experience led him in rags to the father’s
presence-the rest is all what the father is!
Are you content to be on that ground; a mere sinner, to
be put by the Father’s grace into the Father’s house? It is
Christ, of course, who is the best robe, as my righteousness.
en the soul sits down and enjoys all the Father has to
give. Ah! you will nd it hard, there is so much selshness
in the heart, to bow to dependence on what God is for
you. Strange to say it, but you will. If you submit to God’s
righteousness you will then have true holiness, but never
until you have the certainty of salvation. How can a child
have lial aections if he has not a father? An orphan is
capable of them. So, if I am born of God, I have a nature
capable of enjoying Him. But if I have not the sense of
relationship, I cannot have peace. We have the Spirit of
adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. If we look up
to God, is there the consciousness that you look to a
Father? Not a hope, but that your aections can go out
on that footing, because you know Him as a Father? You
cannot have blessed, holy aections which delight in Him
as a Father until consciously in the position which that
relationship entails. I do not say that you are not on the
road.
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Do not be merely satised with being saved. When
rst I am saved, all my aections go out, and I say, What a
mercy! But I am uneasy when I see a Christian resting too
much upon what he was as a sinner; that is not a healthy
state. I believe we shall remember it in heaven. “ e Lamb
as slain “ will be before us there, never to be forgotten. But
if only there, and not occupied in thinking of what He is,
I will not get on. A soul that is in the Father’s house, is it
not to grow up to know what the Father’s heart is? I was
outside, and He took me in to learn it there.
I would now ask you, Are you in the best robe? In Christ
is your place. Is your heart there? e conscience must be
cleansed, of course; but, is the place of your heart with the
Father, living there in the aections which belong to that
condition, or, are you uncertain? at is not a Christian
state, though you may be on the way to it. Are you content
to take your whole condition and blessing from what the
Father is to you?
e Lord give you to see what you are, so that you may
nd you have a new place in Christ, and nothing to do
with the old thing. e Father brings the son to His own
heart and His own house.
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62513
Christ or Antichrist: John
5:17-47
John 5:17-47
THERE are three very important characters in which
the Lord Jesus is presented to us in these verses:-
First, as THE SUBJECT OF TESTIMONY;
Second, as THE GIVER OF LIFE;
ird, as THE EXECUTOR OF JUDGMENT.
Now He stands in relation to all men in one or other of
these positions.
First, He presents Himself as the SUBJECT OF
TESTIMONY, but it is nevertheless as coming in the
Father’s name. “ I seek not mine own will, but the will of the
Father which hath sent me. If I bear witness of myself, my
witness is not true. ere is another that beareth witness of
me; and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me
is true,” v. 30-32. His own witness was also true; but that
which He states is, that He seeks not to glorify Himself, He
demands not their condence, He asks them not to believe.
Just as He says elsewhere, “ He that speaketh of himself
seeketh his own glory; but he that seeketh his glory that
sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in
him.” And this ever holds good. If a man is seeking to exalt
self, he has a motive that is not truth- his witness is not
true. At the same time there was a witness unto Himself,
and as such He appeals to all the various testimony that
existed for Him in the world. “ Ye sent unto John, and
he bare witness unto the truth,” v. 33. Again, “ e works
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which the Father hath given me to nish, the same works
that I do, bear witness of me,” v. 36. Again, “ e Father
himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me,” v.
37. And again, “ Search the scriptures; for in them ye think
ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me,”
v. 39.
e Lord Jesus refers to these four witnesses: rstly,
John; secondly, his works; thirdly, the Father; fourthly,
the Scriptures: and yet He tells those to whom He spoke,
“ Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life,” v. 40.
Presented with this full and adequate testimony to the
consciences of men (not merely an abstract testimony, but
that which was suited to their circumstances), they refused
it all: they would
not come to Him that they might have life. And mark
the terrible conclusion, “ Ye will receive “ this evil one. “ I
am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if
another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive,” v.
43. What a testimony against man!
Another character in which we nd the Lord Jesus
presented here is in LIFE-GIVING POWER: “ As the
Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so
the Son quickeneth whom he will,” V. 21. Life-giving is
attributed both to the Father and the Son.
But there is marked distinction in that which follows,
as to the third character of Christ-THE EXECUTOR
OF JUDGMENT. “ e Father judgeth no man, but bath
committed all judgment unto the Son,” V. 22. As “ Son
of man,” He has been dishonored and rejected by men;
therefore all judgment is committed into His hands, in
order “ that all men should honor the Son, even as they
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275
honor the Father,” v. 23. Here He stands alone. And see the
point that is settled here.
When the Lord Jesus presents Himself as giving life,
He also, and most graciously, shows us how we may count
on the assurance of possessing life. Now this is of the very
last importance. ere is many a one that can with truth of
heart own Him as the giver of divine life, who nevertheless
is unable to say, I have that life. Our Lord does not leave
the anxiety of such unanswered. After stating that all men
(even those who had rejected Him, as we have seen) one
day in His character of Judge should honor the Son, even
as they honor the Father, He adds, “ Verily, verily, I say
unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him
that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into
condemnation [judgment]; but is passed from death unto
life,” v. 24.
e question is one of judgment or of life. We have seen
that the Father gives life, and the Son gives life. We have
seen, too, that all judgment is committed unto the Son. But
here Jesus shows who is to come under the judgment, and
who is to have life. is answers the question at once. He
says, He that believes “ hath,” not shall have, “ everlasting
life “; and that such a one “ shall not come into judgment,
but is passed from death unto life.” On this basis all happy
feeling before God, all joy, is founded. Here begins the
exercise of all holy aections and ways. A child cannot love
its parent before it is born (there is no need to reason about
that), though it may love long before it can express it, long
before there is intellectual explanation.
Here is the dierence between the law and the gospel.
Law puts a man upon the acquisition of life, it sets him to
do before he gets life. All Christian holiness, all Christian
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aections, ow from the fact of having life. e voice
of the good shepherd reaches the ear, and he who hears
it, believing that the Father has sent the Son, has this
assurance, he “ shall not come into condemnation; but is
passed from death unto life.” It would be to bring into
doubt His own work were Christ to call such in question
as to salvation. He ever keeps distinct His two oces of
Life-giver and Judge.
It might appear that in verses 28, 29, He confounds the
two. But is it so? No, He states a further truth. He had
before been speaking of the quickening of the soul; and
now He says, “ Marvel not at this,” there is going to be
a resurrection of the body also. It is in resurrection that
He will fulll the whole eect and result of His life-giving
power. ere will be a “ resurrection of life,” and also a “
resurrection of judgment.” e two things are kept most
denite and distinct. But the honor of Christ as “ Son of
man “ is secured from all. We (those who have believed) do
not need judgment to oblige us to render Him honor; we
honor Him now as the source of life; He has quickened us,
forgiven us our sins; through Him we have fellowship with
the Father: He has done everything for us. e wicked
shall also honor Him then.
ere is a remarkable passage in Rom. 8 in illustration
of this distinction. e apostle, after speaking of the law,
takes up the result of the work of Christ, and says, “ the
law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free
from the law of sin and death,” etc., and then in verse i r,
“ If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead
dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall
also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth
in you.” at will not be true of the wicked at all; they will
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not be raised in virtue of the Spirit of Christ dwelling in
them, they have it not. We see then, as it were, this great
track of life. Christ is the Life-giver to His people; rst to
soul, and then to body.
e evidence to others of our having life is shown in
conduct, though that is not brought out here; but the proof
and the assurance to my own soul is based on this, “ He
that heareth
my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath
everlasting life.” Whilst fruits will ow, and must ow,
from faith in Christ, it is of the utmost importance, in the
midst of the evil with which we are conversant, to have
the ground on which peace rests as simple as possible; and
this is just what God has made it. e work on which it is
founded concerns all the Godhead. I see Christ coming out
from the bosom of the Father, dying, and communicating
life; that into which life so communicated brings, being
all the Father’s purposes in the Son, etc. e link to my
own soul is as simple as possible, it is not a long process
of reasoning which might tend to puzzle and perplex, but
the evidence of the word, “ He that heareth,” etc. What is
the eect of this? Christ becomes everything to us. Surely
this is practical sanctication. If I wanted to describe a holy
man, I should describe one who was always thinking of the
Father’s love and the Son’s grace, and never of self.
Here then there is comfort and peace (and what a
comfort is the settled certainty of salvation!) in this setting
to our seal that God is true. It is not in the searching of my
own heart, but in the assurance of the word of God. ere
is nothing like the simple certainty of faith. “ He that hath
received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true.”
I assume that I am a person in an anxious state of soul and
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wanting to get the certainty of life possessed. I look at the
testimony of God. ere I get absolute certainty. I say, God
is true. is is faith. All that I discover in myself is not faith.
I may be much exercised; but there is not one thing in my
own heart that can in the least assist me in nding out
anything about this life. Faith rests upon the testimony of
God. When I have received and rested upon His testimony,
it is important for me to examine myself as to my ways and
the like; but I never go and search into my own heart for
certainty as to whether the blessed Son of God has told me
the truth, “ He that heareth,” etc. Observe, again, there is no
searching any further than this: I believe on Him who sent
the Son; in the presence of the Father and the Son, I have
eternal life: who can give me more? Life may be fed indeed
here, and gloried hereafter; but there is no searching any
deeper. ere may be exercises of soul in bringing to it;
but the denition John gives of a Christian is this, “ We
have known and believed the love that God hath to us.” “
Hereby perceive we love, because he laid down his life for
us.” ere is another point: the written testimony of God
has a higher place than any other.
A few words more upon the dierence between life-
giving and judgment. Now it is that Christ gives life. When
He comes as Judge, He will not give life at all, He will come
for judgment. ere is no confounding or mingling of the
two things, either as to time or act. If judgment comes in
before grace has given life, who can stand? Having seen
the way of life, there is next the contrast of result, where
testimony is not received. In the fall of our rst parents
we see sin in three distinct and principal elements. And
these have continued to characterize man ever since. Man
gives ear to Satan, or, in other words, is led of the serpent;
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exalts himself to be as God; follows his own lusts, and is
disobedient.
Scripture gives us the development of this, in principle
all through, and shows that it will be so at the end. Man,
whilst in the enjoyment of blessing, listens to and trusts
Satan. But mark the suggestion of the devil, “ Ye shall be
as gods.” He can tell truth if it subserve sin. If we have the
truth, nothing can harm us; but Satan can tell truth, a great
deal of truth, provided he can only win attention by it and
so deceive. See his temptation of our Lord. ere he quotes
Scripture, gives a promise of God, quite rightly applicable
in a certain sense, had Jesus listened. e rst Adam did so,
and came by the ways of Satan to know good and evil. But
it was by disobedience, and he continued not with God.
Satan told not all the truth-he did not say, You shall be
a lost creature. Lust worked, disobedience followed, and,
consequently, exclusion from God’s presence.
But testimony of Christ has another element in it.
It is not merely that man is a sinner; there has been the
rejection of God in grace. What was the question when
Christ was in the world? Not whether man had sinned; but
would man, a sinner, receive testimony from God in grace?
If you traced the history of man from the beginning until
Christ came, you would say, his mouth must be stopped.
Satan’s power over the heart is revealed throughout. Away
from Paradise, instead of becoming better, Cain kills his
brother. en comes the deluge, sweeping away the whole
race except eight persons; but afterward they are as bad as
ever. Noah gets intoxicated, Ham dishonors his father, and
after that idolatry enters.
Again, before Moses comes down from the mount
the people have made a calf. Before the eight days of
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solemn purication are over, Aaron’s sons take strange re
and oer before the Lord. In short, in all God’s dealings
with Israel as a nation, this truth is strongly marked. e
principle of the heart is wrong. Nay more, the nearer man
is to God externally, the worse is ever the character of his
guilt, if there be not living fellowship with Him. When
Jesus came into the world, though He could get joy out of
the Samaritans, and out of a poor Syro-phoenician woman,
whose condition was as a “ dog “ in respect of Jewish
privileges, “ his own “ were found full of pride of heart
and “ received him not.” Judas was quite close to Christ,
yet he betrayed Him. e development of evil is just in
proportion to its nearness to good, if the power of good is
not there. So with Christendom. e name of Christianity,
where there is not the living power of it, is the very place in
which the worst evil is to be looked for.
And observe, here, the awful manner in which
conscience can deceive itself. “ e chief priests took the
silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into
the treasury, because it is the price of blood “; there had been
no scruple in giving the money for that blood. e very
same money wherewith they had bought Christ, they will
not put into the treasury! What a picture of man’s heart, of
man’s consistency -exact about external ceremonial points,
callous as to moral depravity!
But as to the question of the reception of testimony.
Into this world of sin and iniquity, however bad man might
have been proved it mattered not, the Son of man came
down in grace. His testimony rejected-” Ye will not come
unto me, that ye might have life “-what is the consequence?
“ I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not; if
another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.”
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Here is a new form of evil. Man shall set himself up and
be received, because he comes in his own name. And yet
it is but the ripeness and development of his sin in Eden,
the same in principle-only, after Christ; he then exalted
himself to be as God-to act after his own will, though in
reality he was the tool of Satan. e same thing shall come
to pass again, testimony having been rejected, as it is said,
“ because they received not the love of the truth, that they
might be saved,” 2 ess. 2. ere will be a license, and
more than a license too, for man to set himself up, to seek
his own name-and “ him ye will receive.”
If you trace man’s evil, you will nd, it is true, a
testimony to it bad enough, whatever the restraints God in
His supreme power may have placed upon it. But there has
been restraint, especially since the ood. Government met
this point in the world, rst, directly exercised amongst
the Jews, and afterward extended to the Gentiles in the
four great empires, of which Nebuchadnezzar was the
rst head-the Babylonish, Persian, Grecian, and Roman.
Passing over their general history, it will suce to say, that
the fourth of these empires had just come out in prominence
when our Lord appeared on the earth-” ere went out a
decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be
taxed.” e result of this, as well as of religion in man, was
brought out in His rejection. All joined together-the heads
both of civil and religious power -to crucify Christ. e
cry of the Jews was, “ We have no king but Caesar “; and
Pilate, representative of Gentile dominion, knowing His
innocence, acquiesced in their malice.
Another thing was brought out, upon the
accomplishment of all this evil in man: a testimony unto the
heavenly blessedness of those who believe in Him whom
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the world had rejected. “ Blessed are they that have not
seen, and yet have believed.” ere are those who believe
on a record given of God’s Son, and eternal life belongs to
them.
Well, now, if we nd any religious form of evil, we nd
it here, in the profession of Christianity, not amongst the
avowed haters of Christ. One special mark of the “ perilous
times “ in “ the last days,” concerning which we have
prophetic testimony, is the “ having a form of godliness,
but denying the power thereof,” the same thing in principle
as amongst the Jews. e Pharisees were a religious people;
they had the “ form of godliness,” but Christ, the “ power,”
they “ denied,” Acts 3:13. Wherefore the testimony against
them is “ Now have they both seen and hated both me and
my Father.”
One great principle of religious forms of evil is, that
they are always suited to the esh. ere is a religious
tendency in man: he will bow down to something. You may
nd a hard spirit here and there, rejecting everything; but,
as a general truth, man must have his religion. e “ form
of godliness “ is just suited to this. Nature, through it, seeks
to satisfy its holiness, whilst at the same time man’s will
comes
in-man is exalted. Whatever the esh can look at, or do,
or cling to, as man’s works, ordinances, etc., all these things
will be esteemed. If it be but a “ form of godliness,” though
the straitest sect of the Pharisees, a great deal of truth may
be held; there may be intellectual clearness of doctrine and
the like; all this is within the compass of the esh, and will
be accredited by it. But there is one thing the esh can
never do-it can never trust simply in the work of the Lord
Jesus Christ for eternal life, and have “ peace with God.”
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e Spirit of God is the Spirit of truth and the Spirit
of holiness. If truth (the form of it) comes to me without
holiness, I cannot receive it as of the Spirit of God; and,
vice versa, if there be apparent holiness without truth.
ere is always thus, for the humble believer, a corrective
or counter-check, whereby he may detect the evil-Satan’s
imitation.
But there is another thing testied of-the last form
of wickedness-man’s will exalting itself against God. e
principle has been always the same, but now it will come
out in full development. “ e king shall do according to
his own will,” Dan. 11:36. Truth having been rejected, this
is the result. ere will be a public avowal of independence
of God, man acting against God, speaking against God,
but at the same time, exalting himself to be as God; 2
ess. 2:4. Herein Satan’s agency will come out in manifest
display. It is not merely the “ form of godliness “ (itself
ensnaring enough, and liable to lead astray), nor yet even
man’s will alone; no, it is declared to be a display of the
“ working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying
wonders,” v. 9. Awful passage! And see what follows. When
God’s patience is exhausted, or rather has no more place,
then He-yes, “ God “ Himself, “ shall send them strong
delusion, that they should believe a lie,” v. 11; “ because
they received not the love of the truth that they might be
saved.” God says, If you love a lie, you shall have a lie. His
dealings with the Jews, upon their rejection of Him, are the
same in principle. “ Make the heart of this people fat, and
make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes,” etc. Isa. 6; John
12; Acts 28:26, 27.
But we nd exactly the same testimony given about
the profession of Christianity, as about the profession of
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Judaism. e “ mystery of iniquity “ had begun to work in
Paul’s time-” doth already work,” says he; it is followed by
the “ falling away,” or apostasy; and consummated in the
appearance of Antichrist-” that man of sin.” Satan’s power,
seductive power, and man’s self-will, in independence of
God, will terminate in this-man given up to the devil. But
it will not be until the long-suering of God has been tried
to the uttermost; even as the sentence of judicial blindness
on the Jews was pronounced 700 years before it was put
in execution. At the present hour, that long-suering has
been 1800 years running on; but when the testimony of
truth has been fully rejected, the doom will come.
People may deceive themselves, and say that these things
are not to be looked for in a Christian land. It is just there,
upon Christendom, that God’s heaviest judgments will fall.
After testimony God gave over the heathen to a “ reprobate
mind.” (See Rom. 1) e Jew, with his special light, is given
over to a fat heart. Where Christianity is professed, it is the
same thing; a “ form of godliness,” the “ love of the truth
“ not received, “ pleasure in unrighteousness “-God gives
over to “ strong delusion.”
Men love something. Trace the course of Judas: what was
it that led him astray? He loved money, not so uncommon
an evil. In this he was the world’s prudent man-” men will
praise thee when thou doest well to thyself.” But observe
the progress of corrupt nature; a little circumstance in John
12:3, 6, may help us to see the connection. e lust there,
Satan suggests a way to gratify it. Well, he goes on, and
what is his next step? Satan puts it into his heart to betray
his Master. Judas (it may be, thinking that the blessed One
would have been delivered in some way, as at other times,
and thus he get his money, and yet save his character)
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consents. Man will excuse himself by any folly. Sin has its
progress with a deled conscience. Hypocrisy now enters;
he sits with Jesus at the table (goes on with religiousness),
even after he had sold Him. Mark, too, it was “ after the
sop “ that Satan entered, never nearer to Christ in form.
Now he is hardened against even the relentings of nature,
goes out and betrays the Son of man with a kiss. Here
then is the progress of corrupt nature towards this fearful
consummation-rstly, lust; secondly, a means of gratifying
it in his oce of bearer of the bag; all this goes on along
with religiousness, in the very company of Christ, from day
to day; thirdly, he is led to the ultimate character of his
crime, at a time and in circumstances of most blessing to
a true disciple; fourthly, the heart is hardened, so that the
betrayal takes place even with a kiss, the token of aection.
Sinning and religiousness go on together. Again we say,
and here we have an illustration of it, that where the power
of godliness is not, nearness to godly things is only the
more dangerous.
Well, we have the solemn declaration that such shall
be the history of Christendom. “ And I saw three unclean
spirits … which go forth unto the kings of the earth, and
of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that
great day of God Almighty,” Rev. 16. at day, when the
long-suering of God shall have closed, and shall have
no more place, when in fact a longer delay would become
the allowance of unrighteousness; judgment will then be
according to this nearness. Its full tide will roll in upon
Christendom.
We speak not of the judgment of the dead, but of the
living. Where, then, is the resource from this dreadful
progress and consummation of wickedness, in the place
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where righteousness is expected? It is not in man’s will,
for through that he is the slave of Satan; nor in forms of
religiousness: Satan can enter in with the sop. Neither the
one nor the other will keep him out. Man’s natural power,
his capacity to do great things, may be vaunted on the one
hand; and on the other a reliance upon ordinances and
observances may be insisted upon. For a time these may
seem the most opposing schools, but a connecting link
will be found in man’s corrupt nature, managed by the
craft of the great enemy; and at last both will subserve his
purposes, who is to exalt “ himself above all that is called
God, or is worshipped: so that he sitteth in the temple
of God, showing himself that he is God.” Where then is
deliverance from the evil? where is the escape? e answer
is most simple: In the fellowship of God’s love. e place
of special privileges unheeded, of special light, will be the
place of special judgment.
A word in passing: Satan does not come all at once
and say, I seek to turn you from God. He usually works by
introducing that which would lead away from simplicity of
reliance on the death of Christ-some “ form of godliness
“-and so ensnares. How are we to detect all this? In the rst
place the believer must be set in heaven (not in body but in
spirit) in the presence of God Himself. at is now his true
place. “ e way into the holiest of all was not yet manifest,
while as the rst tabernacle was yet standing.” God was not
revealed in His own full estimate of good and evil, before
Christ and the cross. But now the holiest is open. e veil
is rent. “ e true light shineth.” ere is nothing between
us and God. All is worthless that cannot stand in the light
of His holiness. ere were many things before which
God did not approve, but which He permitted-Jewish
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divorcement, for instance (Mark 10:5). But at the death of
Christ the full light of God’s holiness, against the darkness
of man’s fully developed sin, was brought out. e veil was
rent from top to bottom.
Divine goodness had come into the world, and displayed
itself with every witness: what had man shown himself to
be? A hater of divine goodness, in deliberate judgment.
e full evil of the world, and, in the accomplishment
of righteousness for us, the full grace of God, both came
out at the cross. All the pains God had taken to reclaim
man, as culture to a good-for-nothing tree, only resulted in
his bearing more bad fruit, until the deliberate evil of his
nature in hatred to God, was shown in the death of Christ.
is was the climax of his sin. But here also was shown
God’s perfect love. Man’s hatred to God come in goodness
is one side of the cross, and the other is God in His highest
act of love towards man in vileness.
God’s own holiness has now come completely out.
Since the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ,
it is no longer a question of coming up step by step to God.
If man stand before God at all, he must stand in contact
with the full light of His holiness. How did that light burst
forth? In the absolute putting away of the sin of every
believer, and that by the worst act of man’s sin. e very sin
that was detected by the light, that would have hindered
the soul’s approach, was put away through the blow that
brought Jesus to the death; and now the sinner stands in
the absolute and full enjoyment of God’s love. Such is His
goodness! e more the searching eye of God rests on me,
trusting to the perfect work of Christ, the more, as it were,
does He discover the perfect value of the blood of Christ.
e clearer the light, the more is it to show that not a spot
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or stain is on me. What does He see? e ecacy of the
blood of His own provided Lamb-that which has put away
my sin. e same light that detects the sin manifests its
being utterly, and forever, put away; yea, has burst forth and
shone in the putting it away. Here then is the safeguard. It
is the knowledge of God’s full putting away of sin-peace
through the blood. I can have no thought of getting up to
God, etc., when standing where Himself has brought me,
even in His very presence.
We are called unto holiness, but what character does
Christian holiness take? Not the character of our own
nature at all, nothing is recognized as of us. It is, “ that we
might be partakers of his holiness.” Man’s nature has been
proved to be incorrigibly bad, it has hated and crucied
Christ: God cannot own it, He seeks nothing from it. He
has satised Himself in the cross about our evil; and now
He says, Be partakers of my good. Here again is a safeguard
for the saints at the present hour. ose who, through the
teaching of the Spirit of God, have learned this great and
blessed truth, and through grace walk in fellowship with
God, will be preserved from all legal attempts at holiness.
ey say, We want nothing before God, but only to glorify
Him in our bodies. ey are Christ before God, and they
know it. Nothing else is wanted; nay, God would repudiate
anything else. It would be to call in question the suciency
of Christ. Faith rests where God rests. What we have to
do is to glorify Him by our life down here. But our walk
down here is, nevertheless, not our standing before God in
righteousness, though it be a testimony in man’s sight to it.
Reader, have you rested where God rests? What does
God think about Christ? Does your soul say, at is
sucient? God rests in Him as having made peace through
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the blood of the cross. Is that peace consciously yours?
Salvation is the guard set up of God against the deceits of
Satan.
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62498
e Woman of Samaria
Notes John 4:1-26
THERE are three chapters in this Gospel of John
which speak of the eects and operations of the Spirit
of God. e rst is one with which we are all doubtless
familiar; namely, chapter 3, which brings before us the
power and ecacy of the Holy Ghost in His quickening
oce-bringing forth dead souls, and causing them to be
born again. Another is chapter 7, which shows the internal
eect of the indwelling of the Spirit, being described by our
Lord as “ rivers of living water.” “ He that believeth on me,
as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall ow rivers
of living water.” And it is added, “ is spake he of the
Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive.” And
in chapter 4 it is very expressly spoken of as “ living water,”
and “ a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”
It may be protable now for us to advert to this subject,
and consider it attentively, to ascertain how it is spoken of;
what are its operations; and whether we nd it in ourselves,
as believers, a well of water springing up; and show how it
is rejected by them that believe not.
e Lord Jesus Christ is the giver of the Holy Spirit to
them that believe; He is the fountain and giver of all good:
all blessings are obtained by His sacrice and intercession,
and in no other way. Indeed it is the only way God can be
a giver to sinful man; there is no possibility of His giving
any blessings to us as sinners except through this channel.
As sinners, our intercourse with God is suspended forever,
except through Christ; but through Him the most intimate
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291
intercourse is restored. We lost it by virtue of our association
with sin, and were then cast out from the presence of God,
bringing forth fruit to the esh, the world, and Satan. How
could any intercourse subsist between God and us in that
state? e thing was impossible. But by the nished work
of Christ, and in virtue of His resurrection, having taken
His people from their former position, and set them in a
perfectly distinct state, He brings them into fellowship with
the Father, into (as far as regards His work) an unhindered
communion with God.
ey come to know Christ then as the medium of
communication, of fellowship, and of intercourse; they see
themselves by faith in the presence of God, in the Person
of Jesus, and thus have free and unrestrained communion
with Him. Just as by faith they saw themselves cast out from
God, so by faith are they brought again into His presence.
Now they are practically conscious that they are driven
out-that they were justly excluded, having wandered from
the way of holiness. is was the fruit of their own work;
and then by faith they learn practically, that on the work of
the Lord is founded that association which, making them
one with Him, brings them into the nearest union and
closest communion with God. ey see the transfer of sin,
and the transfer of righteousness, bringing them into this
state. He was made “ sin for us, who knew no sin, that we
might be made the righteousness of God in him.” In Him
we see the whole body-the church gathered into one-being
made divine righteousness, and so presented to God. We
see Him before God perfect, and we (I speak of believers)
in Him. is blessed righteousness is made known to us
by the Spirit which Christ sends down from heaven, and
so leads up the souls of His people to a participation in
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His happiness. By seeing themselves and their own state by
nature, He leads them out of themselves into Christ. But
this is the gift of God. is is what Christ promised while
on earth: “ When the Comforter is come, he shall convince
the world of sin, and of righteousness.”
Now it is in full agreement with this that the chapter
before us unfolds itself-a chapter replete with most
wonderful facts of God’s wisdom, and His mighty love.
e Pharisees were jealous and murmured at hearing that
Jesus had made more disciples than John. Jesus therefore,
to follow peace with all men, left Judea, and departed again
into Galilee, going through Samaria; there being, in His
eternal counsel, a needs-be for it-even to meet with one
poor sinner. He had taken a long journey; He was wearied,
and He sat down on the well to recover His exhausted
strength. Indeed it was a world of weariness to Him while
He labored in it. He had left His rest which He had with
the Father from all eternity-had left His home of glory and
of blessedness, and come down to this sinful world to be
wearied indeed. ere was everything around to make Him
weary-sin, hatred, ingratitude, ill-will, and open opposition,
and toil; but, though wearied in the contemplation of these,
He was never wearied in the testimony of love: this was
meat they knew not of. When driven by exhaustion and
persecution from the crowd, we nd love taking Him into
desert places apart, to pray. ere was no love of bodily ease,
no selshness dictating His conduct in any particular: it
was one unmitigated scene of active love. He was wrapped
up in the one sole object for which He was on earth, and
nothing could divert Him.
We see how full His whole soul was on the subject from
the circumstances related in this chapter. e providence of
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293
God had (so to speak) brought Him to Samaria. What do
we nd Him there doing? Just sitting alone with a wicked
sinner by the side of a well to settle the great question of
eternity with her, to show her herself, and to make known
Himself to her. And this He does now to every soul whom
He calls to Himself-just sit:, alone with them, leads them
into the recesses of their own hews, and then makes known
to them in whose presence they are, leading them to ask
those gifts which He had prepared for them. In the case
of this poor sinful woman we see the blessed way in which
the Lord led her. She, full of her worldly employment,
unconscious whom she was to meet, came to the well. He
rst asks her for a drink-a drink of cold water considered
the very poorest and meanest gift which this world
contains. See how the Lord humbled Himself! Among the
Jews it was considered the depth of degradation even to
hold any communion or converse with the Samaritans; to
be beholden to them for a favor would not be tolerated
by them. But here we have the Lord of glory asking for
a drink of water from one of the worst in the city of the
Samaritans! Such was His humiliation, that the woman
herself wonders that such a request should be made from
a Jew to one whom the Jews ever looked upon and treated
with the greatest contempt.
Now, brethren, just think of this; do just contemplate
the mind and the spirit in which He met this poor outcast-
this wicked Samaritan. He did not enter into argument
about the prejudices of the Jews, or their justice in thus
treating their neighbors; His mind was on the one subject-
her salvation; and therefore He needs nothing else. He
answered and said unto her, “ If thou knewest the gift
of God, and who it is that saith unto thee, Give me to
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drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have
given thee living water.” Now there is the great truth, the
ignorance of which ruins the world. ey do not know who
it is that is asking them to give Him a drink-still beseeching
them to be reconciled-” We pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye
reconciled to God “-still entreating them, in terms of the
greatest gentleness and love, to give themselves to Him-
still in this character of petitioner for a favor. e point
of distinction which the world knows not is this, that it is
the Son of God who thus humbles Himself to ask sinners
to come; that it is the Lord of glory doing it- the Son of
the eternal God doing it. ey know not who it is that is
asking them, and therefore they ask not from Him that
gift without which they never can enter into the kingdom
of God. “If thou knewest … who it is that saith to thee …
thou wouldest have asked of him.”
We come then to inquire, What is this gift? e gift
of God. Living water. A well of water-a springing well-
springing up continually into eternal life. ere are just two
things to be considered: rst, what it is-namely, the giving
of the Holy Spirit; secondly, who it is that gives it-Christ.
To have known the latter would have been to have asked
for the former. It is the knowledge of whom we have to
do with that puts us upon asking for His gifts; for this
gift of the Holy Spirit in us (which is Christ’s to give) is
to be in the believer a well-always living water-not a pool,
which, though full, may be liable to be dried up, but a well
that cannot dry up. ere is the fountain which can never
be exhausted that is given to him-is put into him, and
lives and abides forever. Now this is the promise to the
believer-” e water that I shall give him shall be in him a
well of water springing up into everlasting life.”
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Now the possession of this water must consist, rst,
in the knowledge of the Giver of it: without that there
must be total ignorance, darkness, stupidity, and entire
inapprehension and inability to recognize or understand
the worth or value of the gift, or its spiritual signication.
As in the case before us, the woman’s mind took in nothing
of this, because she was ignorant of Him with whom she
was speaking; her mind could not therefore apprehend the
truth, and we see her carnal reason entirely misconstruing
it, and turning it into another channel. “ Sir,” she said, “
thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from
whence then hast thou that living water? “ And here we see
what her mind was occupied with--the world, the duties,
pursuits, and employments of the world; and so she could
not rise to any higher thoughts- could not see who it was
that spoke, nor what He was oering to her attention.
And thus blinded is the world, led away from the things
of Christ, by the things of time and sense. Satan uses these
things as instruments in his hands of keeping the soul from
Christ. Let it be what it may, let it be only a waterpot, he
cares not, so that it occupies the mind to the exclusion of
the knowledge of Christ. He cares not for the instrument,
so that he gains his own end, to draw the mind away from
the apprehension of spiritual things. It may be pleasure,
it may be amusement, gain, reputation, family duties,
lawful employments, so that it keeps the soul from xing
on Christ. is is all he wants. A waterpot will serve his
purpose, just as well as a palace, so that he can blind them,
“ lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the
image of God, should shine unto them.”
I ask you now, my friends, Is there nothing which is thus
keeping you from knowing Christ, and seeing His great
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salvation-from giving yourselves up to Him, and obtaining
from Him this living water? It may be harmless-it may be
innocent in itself-it may even be praiseworthy in itself. But
has it been of sucient weight with you to keep you from
Christ? Is He a stranger to you? and are you a stranger to
His great gifts? Is there anything even this day-no matter
what-family duties, lawful employments-which has held
you? Perhaps something less harmless and innocent than a
waterpot has been found hitherto of sucient weight with
you to keep your soul dead to the spiritual apprehension of
Christ’s words. See yourself then in the case of this woman,
as far as we have yet considered it. Her mind was occupied
in the
purpose for which she came to the well-a lawful and
necessary purpose; and so she had no mind for the things
of Christ. She saw nothing in them but what related to her
then employment; she saw not the love, the graciousness,
and compassion of the Lord’s mind just going to be openly
manifested towards her. ere was the Lord of life and
glory, weary with His journey, at the well, while His soul
was full of thoughts of reconciliation towards her. But she
saw it not; she thought more about her waterpot; it was
greater in her estimation than the living water He had
been speaking of. Still pursuing her own carnal train of
thought, she continued, “ Art thou greater than our father
Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself,
and his children, and his cattle? “ Jesus answered her, “
Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again; but
whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall
never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in
him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”
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Now one would have thought that such a powerful
truth, from the lips of Truth itself, would have awakened
her from her stupid dream, and shown her that there was
more in it than carnal nature could discern. But no; she
saw nothing of it, and replies, “ Sir, give me this water,
that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.” e natural
mind is on natural things, and sees everything through that
medium; it is shut up in its own little circle of feelings and
ideas, and can neither see nor feel beyond it; there it looks
for all its enjoyment; there it lives, there it continues, and
there it dies. “ e natural man receiveth not the things
of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them, for they
are spiritually discerned “; and the reason is this-they have
neither seen nor know the God in whose presence they
are, neither have they ever been partakers by faith in Christ
of God’s gift of the Holy Spirit, whereby they discern
spiritually; they have no perception of the excluded state
in which they are with regard to God and heaven; neither
do they know anything of the entrance into the new life-
the new creation, because the entrance of the Spirit has
never been experienced in their hearts, they are foolish and
worldly and know nothing of God.
But notwithstanding all this we see the perseverance
of our God. In spite of all the stupidity of this sinful
Samaritan, the Lord still continues His labor of love,
though exhibited dierently. He now changes His manner.
But the patience of the Lord of love is never wearied by the
obstinate perverseness of His people. We, judging from our
own feelings, might well suppose the Savior would have
left her in dark stupidity, and have given her up. But no;
He is God, and not man: therefore we are not left to our
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own blindness. e patience of His love is never exhausted,
for it proceeds from an inexhaustible source: “ God is love.”
e Savior now takes another course in His wisdom; but
the end is still the same-love. He had tried expostulation and
entreaty, but she could not understand Him. He therefore
says, “ Go, call thy husband “; you are proof against all I
have oered you; you cannot understand My motive and
My meaning of love, so I must make you get a view of
yourself-of your ruin-of your utter wretchedness. In this
one sentence her little world of iniquity was unraveled to
her mind. He brought her to the consciousness of what she
was, and to the knowledge of what He was. She answers,
“ Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.” e secrets of
her heart and life were laid open to her by One whom
she had never seen before. e Lord struck the chord
to the conscience of the sinner-it vibrated. e Stranger
convinced her of what she never before in reality believed-
that she was a sinner. He laid open what she had so carefully
concealed, stripped her of her self-disguise, and showed
her that He was acquainted with the hidden recesses of
her heart. And such ever follows the testimony of the truth,
when brought home with power to the soul of the sinner.
“ He is convinced of all, he is judged of all; and thus are
the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so, falling down
on his face, he will worship God, and report that God is
in you of a truth.” And it is thus the Lord acts generally,
before we come to the distinct apprehension that we are in
the presence of One who has the keys of our conscience,
and knows the secrets of our hearts, in whose hands we
cannot struggle or wrestle for relief; we are judged, we are
convinced, we are dumb before Him; we feel His power,
and are constrained to cry, “ Come, see a man that told
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me all that ever I did.” Even while there is no manifest
perception of the blessing oered, yet the soul is brought
to see and feel the power of Him with whom it has to do;
that He who searches the heart and nds out our sin comes
in the power of God, and that it is vain for us to dissemble
with Him.
Her mind is now taken o from her waterpot, and she
inquires where she was to worship God. Much might be
said of the reply here given to her on the worship God
alone requires-spiritual worship. e whole instruction of
God’s Spirit as to communion with Him is brought out
here. But we pass on to the consideration of the blessed end
of their converse. Her mind was now opening to the light.
She was approaching to the knowledge of Him, whom to
know is everlasting life, and she appears looking forward
to the time when the Redeemer is to reveal himself. e
Spirit leads her to say, “ I know that Messias cometh, which
is called Christ; when he is come, he will tell us all things.
Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.”
Now trace these steps, brethren, and you will see the
perfect blessedness and graciousness of the way in which
she was brought to know Christ. ough a vile sinner,
stupid and heedless of the wonderful blessings He was
holding out to her, not one word of anger, not one word of
reproach, passes the Lord’s lips. He brought her sin to her
remembrance” ou hast well said, I have no husband.” He
leads her to desire the revelation of the Messiah, and then,
in a way the most engaging and the most insinuating, He
makes Himself known unto her. ere is not one of us, if
the Lord were thus to unveil our minds, but would be ready
to y from ourselves and seek Jesus. But we see not our
state by nature; we are too busy-too much occupied with
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the cares, duties, engagements, and pleasures of the world,
to see ourselves as we really are. We are too much occupied
with our waterpot to know the Lord of glory seated at the
well. But let the truth be brought to ourselves, then even
the world, self-lover as it is, will hate itself. In what a way of
love was she brought! no reproach, no harshness, no unkind
word. He simply opens up her heart, next creates the desire
to know Him, and then exclaims, “ I that speak unto thee
am he.” Here she now found what her soul was looking for.
She might have some possible hope that He was coming;
but how could she expect to see Him so full of humility
and love as to become a suitor for a drink of cold water?
is is the very way and manner in which Christ reveals
Himself to any soul before that soul asks anything of Him.
It is in this very position that we are able to ask anything of
Him. It is in this way of dealing that we nd Christ in all
gentleness, all love, all condescension to our weakness and
unworthiness. He shows us something of the greatness of
His power in knowing our hearts; and then leads us to the
point of blessedness when He reveals Himself” I am he.”
e sinner can then ask from the Lord, whom he has seen
willing to be a debtor for kindness; he hears Him exclaim, I
do not feel at enmity with you; I am not about to reproach
you; and to show you this, I will entreat a favor at your
hands, and am ready to give you what you shall ask of Me-
the best gift-the gift of God.
Here, then, is what we have to look for-to know Christ,
that we may obtain the gift of God. We nd here that
the Spirit is given to them that believe in Him. “ If thou
knewest … who it is that saith to thee, … thou wouldest
have asked of him, and he would have given thee living
water “; He would have given a well, put it in thee, which
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would ever be springing up. us the Lord acts now. When
the soul is proof (so to speak) against the blessed invitations
held out, the Lord sends the word of conviction. e sword
of the Spirit, which is the word of God, goes forth, and
brings the soul to see its real position-that it is depraved,
lost; that it cannot stand sinless before the face of God. “
Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet “; “ He told me all
things that ever I did “; is the experience of the heart, when
He has thus wrought conviction in the soul. He teaches us
what we could not know before- that we are in the presence
of God, and that it is Jesus Himself who is talking with us.
en we come to Him, and He gives us the blessed gift
which He intended for us all along.
en we come to be taken out of our former position,
as strangers, aliens, enemies, and are associated in our
new position; no longer a worldly but a heavenly portion-
Christ’s portion. e Spirit is given to testify of this; to
chew that the life which he now lives is the life of Christ,
setting the Christian in the same position as Christ
Himself. And what follows? what are its eects here? “ e
woman then left her waterpot,” and reported it to all she
met with, entreating them likewise to come to Jesus. And
this eect will ever follow the clear perception of Christ
to the soul-the total leaving of what before the carnal
mind was centered in. She came for water. is was all she
wanted then; her mind was on that one thing. But soon
she thought not of well, water, or waterpot. Her mind
had centered in another object, and towards that she was
now carried. Christ had revealed Himself to her soul; the
Messiah’s glory was now her aim and end. She knows Him
now, not from hearsay but in the personal revelation of
Himself; and immediately she begins to preach Him to
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others. A total revolution had taken place; things are now
all put in their right places. We see order, where all before
was disorder or chaos. We come to see Him, who is the
life, as our life. For whoever has thus seen the Lord, asking
at our hands, being willing to be dependent, as it were, on
us-where this really has been seen, there the revolution has
been total: the soul is led to inquire, Am I indeed in Him?
am I associated with Him in interest, in privilege, in glory?
Is He my life? en what is the world to me? What have I
to live for, but for His glory, and to show my gratitude for
His unspeakable mercies!
To bring the soul into this state was just the subject
of those thoughts which occupied the Savior’s mind from
the beginning, and throughout the whole process, of this
woman’s self-conviction and shame. A new life is thus given;
the soul is quickened; a well of water is put within us. ere
is then a something in the soul which, always springing up,
has always the power of refreshment, tending to whence it
came-the living fountains of water-Christ Jesus; tending
towards the glory of the Lord Jesus, and receiving all its
glory from thence. Under the full recognition and sensible
perception of this the world is of little worth; wealth is
despised, power is despised, distinction is despised; the
soul nds no wealth but in Christ, no power but by Christ,
no distinction but from Him. So far as this power of
perception is in us, in so far will our joy be full; it springs
up from the divine nature within us, which tends to its
glorious giver, Christ. It is a fresh spring; it draws from the
Lord of glory; it has fellowship and its associations are all
with Him.
Now how is it with your souls? Is there this well within
you, which is ever springing up, meeting its source? If thou
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knewest the gift of God, and who it is that asketh thee,
thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have
given thee living water. Of His giving there is not a shadow
of a doubt: if thou hadst asked, He would have given thee.
Have you known Christ? Have you asked of Him? Have
you within you this well? Is it springing up within you?
ere is a vast dierence between drawing from others,
and having it ourselves. Could a thirsty soul receive benet
from what it found in you, except it had experienced
the refreshment within itself? If you have experienced
it yourself, what practical inuence has it had? Are you
separated from the world, and separated to God? Do you
consider what is your high calling? -heirs of God, and joint
heirs with Christ! Are you imitating Him? What was He
here? Holy, harmless, undeled, separate from sinners. Are
you such? If you are Christ’s, His Spirit has borne witness
in your heart that He was such, and that He manifests this
to you, “ that ye may abound in hope, through the power of
the Holy Ghost.” e glory of the Lord is manifested now
in the power of God’s Spirit on the souls of His people.
is distinguishes them internally from all the world. ey
have come out from a participation in position with the
rst Adam, and are consequently partakers of a divine
nature; they become altogether a part and portion of the
last Adam, and are risen with Him. is they are called
upon to manifest outwardly. Did you know one tittle of the
love of God in Christ-had you seen Him, and asked from
Him what He presses on your reception, it would be your
desire, aim, and delight to exhibit it. Dear friends, is there
in you this spring-this well of water? If not, you have not
known as yet the gift of God. Be not deceived, my friends;
if you have not this in you, you have nothing. If you have
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not the inward refreshing spring, which Christ gives to all
His people, you will nd whatever else you have of little-
of no-avail; for when the sun of temptation, of trial, or of
aiction comes, that which is in you will be dried up as a
useless pool without spring, without any refreshing source.
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62510
e Living Water
John 7:37-39
IN order fully to understand the meaning of this
scripture, and the circumstance for which this feast, to
which Jesus went up, is a type, we must, in the rst place,
see the way in which He is presented to us in Scripture-at
present as an absent Lord. Under an anticipated sense of
this absence we nd Him comforting His disciples, “ Let
not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also
in me “; consequent upon that discourse with His disciples,
wherein He says, “ Whither I go, thou canst not follow
me now, but thou shalt follow me afterward.” And when
Peter under a dread of that absence, exclaimed, “ Lord, why,
cannot I follow thee now? “ Jesus says, “ Let not your heart
be troubled.” You shall not enjoy My bodily presence, it
is true; but, though absent, believe in Me. Ye believe in
God without seeing Him; now believe also in Me: though
I go away from you, I will see you again, and your heart
shall rejoice, and your joy no man takes from you. Here,
then, is now the position of the believer. Jesus has gone,
and the believer stands in the apprehension of His absence;
his desires are tending toward an absent Lord. He feels
his joy still incomplete, because his Beloved is not present;
and he is looking for and hastening towards the time when
He is to be revealed, and we shall “ see him as he is.” But
he knows at present he is not where Christ is; he is in a
usurped world, where Satan is setting up his kingdom,
whose subjects are described as saying, “ I sit as queen, and
am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.” Here is nothing
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of the consciousness of the Lord’s absence as felt by the
church-no cry for deliverance-no cry for the Lord to come;
no such thing as saying, “ In this [body] we groan, earnestly
desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from
heaven.”
Here we have the character of those who are members
of Christ’s body. ey are such as have an habitual
consciousness that their Lord is absent, that the adversary
is present, and that they themselves are in a world which
rejected their Lord and is under the usurped dominion of
their adversary. Hence they are looking for “ a new heaven
and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.” And they
are believers, who are not looking to receive their portion
here from the persons and things of this world. eirs is
an “ inheritance reserved “ for them, the earnest of which
they now receive, not by sight, but by faith-” receiving the
end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.” ey
experience troubles and trials here, “ which are not joyous,
but grievous “; but they have the blessed consciousness of
the love of the Father brought to them by His well-beloved
Son, and of which they partake, through the fellowship of
the Holy Ghost.
ere are two cities referred to in Scripture. Paul says,
in the name of all believers, “ Here we have no continuing
city, but we seek one to come.” And believers are conscious
that they are where the “city is low in a low place.” e
other city is “the city of confusion,” or Babylon, which are
synonymous terms; this is quite distinct from that city
which we seek. e city of confusion, or Babel, cannot
then bear any analogy to this city: they are not-they cannot
be-united. ey are the two opposite corporate systems,
irrespective of each other, and opposed to each other.
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ere is this testimony of the Spirit in the hearts of
believers, that, though surrounded with “ Great Babylon,”
it is not the city to the laws of which they owe or practice
obedience; that their city is the “ city of God “-the
manifestation of which they are looking for.
e believer is conscious that, if he is living bodily in
this “ city of confusion,” he has really by the Spirit “come
unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God.”
It is to this he belongs; of this city he is a citizen, and for
the visible perception of this he is hastening onwards. e
Spirit testies that he has now the visible perception of
the other system, dwelling there, but not as belonging to
it; but as waiting for that time when “ he that shall come
will come and will not tarry,” who will then overthrow the
dominion of Satan, and reign forever!
But, besides the absence of the Lord, which this scripture
infers, it also evidences the presence of the Holy Ghost
with such as do groan under a sense of widowhood (that is,
while they are in the wilderness, before coming to the land
of Canaan), and particularly points to the latter times, just
previous to the coming of Christ, when the outpouring of
the Spirit should be peculiarly manifested.
To the understanding of this, it is necessary for us to
review the statements of the circumstances in which our
Lord was placed at this time. e Jews were coming up to
the feast of tabernacles at Jerusalem. “ Jesus was in Galilee:
for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought
to kill him “; and for this reason, because He had healed
the impotent man, who for thirty-eight years had vainly
looked for a cure from the pool of Bethesda-which, like
the law, good and salutary in itself, was perfectly useless to
him by reason of his inability to use it, his own inrmity
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entirely disabling him from any hope of cure from it. And
so he must ever have remained, had not the Lord passed
by and with a word of power commanded him to live. is
called forth the envious malice of the Lord’s enemies; and,
until He appeared at the feast, He had been still in Galilee.
e feast of tabernacles had not been, nor could it be,
kept in the wilderness; and it is one of the remarkable types
which manifestly have not yet been fullled. is was the
third of the three great annual feasts which the Jews held
in commemoration of some great event. e time when
this was rst kept was after their entering into the land
of Canaan. e very circumstances of it showed that it
could not be kept in the wilderness. It was to continue for
seven days, and also on the eighth day, which was to be a
great sabbath. It was to be kept in memorial that they had
dwelt in tents; that they had been in the wilderness but
were now out of it. It was a day of solemn assembly-the
ingathering, the acknowledgment that, though they had
been “ strangers and pilgrims,” or wanderers in a foreign
country, yet now they were settled in the land whither
they had been journeying all the time they had been in
the wilderness; and therefore we see that this is still an
unfullled type in the Christian dispensation; for real facts
testify, that as the feast of tabernacles could not be kept
until they had come out of the wilderness state, it is still to
us an unfullled type, and that the third great type, which
was to witness the gathering of the people to their own
land, waits for its nal accomplishment.
e feast of the passover, which commemorated the
deliverance of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage by
the slaying of the lamb and the sprinkling of blood, and
pregured the redemption of the church by the sacrice
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of the Lord Jesus Christ, has been accomplished, as far as
the absolute fact of His death and satisfaction for sin, in
raising us from more than Egyptian bondage. e results
have not indeed, nor will they be, fully accomplished, till
the last redeemed sinner is in glory. But the positive fact
demonstrably proves that it has had a denite fulllment.
e feast of weeks, or Pentecost, an oering of
thanksgiving to the Lord for the increase of the rstfruits
of the harvest, has had, so far as the absolute fact, a plain
fulllment, when the rst-fruits of the Christian church
were seen-the manifestation of the increase of the Spirit
in His descent on the disciples on the day of Pentecost-
the rst-fruits of the nished work of Christ. Here it
has been in part fullled. e results have not all been
accomplished; the eects are still going and will continue
to go on, though it has had in some measure its positive
and ostensible accomplishment. But in no sense has the
type of the feast of tabernacles been fullled; it remains
yet to be accomplished, when the true Israelites, having
left the wilderness, are brought into their own land, and
commemorate with loud praises their blessed entrance.
e circumstances which occurred at these feasts prove
also the fact of their fulllment. In the time of the passover,
and the feast accompanying it, there was to be oered a
lamb, without blemish or spot, and on the morrow after
the sabbath an unbroken oering, a sheaf of the rst-fruits,
exactly answering to Christ’s sacrice of Himself, as a lamb
without any blemish, and presenting at His resurrection an
unbroken oering-” the rst-fruits of them that slept.”
Now, at the feast of Pentecost, an oering was made of
two wave loaves, mixed with leaven: and in the fulllment
of this type we see the wonderful contrast between it and
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that oered on the day of atonement. e Spirit descended
on the disciples in the realization of this gure; but, the
excellency being put into earthen vessels, it was leavened;
that is, it was mixed with the corruption of nature-therefore,
a leavened cake. Whereas, in the former type, it was not a
leavened but an unleavened oering, a sheaf of the rst-
fruits; wonderfully preguring the oering of Him, who
had no stain or spot of sin, who saw no corruption, and in
whom there was no leaven mixed.
Now there would have been no atonement had the
paschal lamb been in any way blemished; but being faultless
and then sacriced, it was accepted, in that it was without
blemish.
e feast of tabernacles, which is yet to be
commemorated, was to be held in the land of Canaan,
on the fteenth day of the seventh month, when the fruit
of the land was gathered in. It was after the harvest and
vintage were over; which shows that, as yet, it could not
have its fulllment, but waits for it in the closing scene,
when the saints “ shall be caught up in the clouds to meet
the Lord in the air,” having “ put on their house which is
from heaven,” that is, their resurrection bodies. And then
shall come the time of gladness, of rest, and of fullness, to
the church now free from all her enemies.
But now, concerning the Lord’s going up to this feast of
tabernacles which was at hand, and which was confessedly
an unfullled type, His brethren said to Him, “ Depart
hence, and go into Judea, that thy disciples also may see
the works that thou doest. For there is no man that doeth
anything in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known
openly. If thou do these things, show thyself to the world.”
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is was pressed upon Him by His brethren, who did
not believe on Him: “Show thyself to the world “-exhibit
yself. ey wanted a manifestation of Himself at that
time, adequate to the claims He made; an indiscriminate
revelation of Himself to all the world, proposing to Him
to show Himself then. But Jesus said, “My time is not yet
come.” at was not His time to exhibit Himself openly;
but the time is fast approaching, which will be to the joy
of His saints, and the terror of the ungodly. en will He
exhibit Himself, when “every eye shall see him, and they
also that pierced him, and all kindreds of the earth shall
wail because of him.” “en shall they see the Son of man
coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.”
is will be the time when He shall declare Himself openly.
But as yet He has not come to confound the world by the
manifestation of Himself openly; and this, to a world lying
in wickedness, is mercy-real longsuering-the very height
of forbearance; for when He does come, it is to thrust out
of His dominion all that oend, all that do iniquity-all that
practice or love sin: and why? Because He is holiness itself,
and He cannot look at sin; and where He is, sin cannot
nd a place. And therefore His very coming must sweep,
with the besom of destruction, all the refuges of lies, and
everything that is opposed to holiness. is forbearance
therefore is comparative happiness. And well it is for the
saints now, that the Lord did not act on the suggestion of
His brethren, and show Himself then. Well it is for them
that it was not His time. e Lord’s long-suering was their
salvation: otherwise they never would have been gathered
out, and translated into another kingdom; nor would they
who are yet to be gathered out still see Him waiting to be
gracious, entreating them to come unto Him to be saved;
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they would never have heard that the Lord went up, as He
did at this feast, and proclaimed, “ If any man thirst, let
him come unto me and drink.”
Blessed, very blessed is it, then, for the world, for the
saints, and for those who are yet to be gathered in, that the
Lord did not show Himself openly at the feast, “ because his
time was not yet come.” He went up however, but secretly.
His very discourse-” I go not up yet to this feast “-showed
that it was to have a positive fulllment, when there would
be a consciousness of having been in the wilderness, but
now rejoicing in being out of it. “ Show thyself to the world
“ was the request of His brethren. is He refused; but
He went up secretly, and taught at the feast, inviting all to
come and partake of His mercy, before He should disclose
Himself openly.
In consequence of the eect the Lord’s miracles had
made upon the people, the Pharisees were enraged, and
sent ocers to take Him; and the Lord says, “Yet a little
while am I with you.” ere is a peculiar display of aection
in this, as if He would call upon them, while they have the
light, to believe in it, to walk in it, and so be saved. And He
adds, “Ye shall seek me, and shall not nd me.” ere is a
time coming when you will be glad to nd me; you now seek
me in ill-will, in enmity, in malice, but the time will come
when you will endeavor to nd me from a very dierent
motive. And He says precisely the same to His disciples,
“Ye shall seek me, and, as I said unto the Jews, whither I
go, ye cannot come.” Such, therefore, is the present position
of the people of God: they are where Christ manifestly
is not; and where He is, there they cannot come as yet.
It is painfully true, it is sorrowfully true, that this is their
experience now. ey are not with Jesus, though the Lord
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in mercy makes it up to them; by the earnest of it which He
puts within them, they have the certainty that they shall be
with Him. is is the desire of their souls; this constitutes
their hope of glory, to be in the presence of Christ; to see “
him who loved them, and washed them from their sins in
his own blood “; to “ see him as he is,” and “ to be like him.”
is is what we are looking for, if we are believers. We
have, it is true, while here, another Comforter, a blessed
Comforter; but His very teaching and instruction leads us
to desire more of Him, and more of the Father, and of
Jesus; and He sends forth our aections towards Jesus, and
leads us to desire His presence; just as here, with sensible
objects, where we really love, we are longing to be in the
presence of the object; so, the indwelling of the Spirit, who
is love, draws out our aections towards Jesus, making us
practically and painfully conscious of the present truth of
Christ’s words, “ Whither I go, ye cannot come.”
Now, brethren, I ask you, Have you come to the sorrowful
acknowledgment and perception of Christ’s words? Are
you conscious that you are in a distinct position from the
present system of things in this “ city of confusion,” and
that you are opposed to it in aections, desires, and pursuits?
at your aections are carried away to Him who has
departed: Him whom the world rejected-Him whom the
world turned out, and left itself in the darkness which it
loved? Are you conscious that the night is far spent? that
the day, the glorious day of His appearing, is at hand?
We, brethren, are not of the night, nor of darkness.
But are we walking as children of the light, and of the
day? We know it is the night now, because the “ Sun of
righteousness “ is absent. His glory is hid, and His beams
are seen obscurely even by the keenest spiritual vision.
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But are our desires intensely turned towards the returning
light? Are we waiting for it “ more than they that watch
for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the
morning “?
e question with our souls, brethren, is, whether there
is this apprehension-this spiritual apprehension, of what
the Lord Jesus is to the soul, so as to be sensible of our state
at present, as living on an absent Lord? “ While I am in the
world, I am the light of the world,” said Christ. Christ, our
light, is not visible with us, but He is coming; the day-star
may be hid till the day-dawn appears, but then shall “ the
Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings.”
is is what the believer is hastening towards; he is
longing for the day-the night is not his joy-it is not his
happiness. “ ey that sleep, sleep in the night “; but he
is not of the night, and therefore can get no enjoyment
from the things of the night. But he waits for the day-star-
Him who, though He has hitherto refrained from openly
manifesting Himself to the world, yet has revealed Himself
in the hearts of His people, causing them to delight, to
glory in, and to love, an absent Lord, more than all sensible
and present objects, delights, and enjoyments. And in this
position is the believer set at present, waiting for the glory,
of which he has the earnest in his soul: “ He that believeth
on the Son of God hath the witness in himself.”
is great feast to which the Lord was going up was
very memorable to the Jews from the several times of its
celebration. At the time of the completion of Solomon’s
temple, when nothing more was wanting to nish it-at that
same time was the feast of the seventh month-” a solemn
assembly,” in which the people were “ joyful and glad of
heart.” Also, on the return of the captives from Babylon
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into their own land, they discovered by the book of the
law that it was the exact period when this feast should be
observed; and we nd in Neh. 8, that it was celebrated with
“ very great gladness.”
For the type to be fullled literally and spiritually we
must look forward to that time when the spiritual temple
will be completed; when every precious stone shall be
placed therein, and when “ he shall bring forth the head-
stone with shoutings, Grace, grace unto it “; and also for
that time, when there shall be nothing to keep us from
our own home, and when our souls shall be lled with joy
and gladness and thanksgiving on getting up out of the
wilderness. But we are not yet there; and therefore the Lord
has prepared, and wonderfully given, that which is to be the
very comfort and stay of our souls while in this wilderness:
“ He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of
his belly shall ow rivers of living water.” Before this is set
up in a believer, he has no refreshing perception of union
with the living fountain. What refreshed the children of
Israel during their long and toilsome marches through the
wilderness? e command of God went forth to Moses,
and upon striking the rock the waters owed, “ the rivers
ran in dry places “; they found living waters even in the
wilderness. is was to satisfy them until they came to the
desired land. And so the Lord Jesus was smitten; and from
that Rock ow all the living streams which are given for
the refreshment and strengthening of His people while
here.
Now however sad it is that our Lord is absent from
you, still, while you are here resting on the smitten rock for
support and comfort, your wants can always be supplied.
Christ can cause you to overow with the spiritual
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apprehension of His refreshing grace. He will make you
so one with Himself, that the fountain, the inexhaustible
fountain which He contains, shall be so indwelling in you,
as to be ever owing, ever streaming, even in the wilderness;
not keeping in, but owing out in joyful acknowledgments
of spiritual refreshment. It was this that Christ promised
He would give after His departure: “ is spake he of the
Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive; for
the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was
not yet gloried.” It is thus that Jesus makes His people
partakers of His fullness even here. It is true, they have not
all the joy; but when the wilderness shall be left behind,
then will they enter into all the joy of the Lord. In the
meanwhile the Holy Spirit, who makes them conscious
that they are still not in the land of rest, lls them with
all that can compensate for its wants while here below, in
causing, by His indwelling, “ rivers of living water “ to ow
forth: this is the joy of the Holy Ghost.
In order that the presence of God the Holy Ghost
should be thus experienced, Christ absented Himself for
a time from His own. “ It is expedient for you,” said He, “
that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not
come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you
“; you knew Him when absent, but you shall shortly have
Him dwelling in you, so as to cause you to ow forth in
living water. is was the promise He gave on the last day
of the feast-the promise of the Holy Ghost, which “ they
that believe on him should receive “; given now, as a witness
to the ascension of Christ, after having accomplished
redemption work (for it is said, “ e Holy Ghost was
not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet gloried “)
after He had entered into His rest of eternal glory; which,
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though it has been confounded with that given at the new
birth, is nevertheless perfectly distinct from it. For Paul
clearly states this to the Galatians, when he says, “ Because
ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into
your hearts “; not to make, but because ye are sons already.
erefore, you should enjoy present fellowship with the
Father and the Son in glory, by the indwelling of the Holy
Ghost, whose powerful presence would lead the soul to the
enjoyment of the unseen realities of glory which He testies
within; leading, also, to the contemplation of the Person,
work, and oces of the Lord Jesus, as undertaken for our
redemption-as the bearer and confessor of, and atonement
for, sin; as “ the brightness of the Father’s glory, and the
express image of his person,” which was given them after
they had believed; “ in whom also, after that ye believed, ye
were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,” which was
given, not to believe, but as an “ earnest of our inheritance,
until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the
praise of his glory.”
is was consequent upon Jesus being gloried-” In
whom also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with
that Holy Spirit of promise “: and it was not an inuence
externally, but was within them, dwelling in them: “ Know
ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost,
which is in you? “ And His personality is also declared: “
Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed.”
ere is a distinct mention of this, as of something more
than had hitherto been experienced, which in the words of
the text is expressly said to have been “ not yet given “;
and the reason assigned-” because that Jesus was not yet
gloried.” It was to be given to those that believed. is
gift then is the seal of the Spirit, attesting Christ’s nished
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work-His resurrection, ascension, and glorication-causing
us to enter into the apprehension of those heavenly things
which He reveals to us. e blessed Comforter was given
for our refreshment in the wilderness.
“ Behold what manner of love the Father hath
bestowed upon us,” to make known these great things by
the indwelling of the Spirit in the hearts of us believers,
enabling us to know Christ gloried; and, from His glory,
sending down the Spirit of the Father in our hearts in
attestation of it-who reveals all the glory from which He
came. He comes as the gift of Christ from the Father, and
gives us to know the fellowship and consolation of the
Father’s love, testifying our claim to this fellowship, in that
we have been made sons. And though we know not here
the extent of the blessedness that awaits us, yet we know
that, when Christ “ shall appear, we shall be like him “;
when we shall obtain the glory that is reserved for us.
ese are the things which the Spirit makes known,
even in the wilderness; all consequent upon the Father’s
love. “ Ye are no more servants, but sons “; and therefore
hath He (the Father) “ sent forth the Spirit of his Son into
your hearts.” And, indeed, it is only in the position as sons
that we can recognize anything of the love of the Father, or
the union subsisting between us and Himself, as described
in John 17, in the words of Jesus: “ at the world may
believe that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou
hast loved me.” And again, “ I have declared unto them thy
name … that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may
be in them, and I in them.”
ere is one great truth made known to us by the Spirit,
that Christ was sent from the Father for the purpose, not
only of saving sinners, of saving “ the ungodly,” but of
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bringing them into His Father’s house, and unto the eternal
favor of God-into the very blessedness with Himself in
the Father’s love-” joint-heirs “ with Himself in the glory,
and like Him. “ We know that when he shall appear, we
shall be like him.” e consummation of this will be seen
in that day, when we are brought into the blessedness of
manifested union with Christ partakers with Him in the
conscious enjoyment of the Father’s love, in the glory of
Jesus-partakers of the same glory. “ Father, I will,” said
Jesus, “ that they also whom thou hast given me be with
me where I am “; “ and the glory which thou gavest me, I
have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one.”
Everything that Christ has, except and only His essential
Godhead, is His people’s-all that glory and blessedness
is theirs. And very blessedly does the Holy Ghost enable
those whom He teaches to have in present apprehension
that that glory is there for them.
What lls the soul of a Christian with bitterness is the
practical experience that he is not yet come up out of the
wilderness-that he is not yet in the glory. But, to refresh
and comfort him, the Lord gives him within himself while
here those “ living waters,” as in the wilderness of old; by
virtue of their identity and oneness with Christ, who is the
Rock, the waters necessarily ow from thence. “ Out of his
belly shall ow rivers of living water “-rivers of blessedness
owing from his soul, as being united to the living fountain.
Could your hearts contain the thousandth part of that
love which the Spirit could impart, your gratitude would
overow exceedingly, in the apprehension that, even in
the desert, you have constantly within you a witness of the
overowing fullness of Christ’s love, the fullness of His
fellowship, and the fullness of His joy.
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But, brethren, when do we see any overowing witness
to the inward testimony of the fullness of Christ’s joy?
Where are those who should be a separated people unto the
Lord, rejoicing in the Lord always? Where is the evidence
that “ we are not of the night, nor of darkness “? 0 let us
testify that we are in a position of wondrous blessedness,
even here, till that day comes when we shall know even
as also we are known; and when not only Christ, as the
rst-fruits, shall enter into His glory, but, the harvest being
past, the ingathering of all the saints shall be accomplished,
and Christ’s glory and joy will then be full; for He shall
appear in the midst, and see of the “ travail of his soul, and
be satised “; for they shall all be there, and each will have
entered “ into the joy of his Lord.” Until the reality shall
come, in what way should they act who are the “ temple of
the Holy Ghost “-of Him who is showing them what will
then take place? What practical use should they make of
the knowledge of Him, who was smitten for them, that “
rivers of living water “ should ow from them?
Brethren, I would ask you, Are you grieving the Spirit?
Are the things that you are occupied with such as would nd
a place amidst these living waters? Are your associations
and desires capable of being assimilated with these pure
streams, and together to ow unrued and untainted? Or
are its operations restrained by your assimilation to what
opposes it?
Brethren, I would ask, Is there this joy occasioned by
the indwelling of the Spirit within you, even under the
consciousness of the Lord’s absence? And is the fountain
within you owing over at the contemplation of the near
approach of your Lord? Or, sad to inquire, brethren, are
you grieving the Spirit by indulging the esh? Have you
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deprived yourselves of the comfortable perception of His
overowing fullness within you, by gratifying “ the old
man “-engaging in those things which the Spirit abhors-
tempting Him to leave you low and barren? for where
there is a cleaving to, and seeking of, the things of sense,
it necessarily keeps us lifeless and languid, even sometimes
as -though there were no Spirit in us at all. Is there not,
in some of you, a practical grieving of the Spirit? Are you
conscious there is in you this fullness-this overowing
fullness-from the glorication of Christ? Why are you not
conscious of it? Only because you are practically disowning
Him. Hence the darkness, the deadness, nay, the very
doubtings, whether you are in the faith or no; and all
this, by following the things of this world, which lead to
darkness and cannot bear the light.
e Spirit is overowing like “ rivers of living water “
from the soul of him in whom He has entered, owing on
all around: it may be on the good soil, or on the barren sand;
but still His nature and power is ever to ow forth. Oh!
brethren, we are losing much of the joy and consolation of
this divine Spirit, by our own inconsistencies, and love of
what grieves Him.
It is a solemn truth, dear friends, that “ if you have not
the Spirit of Christ, you are none of his.” And is it possible
that, possessing Him, you can remain strangers to His
mind, and not manifest your possession of this great gift?
It is a sad and solemn but nevertheless a certain truth, that
if you have not the Spirit, you are not manifestly Christ’s,
and are yet in your sins.
Be not deceived. Christ says that, except a man be born
again, he can neither see nor enter into the kingdom of
God. See to it then, that ye seek to be made partakers of
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this gift, which is the promise of the Father. It is madness
for you to think of getting to happiness in any other way.
“ It is the Spirit that quickeneth “; and when He has given
you power to believe, He will be in you, as “ a well of water
springing up into everlasting life,” and rivers of living
water ever owing. Be persuaded, ere the day of the Lord’s
vengeance comes, and you be consigned, with the tares and
the workers of wickedness, into everlasting destruction.
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62536
Jesus, the Resurrection and
the Life
John 11:25
THIS chapter presents in the most striking manner
the perfect sympathy of the Lord Jesus Christ in all the
trials and vicissitudes of His people, even in the suerings
which death brings, and displays the Lord’s power and love
conspicuous over death. It shows us what the energy, the
utmost energy, of evil can do over those who are even the
beloved of the Lord; but it also shows us how the Lord
Jesus sets it altogether aside in the energy and in the
strength of His own power.
We have here the full result of Satan’s power, and the
perfect triumphing of the Lord over that power. Death is the
result of the power of Satan. By bringing in sin, he brought
in death: “ the wages of sin is death “; this is the utmost of
Satan’s power. He brought in this at the commencement,
he brought it in by deceit; for “ he was a murderer from the
beginning, and abode not in the truth.” Such has he been
ever since; he is called the old serpent and the deceiver;
and having deceived, he became the murderer of the rst
Adam, and, in one sense, of the second Adam. He was and
is a liar: that is his character, as exactly opposed to Christ,
who is the truth. In like manner all the variations of his
character are set in opposition to that of Christ: he is the
destroyer, and Christ is the giver of life; he is the accuser of
the brethren, and Christ the Mediator for them; Christ the
truth of God, and Satan the father of lies. In this character
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he is rst brought before us. By misrepresenting the truth
and character of God, he became the murderer of the souls
of men, and brought in death-this was his power. Christ
came to destroy him who had the power of death, that is,
the devil. e devil murdered souls by falsifying the truth
of God. Here we learn his subtlety-presenting falsehood
and death through the medium of the truth of God in part;
and thus, from being a liar, he becomes a murderer.
Men are not aware of the depths of deceit practiced
by Satan; his plan is not to bring forward at once a broad
intelligible falsehood, which carries the lie on the very face
of it. Not so, brethren; he puts it forward under the guise
of truth, in the form of truth, and in some sense mixed
up with the truth. It was in this way he deceived Adam;
he wanted him to eat the fruit which God had forbidden
him; and how does he proceed? He says indeed, “ Ye shall
not surely die! “ Now there was a palpable untruth; but he
adds, “Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil “: and
this we know in part was the real truth, for immediately we
hear God saying, “ e man is become as one of us to know
good and evil.” Here we see the lie presented partly in the
form of truth: but the truth which was most necessary
for man to know, this he kept away entirely, namely, the
consequences which would result from the man’s taking
his advice: this he did not, this he does not, make known
to him. He does not tell him it will end in death. is is
the way Satan presents his destructive baits, not by simply
telling falsehood, but so mixing it up with the truth as to
destroy the very soul of man, thus from a liar becoming
a murderer. us has he brought in the power of evil, the
extent of which power is death: “ Sin, when it is nished,
bringeth forth death.”
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Now all this the energy of the Lord has met in a superior
power, which we shall presently see. Satan attempts to meet
the power of the Lord Jesus, and to set up his power in
opposition to the Lord’s. We have an exhibition of it in the
case of Job, a favored servant of God, which was, doubtless,
permitted for our learning as well as for Job’s prot. We
learn from this history how much Satan could bring to play
against Job, and the circumscribing of that power by the
almighty power of God. We are told, “ ere was a day
when the sons of God came to present themselves before
the Lord, and Satan came also among them. And the Lord
said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? And Satan said,
From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up
and down in it.” Observe, brethren, when Satan is described
as going “ to and fro in the world,” “ going about seeking
whom he may devour “-under such circumstances we have
need of great caution. But let the saints of God feel it is a
permitted power, circumscribed, restrained, and subdued
at God’s will.
In the case of Job we nd God saying with authority
and permission to Satan, “ Behold, all that he hath is in thy
power: only upon himself put not forth thy hand.” Here
was the limitation of the permission; Satan could get no
more. He goes to work at once: we read that “ Job’s oxen
were plowing, and his asses feeding, and the Sabeans came
and took them away, and slew his servants.” Again, “ re
came down from heaven, and burned up his sheep, and
his servants, and consumed them. e Chaldeans came
upon the camels, and carried them away, and slew the
servants.” And lastly “ Satan brought a great wind from
the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house in
which his children were feasting, and killed them all.” Here
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we see the wonderful extent of the power of Satan, but the
further extent of the absolute power of God over the power
of Satan; for the limitation was, “ But on himself put not
forth thine hand.”
Job therefore was invulnerable, his person could not
be touched. But after this we have Satan’s power further
extended by the almighty power of God, but still with a
boundary which he could not pass: He allowed his body
to be aicted by the power of Satan: “ but,” says the Lord,
“ save his life.” Immediately we hear of Job being covered
with sore boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his
head, but his life was spared; and when his aictions had
done the work for which the Lord permitted them, they
were removed; for we hear, “ e Lord blessed the latter
end of Job more than the beginning.”
us blessedly do we see the extent of the power of
God over the utmost power of Satan! Many instances of
a similar nature might be adduced. We have one in the
case of legion, the man in whom were many demons. e
power of the living God was acknowledged by these: they
were conscious of His superior authority. We learn how
far Satan’s power extended in the case of this poor man,
to what a dreadful extent it was permitted. He wore no
clothes, he abode in the tombs night and day, cutting
himself with stones: no man could bind him, no fetter
could keep him; but God kept him. erefore he was still
in the wilderness in the way of mercy, therefore he was not
driven down into the deep; he would then have been out of
the reach of grace, but his God had not so ordered it, He
would not have it so, and therefore the utmost extent of
Satan’s power could not accomplish that.
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Again, we see in Zech. 3 the futility of Satan’s power
against those whom Jesus is engaged to defend. Here we
view Satan as the accuser of the brethren, endeavoring thus
in opposition to meet the priestly character of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Joshua, a type of Israel, stands before’ the angel of
the Lord, and Satan stands as his accuser, bringing forward
his accusations, which might be truth, which might be real,
which were so in some sense; but, having been put aside by
almighty grace, the accusations are unacknowledged by the
Lord as available to his condemnation: the Lord refutes
them all with this appeal: “ Is not this a brand plucked
out of the re? “ In this we have the contrast of oce
between the Lord Jesus and Satan; one the accuser, having
the power of death, the other the priestly intercessor, the
giver of life; one the liar from the beginning, the other the
eternal Truth. Satan’s eort here is to keep the world from
the power of Him who is the Prince of life, and he exercises
that power over the children of disobedience.
e Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil
by bringing souls from the power of Satan to the power
of the living God. Observe the way the devil acquired his
usurped power over man in the rst Adam by presenting
evil under the semblance of the truth. Man trusted to
his own wisdom, and so permitted Satan to possess this
power over him; man became spiritually dark, and Satan
is the ruler of the darkness of this world; and how does
he rule? By the same way he acquired his dominion over
man-not by presenting evil in its own hideous garb; but in
a plausible, insinuating manner he presents things to be
desired to make one wise; and if man is really led to escape
his wily snares, he must consent to become a fool in the
world’s estimation, and to feel that he is such in his own.
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We nd the terrible result sin has wrought is death. Such
was the threatened punishment: “ In the day thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die.” Man ate, and so sold himself
to him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.
Now Christ has manifested Himself as the Prince of
life; and Satan, in opposition thereto, endeavors to blind
the minds of all, “ lest the light of the glorious gospel of
Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.”
And further, when their eyes have been opened, and they
have ed for refuge to lay hold on the hope laid before
them, he would, if it were possible, hinder all comfortable
enjoyment of God’s presence, all sensible communion with
God through the operation of the Holy Spirit, and would
dim and darken the path of every child of God, attempting
to meet the priestly oce of Christ, as Intercessor, by his
accusations, and to oppose the testimony of the Spirit in
the soul by his own dark counsels. But, to oppose all this
artillery of power, we have Jesus passed into the heavens,
ever living to make intercession for us at the right hand of
God, and in the energy of the Holy Ghost dwelling within
us we are enabled to maintain a successful though trying
warfare with his temptations within.
e interesting history recorded in this chapter
demonstrates indisputably the power of the Lord Jesus
in setting aside the utmost power of Satan, in the entire
overcoming of that by which Satan showed his triumph
over man. Death was this power; but here we have total
subjection of that power to a superior power, to exercise
which, in the person of Lazarus, Jesus came to Bethany.
Martha, Lazarus’s sister, said to Jesus, “ Lord, if thou hadst
been here my brother had not died; but I know, that even
now, whatsoever thou shalt ask of God, God will give it
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thee. Jesus saith unto her, y brother shall rise again.” e
commandment had gone forth at the beginning, when it
was said to Adam, “ Ye shall die “; that power had been
felt and acknowledged, and there was no setting it aside;
there was no power to put it away, even in the case of those
whom the Lord loved, but by a power such as sent forth
the commandment at the rst. By that power alone can
death be intercepted, even by the presence of the Lord
Jesus Christ, who is the resurrection and the life. Jesus says
to Martha, “ y brother shall rise again.” Martha replies, “
I know that he shall rise in the resurrection at the last day.”
Jesus said to her, “ I am the resurrection and the life; he
that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live;
and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die:
believest thou this? “
ere are two ways in which the Lord Jesus has
become the resurrection and the life of His people: rst, in
purchasing their redemption from the wages of sin, having
paid the full price to eternal justice for their transgressions
by His voluntary and substituted suerings; and also in
respect of their oneness with Him who is the very life of
all being. We have here the direct personal application of
this power to Himself: “ I am the resurrection and the life
“; but we see in what sense He here alludes to His power
of raising His creatures. ere is something special here:
a something which meets not the circumstances of every
one; it is denitely applied to them that believe: “He that
believeth.” It is, therefore, not applicable to all; and what
a recognition of the truth of a special resurrection this is-
of the release from death of all that shall believe in Jesus.
at makes all the dierence-” because I live, ye shall live
also,” alluding to those who believe in Him. ey are the
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children of the resurrection, which blessing ows from
their union with Jesus by the indwelling of the Spirit of
life; as it is written, “ If the Spirit of him that raised up
Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ
from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his
Spirit that dwelleth in you.”
Here then we have the peculiar, the special, cause of
this dierence: they are the children of God, therefore
the children of the resurrection; they stand in altogether
another character from the children of this world. All shall
rise certainly at the coming day of retribution, but it is quite
dierent from the quickening power of life, communicated
in virtue of the oneness of the saint with Jesus. Every
knee shall certainly bow to Him; be they godly, or be they
earthly, or be they the power of darkness; whether they be
angels, or principalities, or powers, all shall acknowledge
Him when He appears. is was just the witness which the
devil gave of His power when he came on earth-” Art thou
come to torment us before the time? “ Plainly then there
is a time set apart, of which they are conscious, when full
judgment will be executed on them. “ ey besought him
that he would not command them to go out into the deep,”
or abyss. ough devils, possessing the power of such, they
recognized One before whom they quailed. ere is a time
coming when He, before whom they even then quailed, will
bind them in everlasting chains no more to rove about. is
almighty power they even then recognized in the Person of
Jesus Christ, when apparently in weakness; therefore they
exclaim, under the conscious terror of His power, Do not
torment us before the time! Do not command us to go into
the pit! He is Lord of all, and His authority extends to, and
shall be exerted over, the ungodly, as well as His saints; in
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the resurrection all are then brought out of the power of
Satan. But the resurrection of which Christ here speaks is
peculiar to His own, when He says, “ I am the resurrection
and the life.” “ I know,” said Martha, “ that he shall rise
again in the resurrection at the last day.” But what comfort
could that bring, as regarded the bare fact of his rising,
for so would the most ungodly sinner rise then? But the
blessedness is this, that where Christ is made the life of the
soul, there is the certainty of a resurrection to life eternal in
Christ’s life; when the life of Jesus comes in, there is that
within over which the power of Satan is unable to prevail.
We nd, in the occurrences of this beautiful chapter,
that it was during the bodily absence of the Lord from
Lazarus that death had its power; so it is with us now. is
family scene is a type of wonderful things to the church:
in the absence of her Lord she feels the power of Satan
and death- bodily death seizes on her members; but it
shall not always be thus, for Christ shall visit His aicted
family, and when that occurs His very presence will be the
power of life. Here is the great secret: Christ’s presence
gives spiritual life; and His bodily presence not only raises
the dead bodies, but by that presence the further power of
death is arrested and interrupted and put aside forever, as
regards His saints; and according as His presence is felt,
so is the power of Satan and the power of death set aside.
In His absence is grief, but when He comes, He shall put
away both grief and its cause. Now, He may and does allow
temptations, and permit the exhibition of the power of
Satan in such; but even now He makes Himself known
in spirit as stronger than Satan, quickening the soul, and
giving life to His people; sorrow, grief, and distress are here
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occasioned by Satan, particularly this character of sorrow,
brought forward in this narrative before us.
Christ communicates life and liberty to His people;
therefore He says, “ I am the life.” ough there may
be still occasion of death in the world, yet when Christ
comes and exhibits Himself, His very presence, which
before spiritually quickened the soul, will now be powerful
to quicken the mortal body, and clothe it with a glorious
immortality: “ He that believeth on me, though he were
dead, yet shall be live.” And He will resuscitate the bodies
of those that are dead, and arrest the further progress of
death: “ He that liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”
e consequence of Christ’s being present in spirit is now
life and liberty: “ Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is
liberty “; so, when present in person, all bondage, grief, or
sorrow is vanished. He shows us now in spirit, what He
will shortly do in person, when the whole power of Satan
is set aside. e moment Christ says, I am here, the power
of death is gone; when spiritually, it is spiritually gone; for
where Jesus has quickened a soul by communicating His
life, there His presence has removed us from all the results
of Satan’s power in the soul; the power of the prince of
the air has been superseded by the power of the Prince of
life: the believer shall be under no power of death as to its
results, being translated into another position by the life-
giving power of Christ. He that is quickened is quickened
unto spiritual and everlasting life-now in spirit, then in
person; it is an inseparable connection.
e power of bodily death will not be manifested in all:
for we are told in I essalonians that some shall be alive
when the Lord comes: “ For the Lord himself shall descend
from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel,
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and the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise
rst: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught
up,” etc. Also, in 1 Cor. 15 it is positively said, “ We shall
not all sleep,” for that some shall be alive at His coming;
consequently they never can die, as He says Himself: “
He that liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” e
presence of Christ naturally induces the absence of death:
he that is dead when Christ comes shall be raised; and he
that is alive shall be changed, thus unqualiedly by His
presence setting the power of death aside. e certainty of
this resurrection is consequent upon the vital union of the
believer with the Lord Jesus Christ, which, therefore, none
can experience but such as are united to Him by a living
faith. It is quite a distinct thing from the resurrection of
those who shall be called out by the word of His power;
His very presence vivies the believer in virtue of his being
made a partaker of the divine nature.
It is with this presence then that the believer has to do;
it is for this he is looking. e child of God earnestly longs
to enter into the perception of this power, which Christ has
spent the travail of His soul to accomplish for him, in order
that He may undo the very existence of Satan’s power both
in body and soul. He has triumphed over the power of
Satan in the soul of every sinner who believes in Him-He
shall triumph in their bodies also. “ I am the resurrection,”
He says, as well as “ the life: he that believeth in me, though
he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and
believeth in me shall never die: believest thou this? “ It is
not simply saying, Men die, and then I raise them again;
but the very power that wrought over them to death yields
to His presence both spiritually and personally. Christ, as
the rst-fruits, rose to show the certainty of His people’s
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resurrection; then they which are Christ’s at His coming
shall rise, when shall be fullled the saying that is written,
“ Death is swallowed up in victory.” Here is what the
enlightened soul is led to look for, the exercise of Christ’s
power over the utmost power of Satan. If the Spirit testies
within us of the energy of the life of Christ, in the conscious
power of His quickening the soul, we have by that the
certain evidence that our bodies must also be quickened;
for, having made a new man within, think ye, will the Lord
suer it always to occupy an unredeemed body, liable to the
power of death and corruption?
But it is not yet a quickened body: that we feel, most
sadly feel. We are then led to ask, Since it is so, to what
use can this mortal body be converted here, since it does
not yet partake of incorruptibility? e only use, dear
friends, to which we should convert it is, to make it
become a servant to the Savior. Let the very instruments
of corruption minister to godliness: “Yield your members
as instruments of righteousness unto God.” ere is no
bondage in this, dear friends; it is perfect freedom; it is
the liberty of the child of God, of one who is quickened,
made alive, rescued from slavery, made a new man. Satan
wars against the dominion of this new life; but there is no
charge that he brings that the Lord at all acknowledges,
for the believer stands accepted in the Beloved. e Lord
Jesus Christ exercises His priestly oce in opposition to
the reasonings and accusations of Satan against the saint.
Satan brings forward the failings of the old man-the very
things which he suggested to the mind, the very sins which
by his suggestion the esh acted out. ese he endeavors
to press on the conscience, bringing forward the old man,
and saying, at is you! and if this is not resisted with a “
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Get thee behind me, Satan,” then we allow him to interfere
with our comfort.
But, blessed truth! “ he that is joined to the Lord is one
spirit,” “ and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
e Spirit presents Christ in His priestly oce, as having
undertaken and accomplished all for the believer; but until
the whole body, as well as the soul, is quickened with the
life of Jesus, we cannot fully enter into the blessedness of
so glorious a liberty: but then we shall manifestly see our
entire triumph over the world, the esh, and the devil, and
enter into the full perception of that comforting truth, “
Because I live, ye shall also.” Still, recognizing no good in
the esh, we get peace and comfort by simply resting on
the promise of Jesus, that He will change our vile bodies,
and make them like unto His glorious body; and that, in
the meantime, “ sin shall not have dominion over us.” e
devil would hinder this peace if he could, and seek to do
so by entering into controversy with the conscience, and
introducing doubts and diculties, which are encouraged
and not repelled, when we are not apprehending Christ
in His oce of continual Mediator and Intercessor; but
we are strengthened, and Satan’s power is humbled, when
we are looking up in faith, as united to Jesus, and seeing
Him, as “ the resurrection and the life,” directing us in the
prospect of that day when His glory shall be revealed, and
when we shall be placed in a proper position to perceive
our entire conquest in our glorious Head over the utmost
power of evil.
But what the devil is always at here is, to draw us to
the commission of evil, to do that which dishonors the
Holy One within. And this dims the grace of the Spirit;
this is why there are so many sorrowful Christians, because
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there are so many indulging the lusts of the old man,
which shut out the glory; seeking the gratication of that
which they profess to ght against, and not walking in the
Spirit, in the liberty of Christ; but they are grieving that
Spirit, and therefore are burdened; they are not walking
in the consciousness of hearing “ I am the resurrection
and the life.” But the time is coming, yea, rapidly coming,
when the presence of the Savior shall be always felt, and
when, not only by faith but manifestly, the power of evil
shall be set aside; when the presence of Jesus shall raise
us to unspeakable blessedness; when this corrupt body
shall no longer be a clog and hindrance to our spiritual
enjoyment, for it shall be entirely conformed to His image,
His glorious body. As He has made the souls of His own
here to bear His image spiritually, so will He then change
the vile body into the image of that body which He now
possesses in glory. “ As we have borne the image of the
earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” “ It
doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that,
when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see
him as he is.” Paul speaks of the same to the Philippians,
saying, “ Our conversation is in heaven; from whence also
we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall
change our vile bodies, that they may be fashioned like
unto his glorious body.” Here is what the saint glories to
contemplate, and into the contemplation of which he is led
by the graciousness of the Holy Spirit, who, coming into
the soul, reveals all this glory; and the more of the glory the
Spirit unveils, the more He enables us to triumph over the
extent of the power of evil here, and to be opposed in all
things to that world which knows nothing of these things.
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For what does the world know of the glory of Christ?
Nothing: it is led by the spirit of darkness, and sees not the
light; the has blinded their eyes; and whoever is really led
by the teachings of the Spirit of glory is fully conscious
that the world is not. Christ has quickened the souls of His
people by His life; and in so far as they recognize this life-
giving power are they in a capacity to sympathize with Jesus
Himself in all these things. is was what Jesus had not
while on earth-there was none to sympathize with Him. In
sorrow, His sorrows were all His own: none shared them;
they were felt by none. “ ey all forsook him, and ed.”
Even in prospect this was felt, when He exclaims, “ Ye shall
be scattered every one to his own, and shall leave me alone.”
It was the want of this sympathy with Christ of which
Paul complained: “ All seek their own, not the things which
are Jesus Christ’s.” We see it here in the instance of Martha:
though a saint, though loved of Jesus, she could not enter
into the perfect sympathy of the Lord with His own. “ I
know,” said she, “ that he shall rise again in the resurrection
at the last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and
the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet
shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall
never die: believest thou this? “ Not, Do you believe that
he shall rise again? but, Do you believe what I have said of
myself as the resurrection and the life of every believer?
But there was no perception of this in her soul: if there had
been, it was truly calculated to have conveyed the greatest
comfort to her soul: but no, she saw it not; she just replies,
“ Yea, Lord, I believe thou art the Christ, the Son of God,
which should come into the world,” and there she left Him.
She went her way to get sympathy elsewhere, while He, the
life of every comfort, and the soul of sympathy, was left.
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And are there not many of the Lord’s people acting thus
now? Where do we see that xedness of satisfaction with
the love of Christ which precludes all desire for any other
sympathy? And why is it thus, dear friends? Why is it that
there is so much of the failing of Martha still to be met with
among the saints here? Just for the same reason; they are
equally careful and cumbered about many things. She was
a saint indeed, and yet so low that she could not enter into
the perception of the Lord’s sympathizing presence, but
went her way and sent her sister Mary in her stead. May
the Lord grant that the Spirit may so apply the word to the
hearts of His saints here, as to lead them from all false and
unsatisfying comforts, more unto sympathy with Jesus!
Dear friends, let me ask you, Are you living on that word
of the Lord Jesus--”I am the resurrection and the life “? Are
your souls quickened to know that the power of death is put
away, wherever the presence of Jesus is recognized? And are
you looking out in joyful anticipation to that time when the
presence of the Lord shall raise and quicken your mortal
bodies? and when bodies and souls shall alike partake of His
holy likeness, released from sin, released from the power of
death and Satan? when we shall no more oend by yielding
to Satan? when the devil shall have no power to disturb our
peace, or the things of the esh dissipate our joy? when our
rest shall be glorious, for we shall rest with our all-glorious
Head? when our joy shall be complete, for we shall enter
into the full joy of our Lord? Till that time, dear friends, let
us live in this blessed expectation, having our lights burning,
waiting for the morning light when our Lord shall appear,
living witnesses of the truth of God’s promises; for He will
surely come, He will not tarry. Amen.
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62529
Christ’s Cross and God’s Due
Time
Rom. 5:6-8
IN the last verse of this chapter we have, in fact, the
summing up of the great principles and ways of God’s
dealings with man in this principle of the gospel, “ grace
reigning through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus
Christ our Lord.”
e result of what the apostle has been speaking of as
to God’s dealings, dispensational and personal, is, that all
is grace. “ When we were yet without strength, in due time
Christ died for the ungodly,” v. 6. “ God commendeth his
love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ
died for us,” v. 8. It is grace that did everything; v. 15-21. “ By
one man’s disobedience many were made sinners,” and they
may have gone on sinning and setting aside the authority
of God; but by Christ’s obedience “ shall many be made
righteous.” “ Where sin abounded, grace did much more
abound.” And in the sum of the whole matter grace reigns.
at which gave the apostle so much condence in
this was, that it was consequent upon the discussion of the
whole condition of man, as looked at in every way and in
every shape. e blessed result was, not something that
came in, and the discussion after; but after the discussion
of the whole condition of man (that having been gone
through), God takes His own place, and manifests what He
will be and is towards the sinner in Jesus Christ. Now that
is properly speaking the gospel. e gospel is not what man
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is, or what God requires from man, but what God is after
He has thoroughly revealed what man is. When received
in simplicity it leaves no possible question in the mind. It is
the revelation of God made after He has estimated all our
need. e gospel, we repeat, is the revelation of what God is,
when what man is has been thus fully revealed. “ When we
were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the
ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet
peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.
But God commendeth his love towards us, in that, while we
were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Peace of soul is constantly hindered through our not
recognizing that God has taken full cognizance of what we
are. e gospel begins consequent upon His having made
a full estimate. He knew from the beginning what man
was and would be; but after, in his history, He had brought
out and demonstrated in ways and conduct what man was
under all the possible circumstances in which he could
be placed-when He had demonstrated him to be entirely
lost, and that He could not trust him in any way or in any
measure, He begins, and says, I cannot trust in you: you
must trust in Me. Hence the reason there is often a long
and painful conict, because of our not being brought
down, in conscience, to the point where the gospel begins.
A man may acknowledge himself to be ungodly, but then
he hopes to cease to be ungodly; and God perhaps lets him
struggle on thus for some time, until in his own soul he is
brought to the place where the gospel begins. It is not that
the gospel is not simple, but that in conscience we are not in
the conditions where the gospel sees us. e work must be
in the conscience. We read (Matt. 13) of a man hearing the
word, and anon with joy receiving it, yet of his not having
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“ root in himself “; evidently no work in the conscience (it
is not that he is insincere) but only in the intellect; he has
never been brought in guilty before God; “ for,” it is added, “
when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word,
by-and-by he is oended.” Whereas, if he knew that his
own soul was lost without Christ, surely he would say with
the disciples, “ Lord, to whom shall be go? thou hast the
words of eternal life! “ (John 6:69). It is a great deal harder
to believe that we are “ without strength “ than that we are
“ ungodly.” Many a soul believes the one, that has not as
yet been brought to believe the other. God has given us His
history of the world from Adam to Christ. ere was a “
due time “ for the death of Christ, a “ due time,” that is, in
the history of the world. So is there the “ due time,”
52
of the
individual heart; not that the same feelings pass through the
minds of all, but each must be brought to the result given us
by the history of man previously to the death of Christ.
It is true, many a person admits himself to be ungodly
that has not been brought to feel the full meaning of the
word. It is wonderful how our moral distance from God
has rendered us incapable of judging of this. If a man say
that God is holy, and that he is a sinner, as judged of by his
natural conscience, yet not admit that he is shut out from
the presence of God, but reply, “ Oh, I hope not,” he has
not the power of apprehending His presence. On the one
side God is “ of purer eyes than to behold iniquity,” on the
other man is a sinner; but he has no sort of conscience or
consciousness that he is in the presence of God. ere is not
a single individual that would not put o being there. Our
conscience can never naturally bear it; the whole secret of
52 It has been said with truth that man’s extremity is God’s
opportunity.
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342
their hopes is, that we have never been in the presence of
God. In one sense we are always in His presence, but I speak
now of being brought near in conscience. A man may be
living absolutely without God, and yet be accounted a very
good man after all. If he hurts his fellow-man it is another
aair. In judging of right and wrong in the world God is
always shut out. ere is no surer proof of the way man has
cast o God than his judgment of right and wrong; he calls
“ wrong “ that which injures man, but the divine presence
and claims are shut out. It all show this rst great truth, that
men are “ without God.”
But there is another truth stated here-they are also “
without strength.” When a man is really brought to himself,
it is always a question of present standing. An ungodly man
will think (it is the natural thought) of meeting God some
time, of what He will be in the day of judgment. But if His
presence be revealed to the heart, it is His presence now that
occupies it. Whilst there is merely the thought of going to
God, there is another question: man thinks about how he
can make up with God-time is before him, in which he can
make his peace with God. He is either unconscious of the
state he is in, or is looking to something by which he hopes,
at a future day, he may be able to stand before God. He has
no real thought of God but as a judge. Now hoping for
mercy so, is no more than saying (and many mean nothing
but this), that God is not of purer eyes than to behold
iniquity, that He can let a little pass.
As to the rst point, the state of the Gentiles was
thorough ungodliness; Rom. 1 e apostle, after looking at
man in every way (proud as man is of himself), brings all
in guilty. But men have a natural conscience, and they are
afraid to do in the light what they do in the dark. When in
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343
the outward darkness of Satan and ungodliness, they “ work
all manner of uncleanness with greediness “ (Eph. 4:17-19),
worshipping stocks and stones, etc. Christianity makes men
ashamed to do in the light what they did before in the dark
(the profession of it, I mean; in that sense, it is borrowed
light). Being in this condition, his own lusts are his springs
of action, the slave of Satan and of his own lusts, gratifying
his mere natural wicked inclinations, that was a clear case. It
did not become a holy God. It was plainly ungodliness.
But besides this, there was another thing. God singled
out a nation, to which He showed great kindness, and gave
(as His people) a rule. And then the question was whether
there was strength in man to walk by this rule. He spake the
ten commandments with His own voice on mount Sinai,
and added, “ Cursed is the man that continueth not in all
things that are written in the book of the law to do them.”
After all the will of man was that which wrought in his
heart, and he was a breaker of this law.
But this went much farther. I may have my mind
open to see and estimate the spirituality of the law, and
not be merely a carnal. Jew: where does that bring me?
Into the consciousness, not merely that I have failed, and
broken the law without, but of a principle within-a “ law
in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and
bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my
members,” Rom. 7:23. If I am put under a law, the better
that law, the worse my case. It may be said, “ Why then did
God give the law? “ “ It was added,” we are told, “ because
of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the
promise was made,” Gal. 3:19. To what end? “ e law
entered [perfect as it was] that the oense might abound.”
What could the law enter for, to man already a sinner and
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having this law in his members? “ e law entered that the
oense might abound, that sin by the commandment might
become exceeding sinful,” Rom. 7:13. is was the way
God took to convince man that he was “ without strength.”
And in that sense it was mercy. What is more dicult
than to convince man of this? e judgment right and the
aections right, still there was this law in his members; and
the law, while it discovered and brought out this, imparting
no strength, added to the character of the sin. For then was
another thing; it made every act which was the result of this
evil of our nature “ transgression “-a thing done in despite
of His authority. “ Sin by the commandment became
exceeding sinful,” Rom. 7:13. Now clearly a thing that
makes sin “ exceeding sinful “ is not the way to make me a,
sinner, have any righteousness before God!
What is man without the law? what with it? Man
without the law is out of the presence of God; with it, he
has failed in responsibility, and is a breaker of the law. And
when Jesus came, the witness of the goodness of God, he
rejected Him; John 15:24, 25. Man has been tried in every
way, and found utterly wanting. Wherefore? Was God
ignorant of his condition? No; law was for the discovery of
it to himself. God is now bringing home to his conscience
that which He knew from the beginning; Rom. 3:19.
A word here as to the triple form the law took. First,
there was the perfect standard of what man ought to be;
secondly, the prohibition of what man was disposed to, a
positive standard of what God required, and the prohibition
of that to which man was inclined; and, as a third thing, an
adjunct of certain ordinances and ceremonies “ imposed
until the time of reformation,” Heb. 9:9, 10. What did God
do all this for? On the one hand, to demonstrate that man
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was not righteous; and, on the other, to point out One who
(holy and righteous) should suer “ the just for the unjust.”
What did man? He took, to make out a righteousness
for himself before God, the thing God had sent in to
demonstrate him a sinner; and then, in order to ll up the
gap in his own heart, sought to eke out his righteousness
through these ceremonies-types and pre-gurings of Jesus,
the substitute for the sinner.
e moment there is spiritual understanding, when
grace is not understood, the only eect is to make the soul
miserable- it nds no strength. e more it understands
the law to be what it should be, the more it feels justly
condemned, and incapable of fullling it, or of delivering
itself from its condition. “ 0 wretched man that I am! “ is its
cry, and “ Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
“ (Rom. 7:24). All that is merely the question, “ What is
man? “ Man is ungodly and without strength; and his
history is summed up in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Well now, have we been brought to the acknowledgment
of the result of this history? Had we simplicity to receive
by faith what God shows us man to be, we should have no
thought of his being under a state of probation. For four
thousand years man was under a state of probation, and, as
the result of the trial, no good is expected from the bad tree.
e gospel is come on the ground of man’s being no longer
under probation of God. He has given up looking for fruit.
“ A sower went forth to sow,” etc. (Matt. 13). e natural
thing was for Jesus to seek fruit; but there was none there:
all had become verjuice.
Man having been put to the test, now God comes
in. It is quite evident that, unless it be for everlasting
condemnation, we must give up the thought of appearing
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before God as a Judge; Rom. 3:19, 20. “ Enter not into
judgment with thy servant, for in thy sight shall no man
living be justied.” e more I know of myself, the more I
know that. e love of Christ only puts me into a darker
judgment of myself. Is God to pass by judgment, as if there
were no dierence between good and evil? Impossible!
ere is just the beginning of wisdom. We cannot stand
before God: what is to be done? A man must, in that sense,
have done with himself. I cannot trust God in anything I
ever have been, or can be; God cannot trust in me r: now
can I trust in God? What God is was before sin. If I begin
to reason, I am under law; I cannot reason about God being
grace to me: if I could reckon on it, it would not be grace.
Where shall I nd the revelation and testimony of what
God is? In Christ. What was this blessed witness for God
here? Never anything but grace. With the Pharisees He
showed that their righteousness was only the adding of the
sin of hypocrisy to their other sins. But whenever a man
was before Him without any pretense to righteousness, let
him be the vilest of the human race-a thief, an adulteress,
a woman of the city, who was a sinner-whatever else, He
was grace and nothing but grace. I want to know what the
God with whom I have to do, as a sinner, is; and what is
He? Grace. Perhaps I say, If I go to Him, I shall nd Him
gracious; but that is not all the testimony. Jesus came to us.
“ In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because
that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that
we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we
loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the
propitiation for our sins,” 1 John 4:9, 10. In the coming of
the Son of God, I have the positive certainty of what God
is to me, assuming that I believe Him to be the Son of God;
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347
I have the perfect certainty of His love. “ When we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us.” From His mouth (if I am to take
His testimony) I shall never hear anything but “ y sins are
forgiven thee, go in peace.” If I am in the truth of my sins, I
shall nd Christ in the truth of His grace.
God has right to be sovereign, and there is the reign of
grace (v. 31). But God is righteous; and therefore grace is
to reign “ through righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus
Christ our Lord.” In the grace of God reigning, He has
given His Son to be the proof of His love; but then God
is righteous, and could not introduce the sinner in his sins
into His presence, and therefore He gave His Son to bear
the sins. God’s righteousness is displayed in all its truth
and power. e Lord Jesus died for the ungodly. He was
obedient at all costs: He bore everything, and went down
into the dust of death, man’s hatred, God’s desertion, and
Satan’s power; we nd Him there at the cost of everything.
Everything that was against us was done away. By one man’s
obedience many are made righteous.
God’s righteous wrath against sin has been exhibited.
Where do I learn it? In the cross of Christ. Was it in holily
sparing His Son? No! I see the wrath of God against my
sin executed in that cross. e judgment of God against
sin, the thing I dreaded, is now my salvation: “ Out of the
eater has come forth meat, and out of the strong, sweetness
“; the head of Goliath, so to speak, has been taken o with
his own sword. e Lord Jesus Christ has risen again as
having borne the judgment. But more, He stands in living
righteousness before God. Righteousness is there forever
under the eye of God.
e blood of Christ shed in death-death as the wages
of sin-is ever under the eye of God. I do not say that it is
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ever under my eye, but it is under God’s eye. He is the Judge.
Never shall we feel about it as we ought; but sure I am He
feels about it as He ought. He sees the blood. “ When I see
the blood, I will pass over.” e blood is of innite value
with God. But there is another thing, He Himself is there-”
Jesus Christ the righteous.” He who has obeyed, who has
accomplished all, is there. ere may be chastisement from
the Father (Heb. 12), and a great deal of painful discipline
for our good; but righteousness is ever there, the righteous
One in the presence of God for us.
e Holy Ghost was to convince the world of
righteousness, because Jesus had gone to the Father; John
16:7, 10. Righteousness is to be found in the presence of
God, and it is He who has borne my sins.
And let us remember that this cannot be a question of
hope. My soul may be looking to Jesus and hoping that He
will speak a word of peace; but I do not hope that Christ will
die for me; I do not hope that Christ will rise again for me
and accomplish this righteousness; I believe. It is a simple
question of the value of the Person, and blood, and work of
the Lord Jesus Christ.
As to the Christian life. e rst thing is to begin our
conduct with God. Do not let us talk about what we shall
be. If we come to God with our present in our hand, the
rst question is, What are you? Man is a sinner, and no
present in the hand of a sinner is accepted. Where there is
really truth in the heart, the conscience takes notice of its
present condition, and will never dream of putting o. It is,
I have seen ee: what shall I do? Job was a godly man, but
a reasoner; yet the moment he sees God, he says, “ I have
heard of thee with the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye
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seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust
and ashes.” He sees God, and that ends the whole question.
ere is another point. It is not merely the ecacy of the
work as regards the past, so that I stand before God without
fault, but I am there in Christ. I bless God for many means
in helping me on in my walk; but as for my standing with
God, were there anything whatever needed, it would be
saying, I was not already perfect in Christ. Faith says, Christ
has presented me in the presence of God, according to the
mind of God, and I have nothing to seek. is is what the
apostle means by “ holding the Head,” Col. 2:19.
Another thing ows from this: as grace reigns through
righteousness unto eternal life in the Person and work of
our Lord Jesus Christ, realizing my position by virtue
of being united to Him, the life in which I am one with
Christ will show itself down here in my living to Christ.
e principle of the Christian’s position is just this:-You
have died with Christ, and, to be living as those who are
“ alive from the dead,” you cannot have a single principle
in common with the world. I am one with Christ (if I am
a believer), and consequently as Christ before God, “ I
am crucied with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but
Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the
esh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me,
and gave himself for me,” Gal. 2:20. So again, “ Always
bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that
the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal
body,” 2 Cor. 4:10. It is not the demand of a certain amount
of human righteousness, or the removal of certain evils
that hurt the conscience and oend society; it is the living
display of what Christ is before men. We should never be
content when we fail to display Christ before men: as Christ
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is righteousness for me before God, so is He the example
and standard of righteousness before, men: as Christ is for
me before God, so ought I to be for Christ before men. is
is the way for the Christian to judge of right or wrong. We
may be humbled because of failure, but we must not lower
the standard.
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351
62532
Adam and Christ
Rom. 5:14-21
IN the latter part of this Chapter is exhibited strikingly
the sin, and the consequences of that sin, wrought and
incurred by Adam; and the grace that is manifested in Jesus
Christ, as contrasted the one with the other.
is is a very important position, as displaying the
character and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, contrasted
with the rst Adam, of whom, in his innocence, the latter
was a type and gure; the one as the head of all grace and
truth, the representative of all believers; and the other as the
head of all sin and misery, a representative of all sinners by
nature. is distinction is mentioned in 1 Cor. 15: “ e rst
man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from
heaven “; and here, verse 14, he is said to be “ the gure of
him that was to come.”
e over-abundant love and grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ is testied of in the next verse: “ For if through
the oense of one many be dead, much more the grace
of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus
Christ, hath abounded unto many.” And the contrast
is very striking as we continue: “ And not as it was by one
that sinned, so is the gift; for the judgment was by one
to condemnation; but the free gift is of many oenses
unto justication. erefore, as by the oense of one
judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so
by one righteousness the free gift came upon all men unto
justication of life.”
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Here we have, in a perspective view, the eect of Adam’s
sin, and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We see here the
way in which He met the whole question of the controversy
between God and man.
In the Psalm we have an exhibition of the mind of the
Lord Jesus Christ, under suerings, trials, temptations,
and aictions; and throughout the Scriptures we have the
facts of the life, thoughts, feelings, and character of Adam
and Christ. We have in Adam the head and root of a sinful
world, lying in wickedness and misery; and in Christ the
head and root of a world of blessedness, reigning in life,
opening a “ new and living way,” prevailing over man’s
sin and ruin. Not merely the saving of souls to God, but
positively triumphing over man’s evil, over the utmost evil
man could do. Not only undoing what man had done, but
over-abounding in blessedness the ruin man had brought
on himself. Not only setting aside the work done by man,
but manifesting the riches of divine love over evil, sin, ruin,
and misery, allowed for the purpose of displaying more
astonishingly the greatness of God’s love, and His direct
contrast in all things to man.
Now this is what we are to look for in Christ; a remedy
adequate to the evil sin had wrought; a remedy that should
meet and overbalance the weight of iniquity: and we have it
in Christ, in the exceeding riches of His grace. e way and
means were of His own devising and His own executing, to
display His goodness to us in Christ Jesus, that He should
be the substance of the joy of His people, the rest of their
souls, the object of their hopes, the desire of their aections.
And such He is. Evil has abounded, and sin has taken its
free, full course. We shall trace its root, rise, and progress
in the rst Adam, in whose sin we have the complete and
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entire alienation of man’s heart from God: the virtual denial
and rejection of God as a God over him, and the practical
consequences of that denial-the taking of Satan as a god in
preference, and trusting and conding in him rather than in
God.
Now, I say, this is just the position the world is in at
present. ey have practically and decidedly taken Satan
• for god, to the rejection of the Lord; they have lost all
hopes of favor; they have forfeited all claim to any blessing
God can confer. All the world has done this positively and
willingly; and every individual is doing so, until Christ calls
him out of the world in principle, desire, and soul; brings
him to rest on Him for all things; just undoes in, his soul
what the sin of the rst Adam (and he himself springing
from that root) has done; makes him an heir of God; puts
into his heart the Spirit, crying, “ Abba, Father “; and
enables him to know and understand the association of
principle, feeling, and actual position in which he stands
with Christ, when exclaiming,
My Father and your Father, my God and your God.”
From thence is all our hope and happiness; we are brought
over to trust Him, to live in His life, and no longer to live
under the dominion of the devil, who “ worketh in the
children of disobedience.” We actually “ become sons of
God,” are delivered from the oenses of the rst Adam, and
are no longer in the position of the world.
e sin of Adam induced the wrath of heaven’s oended
majesty; and we shall see that the work of the Lord Jesus
Christ just met, in every circumstance and in every position,
this situation; as a man, presenting the very opposite of
what Adam was after his transgression. Let us view Adam
rst in his creation, as he came out of the hands of God-the
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354
image of God-in His own likeness; we see him a type of
Him in whom dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily:
everything subordinate to him, put in authority under
him; all the animals- everything of animate and inanimate
nature in subserviency to him; all brought to him to give
them names: “ And whatsoever Adam called every living
creature, that was the name thereof.”
Psa. 8 evidently refers to this, from verse 4. But in
connection with Heb. 2, where it is quoted, we nd it was
typical of the Lord Jesus Christ: “ ou madest him a little
lower than the angels “ (in His humiliation). “ We see not
yet all things put under him “ (but that we shall see at His
coming). “ But,” says the apostle, “ we see Jesus, who was
made a little lower than the angels for the suering of
death, crowned with glory and honor; that he by the grace
of God should taste death for every man.” Here He became
practically the head and root of a new creation, manifested
so at His resurrection. e Lord was doing for His people,
in His humiliation, all that was necessary to put away sin-
suered what was due to sin, and suered unto death. Being
then quickened according to the Spirit of holiness as a risen
Savior, He becomes the Head of a new creation, as Adam
was of the old.
View Adam in the garden, and we shall discern in his
conduct that he had everything that qualied him to be the
head and root of a sinful world. So Christ (as manifesting
the very opposite conduct, under the most dicult
circumstances) is eminently qualied to be the Head of His
people. Adam was placed in an innocent world, surrounded
by every blessing, and with every holy and righteous feeling
which could call forth his love and gratitude to the great
Giver, and which ought to have led him to condence in
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Him. God had placed trust in him: He put him as a steward
over His goods. He reected His own image on him, and
made him capable of holding converse with Himself: he
was the link, as it were, between God and this world.
Being thus trusted of God, put into this highly
honorable situation, everything made for him, God
delighting in him, as in Prov. 8 “ Rejoicing in the habitable
parts of the earth, and my delights were with the sons of
men “: in this situation of trust, condence, and delight,
what followed? How did Adam comport himself and
sustain his integrity? e enemy of souls approached.
With subtility he inquires, “ Hath God said, Ye shall not
eat of every tree of the garden? “ and, on hearing God’s
authoritative threatening in case of delinquency, adds, “
Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day
ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall
be as gods, knowing good and evil.” At the rst outset he
impugns the truth of God’s word, and endeavors to make
Him a liar.
Now the man was in full recognition of God’s
command” ou shalt not eat of the tree.” He knew it
was a pledge of his obedience; that God, as supreme
Sovereign, should have the satisfaction of being obeyed:
he knew the Lord had a right to this obedience, and fully
understood that He had threatened punishment in case of
disobedience; he knew the Lord had said, “ In the day that
thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Here we see three
things in which the devil desired the man should dishonor
God: rst, as to His grace: secondly, as to His truth:
and, thirdly, as to the majesty of His Godhead. On this
suggestion we nd man really acted, and did so dishonor
God.
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We shall behold, in this transaction, the rst Adam
denying virtually God’s grace, truth, and majesty; and in the
second Man we are to see them vindicated and honored;
for “ grace and truth came by Jesus Christ,” the majesty
of Jehovah being also manifested in Him. Let us now
see how Satan and man dealt with God’s truth, love, and
majesty. God, as it has been observed, bestowed all favors
on this man, made him an example to all the universe of
His manifested love, and gave him just one command, that
man might have the opportunity of showing his sense of
the favors of God by an easy observance of it. Satan comes
and says to this eect: Did God say so and so? Do not you
believe Him; He did not tell you the truth. God knows He
has kept the only good away from you; do not trust Him. He
does not mean it for your good; He means a lie; He means
to deceive you. He is only keeping it from you because
He knows well that if you eat of it, you will be as God, “
knowing good and evil.” Here then was the temptation
to distrust God, to doubt His love, and to assume the
privileges of God Himself: “ Ye shall be as gods.”
Now in this is included every principle in which God
could be dishonored by man in the position in which Adam
then stood. And how did he act? When he saw (or she saw,
which is the same for our purpose) “ that the tree was good
for food, and pleasant to the eyes, and to be desired to make
one wise,” he did eat it, in positive and known disobedience
to God’s command; he acted on the present enjoyment,
without any regard to consequences; and the world has ever
since acted precisely on the same principles, and precisely
on the same grounds: are they condemned?
Many endeavor to screen themselves by this: I have done
no harm to my neighbor; I am not guilty of dishonesty, of
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thieving, murder, and such like. No more was Adam; he did
no harm to his neighbor (except as his conduct involved
all in his guilt); but this was just his condemnation, in not
recognizing and acting on the truth, love, and majesty of
God; in acting on the devil’s suggestions rather than
God’s, and so making God a liar. God says, “ Ye shall die “;
the devil says, “ Ye shall not “: and there is just the question
between them. Which will man believe? e devil puts the
present pleasantness of the thing before the man, and he
cares not for the consequences; let those come on the man
himself, so that he can lure him to his ruin. He never tells
him “ the wages of sin is death “; and man, with the present
enjoyments in view, cares not for it either. “ e lust of the
esh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” have present
enjoyment connected with them: so he embraces them and
runs after them; though in so doing, he denies the truth of
God, rejects His authority, and assumes His power.
is is really what Adam did; and in the consequences
we are all naturally involved. He believed the devil rather
than God; he thought the devil truer than God; he looked
upon him as a better friend than God; just as we should rely
on the promise and word of one whom we esteem our best
friend. He put the devil’s word in place of the law of God;
he looked upon God as an austere judge, and grudging; one
who had a good thing to give him, and yet denied it to him,
because He did not wish to make him as Himself, but rather
was gratied in keeping it from him. is was the opinion
man had of God, when he willingly subjected himself to the
dominion of Satan.
Now let us view his conduct after he had sinned. What
do we nd him doing? Hiding himself. What else could
he do? He would have been well pleased had there been
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no God to spy out his sin. But it was not so, and he was
now confronted. e voice of God called aloud, “ Adam,
where art thou? “ He whom He had entrusted with so many
blessings now runs away from Him, and hides himself: he
had disputed the authority of God, and sold himself to the
devil, and withal involved all his posterity in the guilt of
rejecting God as a sovereign, and taking the devil as a god,
bowing down in submission to his will. And in this position
is the world at present, in which we are now living, the only
living instance of unpunished apostasy: the consequences
are to come.
But man is the only intelligent being who is still alive
in successful apostasy. What do we nd in the case of
the fallen angels? eir sin brought its immediate and
irremediable punishment. Man-man alone is abiding
in unbelief; condemned indeed, but still the sentence of
execution is suspended. God came down to this man who
had thus cast o His allegiance; He came to one who had
been His former associate and companion: God brings him
out of his hiding-place. What then is man’s rst act? To
excuse himself: and here again the world most accurately
follows his example. ey sin, and then plead, as an excuse
or extenuation of their guilt, temptation, natural desire,
expediency, etc. But we rest on God’s truth when we declare
there is no excuse that man makes, which is not, in fact, the
very ground of his condemnation, yea, the very reason for it.
One instance from Scripture in passing. In the parable
of the marriage supper, the excuse one who was invited
gave for not attending was, “ I have bought a piece of
ground, and must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me
excused.” Where was the “ needs be “? Only just this, that
he preferred his own gratication to the reception of the
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Lord’s invitation. Just so Adam; his excuse was, “ e
woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of
the fruit, and I did eat.” e very excuse he brings is the very
ground on which God condemns him: “ Because thou hast
hearkened unto thy wife … cursed is the ground for thy
sake.” us out of his own mouth was he judged!
Now we pass to the Second Man-the character and
work of the Lord Jesus Christ; and we shall see exactly the
opposite of this in every particular. We shall see how in
thought, word, and deed, He perfectly vindicated the truth,
love, and majesty of the great God of heaven, which man
had thus shamefully and willfully dishonored. How did he
vindicate the truth of God? e Lord had said, “ ou shalt
surely die.” Christ came as the great witness to His people,
that “ the wages of sin is death “; and that by imputation
only, for He was perfectly and entirely holy. But He took our
sins; He bore our iniquities. He was willing to be looked
upon as the guilty, and to bear the penalty God had annexed
to sin, “ ou shalt surely die,” in order to vindicate the truth
of God.
If any on earth could be spared the threatened
punishment, it was Jesus. Holy in all respects abstractedly
of His divinity; entirely free from sin or approximation
to it; without the slightest shadow of evil as it regarded
Himself, and yet by imputation, willing imputation, His:
if any could be spared, it was He. But no; God had said
it, and Christ came to bear witness to the truth of God’s
word. If we would see the bitterness of sin, the tremendous
consequences of it, and its utter hatefulness in the sight of
God, where shall we see it but in the death of Christ, God’s
fellow, His well-beloved Son? “ He spared not his Son “; He
delivered Him up to the death of the cross!
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We see again how He fully vindicated the love of God.
at God, whom man looked upon as a grudging God,
keeping back from him that which was desirable-that God
gave His only begotten Son for man’s transgression! How
eminently conspicuous is God’s love here, in the suerings
and death of Jesus! e more righteous and holy Jesus was,
the more God’s love was displayed in giving Him for sin.
He needed not to die for His own oenses, for He had
committed none; nor for His own sins, for He “ knew no
sin.” He was brought nevertheless to the extremity of
suering and shame, and yet trusted and conded in God,
in circumstances all opposite to those in which Adam was
placed.
Adam was surrounded with every blessing and comfort:
Christ was in the midst of poverty, degradation, and woe; so
that He could say, “ Reproach bath broken my heart; I am
full of heaviness”: “My soul is exceeding sorrowful”: “My
heart is like wax, it is melted in the midst of my bowels”:
“Dogs have compassed me”; “bulls of Bashan have beset me
round”: “I am poured out like water.”
Adam was blessed with the full enjoyment of God’s
countenance up to the moment that he apostatized from
God. Christ, under the very dread of this even in prospect,
could look upon all other things as light in comparison; as
in Psa. 22, when enumerating some of the indignities He
was to receive, He says, “ ey parted my garments … they
gaped upon me “; but He adds, “ but be not thou far from
me, 0 Lord.” And still, in the very moment when God was
to visit on His soul the most awful eects of His people’s
delinquency-when, for their sins and the salvation of their
souls, and that they might everlastingly enjoy the presence
of God’s countenance, He was to withhold the comfortable
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perception of it from His expiring Son; when, at the extent
and summit of such dreadful agony, the exclamation was
drawn from His holy soul, “ My God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me? “ yet is the language of His soul, “But
thou continuest holy, 0 thou that inhabitest the praises of
Israel “: even in the moment of extremest suerings a doubt
of God’s faithfulness never passed His holy mind.
“ Ye shall be as gods “ was the bait the tempter threw
out, which succeeded in drawing man from his allegiance
to God. Now, how did Christ act as opposed to this? In Psa.
22 again He says, “ I am a worm, and no man; a reproach
of men, and despised of the people.” And we know that,
though God Himself, and equal with God, “ He made
himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a
servant; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled
himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death
of the cross.” Man aspired to be God, and fell; and the
Lord Jesus Christ, though very God, humbled Himself to
“ the dust of death,” thus vindicating in His own Person the
majesty of the eternal God.
us we see that Christ met all the sin and guilt which
devolved upon His people, in consequence of Adam’s
transgression. He did not endeavor to screen the sin, to
hide it from God’s sight, to excuse that with which He was
laden. No, He hung between heaven and earth-” lifted up
“bearing the iniquity of His people in His own body on the
tree. Far from denying or concealing it, He desires to open
all His soul to God: “ All my desires are before thee “: “ My
groaning is not hid from thee.” He feels its bitterness: “ My
soul is exceeding sorrowful.” Why thus? “ He knew no sin,
neither was guile found in his mouth “; yet He says, “ My
sins are not hid from thee: shame hath covered my face.”
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What is He then confessing, but His people’s sins? He had
none to confess of His own; He therefore takes and holds
up and confessed theirs, submitting to the consequences of
them.
Now that is just our blessing; that is just what constitutes
our peace and comfort, when by faith we can see Him
making these sins of ours His own-bearing them and their
deserved punishment; not only lifting them up to God, but
owning them, and bearing them away forever! presenting
Himself as the victim, to atone for sins which were
committed against the truth, majesty, and love of God. us
He vindicated God’s glory, while He was well qualied to
become the head of His people.
As a man He was well qualied, as the transgression
came by a man; while His Godhead rendered His
obedience meritorious and transferable. And when by faith
it is received, it brings the full tide of personal comfort to
the believer, just chewing him what he is in the rst Adam,
and what he is brought to in the Second. He sees Christ
as the great High Priest on the day of atonement, bringing
in the blood, sprinkling it within the veil, confessing and
owning the sins of His people (as in Psa. 40), laying them
on the head of the victim, carrying them into the grave of
forgetfulness, as the great confessor of the saints, bearing
up their sins before the face of God His Father, while in His
body and soul He is bearing the consequences, enduring the
penalty and doing it away forever! Remember too, all this,
in a way of entire perfectness of intention and obedience;
not deterred from it when in prospect, nor refusing it when
oered. Witness the garden of Gethsemane--the bitterness
of the cup which the Father gave Him to drink! What
perfectness of blessing for His chosen ones in that He did
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not put it away from Him! and, though He prayed, “ Be not
thou far from me, 0 Lord,” under a sense of aiction and
sorrow, still perfect in suering, thus becoming the author
of salvation to all who shall believe on Him.
Believers, can you then love that world which inicted
such woes on the Lord Jesus? Do you not see the total
distinction and opposition in all things between the world
and the brethren of the Lord Jesus? Are we then walking
in the inheritance of the rst or the second Adam? Are we
practically assimilated, in thought, feeling, deportment, or
pursuit, with that world which rejected Christ? Or are our
associations with the Lord? Does this association lead us
to say and to feel, Christ is not ashamed to call us brethren?
All mankind are naturally and truly associated with the rst
Adam, and all Christ’s people are as naturally associated
with Him; “ complete in him.” As all are heirs of sin and
shame by the rst Adam, so shall every one that believes be
(nay they are so now) heirs with Christ in all things, united
to Him in a vital and indissoluble union. ey are one with
Him in privilege, interest, blessing, and are heirs of all the
glory He possesses: “ Him that overcometh will I grant to
sit with me in my throne; even as I also overcame, and am
set down with my Father in his throne.” Whatever belongs
to Him of blessing or glory, He has for His own: “ All things
are yours,” says the apostle, “ for ye are Christ’s, and Christ is
God’s.”
Such being God’s truth, let us, brethren, seek renewed
knowledge of our personal interest and fellowship with
Him. Seek to receive more from Him: the more He gives,
the more He is gloried. As certainly as we are by nature
united to the rst Adam, and bearing his likeness and
image, so surely, if we are believers, are we associated with
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Christ in everything, “ heirs of God, and joint-heirs with
Christ.”
Now we see our glorious Head by faith alone; but soon
shall we see Him as He is, in all His glory, and be changed
into that same glory. In the meantime, “ neither death, nor
life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any
other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of
God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” May we, then, be
lled with the fullness of Christ! e Scriptures open out all
the blessings that are in Him: all fullness dwells in Christ;
and we, brethren of the Lord, are interested in it, by a union
commenced in time, to be consummated in a never-ending
and blissful eternity!
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62509
Why Do I Groan?
Romans 7-8
ere is nothing so hard for our hearts as to abide in the
sense of grace, to continue practically conscious that “we are
not under law, but under grace.” It is by grace that the heart
is “established”; but then there is nothing more dicult for
us really to comprehend than the fullness of grace — that
“grace of God wherein we stand,” and to walk in the power
and consciousness of it.
It is only in the presence of God that we can know it, and
there it is our privilege to be. e moment we get away from
the presence of God, there will always be certain workings
of our own thoughts within us; and our own thoughts can
never reach up to the thoughts of God about us, to the
“grace of God.”
It is quite impossible for us to draw any right conclusion
about grace, until we are settled on the great foundation
of grace — God’s gift of Jesus. No reasoning of our own
hearts could ever reach up to “the grace of God,” for the very
simple reason, that in order to be such it must ow directly
and freely from God. What I had any, the smallest possible,
right to expect, could not be pure, free grace — could not be
this “grace of God.”
But then, even after we have “tasted that the Lord is
gracious,” it is quite natural for our own thoughts to work as
soon as we leave the presence of God; and the moment they
do so, whether it be about our sins, or about our graces, or
anything else that we are occupied with, we lose the sense of
grace, and can no longer reckon upon it.
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is getting out of God’s presence is the source of all
our weakness as saints, for in God’s strength we can do
anything: “if God be for us, who can be against us?” e
consciousness of His realized presence with us makes us
“more than conquerors.” Whether our thoughts be about
ourselves, or about circumstances around us, everything
then becomes easy. But it is alone, when in communion
with Him, that we are able thus to measure everything
according to grace.
Are our thoughts about ourselves? When in the
presence of God we rest on His grace, nothing can trouble
us. “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?”
“Who is he that condemneth?” “Who shall separate us
from the love of Christ?” But the moment that we get out
of God’s presence, we cannot any longer rest on His grace as
when in communion with Him.
Again, are they respecting the condition of things
around? He may have sorrow of spirit on this account, as
conscious of the evil, misery, and ruin in which everything
is (as Jesus, He “groaned in spirit, and was troubled”). But
it is impossible, when we are abiding in the sense of God’s
presence, for anything, be it what it may, even the state of
the church, to shake us; for we count on God, and then all
things become but a sphere and scene for the operation of
His grace.
Nature never counts upon God’s grace; it may count
upon God’s mercy in passing by sin, but only because it
imagines either that He is indierent about it (attributing
to Him its own low estimate of sin), or that He has no right
to judge it. Grace, when understood by the soul, is seen to be
the very opposite of this — to be founded on a just sense of
the tremendous evil of sin, on the part of God. And when
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we have learned in our measure to take God’s estimate
of sin, we are lled with amazement at that grace of God
which can blot it all out — which has given His own Son
to die because of it. What the natural man understands by
mercy is not this — God’s blotting out sin by the blood-
shedding of Jesus, but His passing by sin with indierence.
is is not grace.
When the conscience becomes awakened, and there
are thoughts of responsibility, without the apprehension of
grace, the rst thing it seeks to do is to put itself under the
law; it cannot do otherwise. And the natural man even often
does this; he knows of no other way of pleasing God than
obedience to the law; and this, being ignorant both of God
and himself, he thinks he can render.
But the having very simple thoughts of grace is the true
source of our strength as Christians; and the abiding in
the sense of grace in the presence of God is all the secret
of holiness, peace and quietness of spirit. ere are two
things which may hinder our peace of spirit, and which,
being frequently confounded and mixed up together, create
a diculty in the minds of the saints: Firstly, a troubled
state of conscience respecting acceptance and salvation,
and, secondly, a groaning of spirit, similar to that mentioned
by Paul in Romans 8:23, because of circumstances around
which distress and try us. But these are quite distinct. e
trouble and exercise of spirit which the saint may and
indeed will have, while living in this world, because of
circumstances around, is altogether an opposite thing to
that trouble of conscience which is respecting pardon of sin.
Where there is that trouble of conscience, love is not
in exercise, but self is the center. But when the trouble is
because of the state of things around us, the contrary is the
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case. How deep the trouble of soul of the Lord Jesus! but it
owed from love and from a perfect sense of what the grace
of God was. When grace is fully, that is, simply known —
when we are resting upon God as being for us, and know
that He is love, there can be no mistake between these two
causes of disquiet; but if we do not understand what grace is,
we shall be apt immediately to confound them.
If there be in us any anxiety of conscience as to our
acceptance, we may be quite sure that we are not thoroughly
established in grace. It is true there may be the sense of sin
in one who is established, but this is a very dierent thing
from distress of conscience as to acceptance. Want of peace
may be caused by either of two things; my never having
been fully brought to trust in grace, or my having through
carelessness lost the sense of grace, which is easily done. e
grace of God is so unlimited, so full, so perfect, that, if we
get for a moment out of the presence of God, we cannot
have the true consciousness of it — we have no strength
to apprehend it; and if we attempt to know it out of His
presence, we shall only turn it to licentiousness.
If we look at the simple fact of what grace is, it has no
limit, no bounds. Be we what we may (and we cannot be
worse than we are), in spite of all that, what God is towards
us is love! Neither our joy nor our peace is dependent on
what we are to God, but on what He is to us, and this is
grace.
Grace supposes all the sin and evil that is in us, and is the
blessed revelation that through Jesus all this sin and evil has
been put away. A single sin is more horrible to God than a
thousand sins — nay, than all the sins in the world — are
to us; and yet, with the fullest consciousness of what we are,
all that God is pleased to be towards us is love! It is vain to
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look to any extent of evil: a person may be (speaking after
the manner of man) a great sinner, or a little sinner; but
this is not the question at all: grace has reference to what
God is, and not to what we are, except indeed that the very
greatness of our sins does but magnify the extent of the
grace of God. At the same time, we must remember that the
object and necessary eect of grace is to bring our souls into
communion with God, to sanctify us, by bringing the soul
to know God and to love Him. erefore the knowledge of
grace is the true source of sanctication.
If grace then be what God is toward me, and has nothing
at all to do with what I am, the moment I begin to think
about myself as though God would judge me because of my
sins, it is evident that I am not then consciously standing in
grace. e heart naturally has these thoughts; and indeed
it is also one of the eects of being awakened, for the
conscience then begins directly to reason about what God
thinks of it; but this is not grace. e soul that turns back
upon itself to learn God’s judgment about it, and what His
dealings with it are likely to be, is not leaning upon what
God is — is not standing in grace.
I have said that there are two things which, though quite
distinct, are nevertheless frequently confounded in the
minds of the saints — a bad conscience, and the groaning
of the spiritual man because of evil around. e moment
we get a little away from the sense of grace, we shall be in
danger of confusing these together. Suppose for instance
that I, as a saint, am sensible of the terrible weight of evil
which is all around me, and groan about it, soon (unless
it be guarded against) this will mix itself up with trouble
of conscience; I shall lose the sense of God’s love and put
myself under law. But a saint may “groan” thus without at all
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losing the consciousness of love, nay, for the very reason that
he has it.
When the Lord Jesus “groaned in himself” and wept at
the grave of Lazarus, His deep sense of the sorrow which
sin had brought into the world did not aect that of His
Father’s love. We nd Him using at the same time the
language of the fullest condence in that love — “Father, I
know that thou hearest me always.” And so a Christian may
be sorrowful, but should not on that account feel as though
God were not love, or lose the sense of His grace. Love to
others combined with a spiritual perception of evil will
cause us very much sorrow. Jesus felt this innitely more
than we can ever do, because the power of love in His heart
made Him so much more deeply sensible of the dreadful
weight of evil which was pressing on the hearts of others.
He felt the miseries around Him in proportion as He knew
the blessedness and love of the Father’s presence.
We have “suering,” “groaning” and so forth, spoken
of in Romans 8. Paul groaned within himself from the
consciousness of inrmity, from distress, trials, and so forth,
but this raised no question in his mind about the certainty
of God’s grace — quite the contrary. e more conscious
we are that the Spirit dwells in us, the more we shall “groan.”
e more certain we are of blessing, the more we realize
grace; the more we know of God’s love, and the eects of
that love, the more shall we “groan” at all that is at present
around us; but not as though these things brought the
smallest cloud over divine favor.
Paul is spoken of as groaning in spirit, and why? He
realized the result of the grace in which he stood. rough
the power of faith being made conscious of the blessings
which are his, he groans within himself after them; but
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never as if there were the slightest doubt respecting his
salvation. Delivered he is from all uncertainty as to the
fullness, the freeness, of divine favor towards him; and in
the consciousness of this he groans within himself, “waiting
for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”
e end of chapter 7 describes quite another sort of
groaning, though, as before remarked, the two are often
confounded together; because, as sin is still dwelling in us
(in our esh), those who are not really established in grace
do not discern the dierence between them. e whole
chapter is full of what people call experience; not of that
which is (properly speaking) Christian experience, but
of the thoughts of the mind within and about itself. e
state described is that of a person, quickened indeed, but
whose whole set of reasonings centers in himself. I could
not venture to say how many times he says “I” and “me”; the
whole chapter is full of it.
Observe the dierence of expression in verse 14: “We
know that the law is spiritual”; all Christians know that;
but then does he say, We know that we are carnal, sold
under sin? No, “I am carnal, sold under sin.” He turns back
immediately to self and to the judgment, which, being
quickened, he had formed of himself by his own experience,
as under the law, and begins to reason about what he is
before God, and not about what God is towards him; and
the consequence is that he exclaims, “O wretched man that
I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” So
it is with us; directly we begin to reason about ourselves, we
can only say, “O wretched man that I am!” what shall I do? I
hate sin, I wish to please God, I confess that the law is good;
but the more that I see it is so, the worse it is for me — the
more miserable I am!
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Is there a word of grace in all this? No, not a word. When
he brings in Christ at the close, then he is able to thank
God: “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” is
chapter is full of a great deal of truth, in the experience of
the individual mentioned; but it is truth stopping short of
grace, of the simple fact that, whatever be his state, let him
be as bad as he may, “God is love,” and only love towards
him. Instead of looking at God, it is all “I,” “I,” “I.” In
verse 15, six times over does he speak of himself, his own
thoughts; and though some of these were spiritual, yet it is,
“What I hate, that do I,” “When I would do good, evil is
present with me!”
All this may be very protable experience to bring us to
the conviction of our utter hopelessness in ourselves. Still
let us put it in its right place, and remember that it is not,
properly speaking, Christian experience; but that it only
describes the feelings of a soul that has not yet fully and
experimentally known the simple fact, that “when we were
without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly”;
or else that of one who, through the workings of the esh,
has slipped back to looking at himself, and at what he is,
instead of looking at God — at grace.
Faith produces many eects in our hearts always suitable
to the object at which it looks. If for instance faith looks at
the law, it sees its spirituality far more clearly than nature
can; and then, seeing the esh too in its real vileness, if it
looks no farther, but judges of itself according to this
spirituality of the law, the eect must be to bring us under
condemnation of it (I mean of course as to our feeling) —
under the consciousness of guilt and weakness. We shall
hate, and seek to separate from evil; but that will be all; it
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will leave us crying out, “O wretched man that I am!” With
increased light there will only be increased misery.
But if faith looks at God as He has revealed Himself in
grace, it judges accordingly. It never then reasons upon the
fruit produced, it rests in the revelation God has given of
Himself — grace. e fruits of grace are to be looked for
of course; for if there be life in us, the “fruit of the Spirit”
will be manifested. e saint, for instance, knows that
“peace” has been “made through the blood of the cross.”
e eect is, that love ows forth. He feels that he is called
unto blessing, and therefore has his feet “shod with the
preparation of the gospel of peace”; drinking into his own
soul the love of God, he becomes as a river of love owing
forth to others (John 7:38). But though these fruits are
produced, faith never reasons on its own fruits; it can alone
rest in the revelation God has given of Himself as “the God
of all grace.” is is its own and only proper sphere.
e natural heart ever reasons about itself, and in
a Christian it is always judging by fruits. is must
necessarily bring disquiet, instead of peace. In itself it can
see nothing but sin; and as to any fruit I have even been
enabled to bear, this is so mixed with imperfection that it
can only be a subject for judgment (though it be the Father’s
judgment) — it cannot give me peace. at can only be
found in what Jesus has wrought, in “the grace that is in
Christ Jesus.”
What then is the position in chapter 7? First of all the
apostle establishes the great principle that the believer
is “dead to the law.” en he describes the workings of a
quickened soul, which, knowing that the “law is spiritual,”
still feels “under the law,” and is therefore compelled to
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exclaim, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me
from the body of this death?”
Whom is he thinking of in all this? Himself. Now,
dear friends, let me ask you, Am I or is my state the object
of faith? No, surely not! Faith never makes what is in my
heart its object, but God’s revelation of Himself in grace.
If we stop half way, and see nothing but the law, it will
just discover to us our condemnation, and prove us to be
“without strength.” If God allows us to know enough of the
law and of the experience described in this chapter to show
us what is our true state, that is just where grace meets us.
It is not that the conict here spoken of will not
continue: grace could not be known at all where conict is
not known; the unconverted only are without it. But that
which will not continue when grace is fully known is that
bitterness of spirit in which, while the conict is going on,
the person judges himself, seeing the law to be “spiritual,”
but himself “carnal, sold under sin.” e love of God is not
realized as his own, and therefore this causes him to cry out,
“O wretched man that I am!”
It is quite clear that, while there is this experience felt,
there is not simple faith in God’s grace; there is not a clear
view of what God is towards me in Christ; for when the
soul apprehends that, when the faculties of the new man are
exercised on their proper object, there is perfect rest. And
though there is still conict, yet the soul is at peace: “the
battle is not ours, but the Lord’s.”
But how am I to know what is God’s mind towards me?
Is it by judging of it from what I nd in myself? Surely not!
Supposing that I even found good in myself, if I expected
God to look at me on that account, would it be grace? ere
may be a measure of truth in this kind of reasoning; for, if
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there be life in my soul, fruit will be apparent; but this is not
to give me peace any more than the evil that is in me is to
hinder my having peace. at too is true reasoning where
the apostle says, “the law is spiritual, but I am carnal”; “O
wretched man that I am!” but there is nothing of grace in it.
But does the certainty of grace take us out of all trouble?
No; I am not at all denying the fact that there is, and while
we are in a sinful body that there ever must be, conict
going on between the esh and the Spirit. But then to have
this conict going on in the conscious certainty that God is
for me, because I am “under grace,” is a very dierent thing
from having it in the fear that He is against me, because I
am “under law.”
If in evil I see myself (and this I always shall while here,
in the root, even if it be not manifested in its fruit), and if I
think that God will be against me because of it, I shall have
no strength for conict, but be utterly cast down, groaning
as to my acceptance. But if certain that God is for me, the
consciousness of this will give me courage and victory, nay,
even enable me to say, “Search me, O God, and know my
heart; try me, and know my thoughts, and see if there be
any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
In the condence of the love and grace of God I can ask
Him to search out all my evil — what I otherwise dare not
do, lest it should overwhelm me with despair. God is my
friend — for me, against my own evil.
e apostle speaks (ch. 8) of the “carnal mind” being
“enmity against God”; but then God in the gift of Jesus
has brought out this blessed truth, that when man was at
enmity against God, God was love towards man: our
enmity was met by His love. e triumph of grace was seen
in this, that when man’s enmity had cast out Jesus from the
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earth, God’s love brought in salvation by that very act —
came in to atone for the sin of those who had rejected Him.
In the view of the fullest development of man’s sin faith sees
the fullest manifestation of God’s grace. Where does faith
see the greatest depth of man’s sin and hatred of God? In
the cross; and at the same glance it sees the greatest extent of
God’s triumphant love and mercy to man. e spear of the
centurion which pierced the side of Jesus only brought out
that which spoke of love and mercy.
e apostle then goes on to show that those once at
enmity with God are now become His heirs; and that the
knowledge of this is founded on the knowledge of grace:
“Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again,” and so
forth. Grace rst makes us children of God, and then gives
us the knowledge of it, and that we are heirs of God.
But what is the extent of this grace towards us? It has
given us the same portion that the Lord Jesus has. “We are
heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.” It is not only
certain that grace has visited us, has found us when we were
“in our sins,” but it is also certain that it has set us where
Christ is; that we are identied with the Lord Jesus in all
but His essential glory as God. e soul is placed thus in the
consciousness of God’s perfect love, and therefore, as it is
said in chapter 5, “we joy in God.”
I have got away from grace if I have the slightest doubt
or hesitation about God’s love. I shall then be saying, I am
unhappy, because I am not what I should like to be. But,
dear friends, this is not the question: the real question is,
whether God is what we should like Him to be, whether
Jesus is all we could wish. If the consciousness of what we
are, of what we nd in ourselves, has any other eect than,
while it humbles us, to increase our adoration of what God
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is, we are o the ground of pure grace. e immediate eect
of such consciousness should be to make our hearts reach
out to God and to His grace as abounding over it all.
But while grace thus gives us perfect peace in our souls,
it does not save us from sorrow. Even as the Lord Jesus so
perfectly entered into the sorrow and groaning around
Him when here, and was therefore a “man of sorrows, and
acquainted with grief”; so in his measure ought the saint to
take up the sense of the weight of evil that is in the world,
and thus become a man of sorrows also. Just as we abide
in grace, shall we have in proportion a sense of the weight
of evil that is all around, and groan in sympathy with a
groaning and travailing creation; and not only so, but being
ourselves in the body, we shall “groan” likewise “within
ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption
of the body.”
But is there any uncertainty as to our salvation in this
groaning? No, quite the contrary; it is the very certainty that
“all things are ours” which makes us “groan.” Having the
certainty and foretaste of glory everything here is made the
more painful by contrast. at which the saint is entitled to
is so very dierent from all that is actually around him, that
the more he knows of the joy of dwelling in the presence
of God, the larger understanding he has of God’s love and
grace; the more he realizes the blessedness of his portion
in that glory to which he is predestinated, the more will he
“groan”!
How dierent this from the groaning of an uneasy
conscience! Let us not mistake, dear friends; let us not
confound the two: this groaning of one perfectly free from
the sense of condemnation described in chapter 8, and the
groaning of conscience, the “O wretched man that I am!”
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of chapter 7. Carelessness of walk, and through it losing
the sense of grace, may indeed expose him who has once
consciously stood in the power of redemption to the ery
darts of the wicked one. But this is not, as before remarked,
true Christian experience. When the heart is made full with
the rich blessings of Christ, it will not turn back to gnaw
upon itself.
It is our privilege as saints to know that “there is now no
condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus”; that “the
law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free
from the law of sin and death.” But we must not stop simply
here. ere must be the going on to know what we are as
sons of God, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ, the
Spirit bearing witness to us of it. God “hath established us
in Christ,” “hath anointed us,” and “given us the earnest of
the Spirit in our hearts.” Having thus the fullest knowledge
that God has thought about us in love, and predestinated
us to be conformed to the image of Jesus, and to share His
glory, understanding what His love is now about in His
dealings with us, and not being yet in the glory but still in
the body, and in the midst of evil and groaning all around,
we shall therefore groan. “Ourselves also, which have the
rst-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within
ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption
of our body.” e very reason of our groaning is because of
our having the rstfruits of the Spirit, not at all because of a
bad conscience; it is the Spirit of Christ groaning in us.
And then this groaning is always accompanied by
condence in God. As with Jesus, when “He groaned in
the spirit and was troubled” at the grave of Lazarus, He
said, “I know that thou hearest me always”; so is it given
to the saint to have the like condence (see 1 John 5:14-
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15). Nor should this condence even fail, when we “know
not what to pray for as we ought,” for it is added, “but we
know that all things work together for good,” and so forth.
I may see evil in myself — in another saint — in the
church, and seek to pray about it, but yet not have sucient
intelligence to know what would remedy it; the Spirit will
help my inrmity, and groan within me. God does not
regard my ignorance, but answers according to “the mind
of the Spirit,” who always “maketh intercession for the
saints according to God.” I ought to be so condent of
God’s directing all things, as to be able to say, I am certain
all things work together for good. Is a soul in this state?
Come what may — trouble, sorrow, disappointment, grief,
whatever it be — all is peace, for it is resting upon God, and
not (as in chap. 7) looking at itself.
Our very griefs then ow from the knowledge of God’s
immense love, and from the consciousness of all that
belongs to us in Christ. Jesus fully knew, as none other,
what the presence of God, what the enjoyment of His favor,
was, and “groaned,” because, coming from the presence of
God, He found man out of it. e life which I now have
identies me, not with responsibility as “under the law,” but
with Christ, who has borne the judgment of a broken law
for me. Instead of being wretched and miserable because
looking at myself as under law, I enjoy the consciousness of
redemption, rest in grace, and “rejoice in hope of the glory
of God.” But the moment we get a glimpse of the glory of
Christ as ours, this world becomes to us a scene of misery
and bondage.
is groaning on account of evil always associates itself
with love. If for instance I see a saint sin, it leads me at
once to the love and grace he is sinning against. It is the
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consciousness of divine favor which I have towards that
saint which makes me anxious about him; and while I
grieve at his sin, I have joy in God in the midst of my sorrow.
Well, beloved friends, if these things be so, if this be the
place in which grace sets us, let me ask, Is it so with you? If
God be pure love — nothing else than love to us; if there
be no mixed feelings in Him, then if you have not full joy,
if there is any hesitation in your souls as to your standing
before Him, you cannot be simply resting in His grace.
Is there distrust and distress in your minds? See if it
be not because you are still saying “I,” “I,” and losing sight
of God’s grace. You may indeed have faith, but you want
simplicity of heart in looking at God’s grace. It is better
to be thinking of what God is than of what we are. is
looking at ourselves is at the bottom really pride — a
want of the thorough consciousness that we are good for
nothing. Till we see this we never look quite away from self
to God. Sometimes perhaps the looking at our evil may be a
partial instrument in teaching us it; but still even this is not
all that is needed. In looking to Christ it is our privilege to
forget ourselves. True humility does not so much consist in
thinking badly of ourselves as in not thinking of ourselves
at all. I am too bad to be worth thinking about. What I want
is, to forget myself and to look at God who is indeed worth
all my thoughts. Is there need of being humbled about
ourselves? We may be quite sure that will do it.
Beloved, if we can say (as in Rom. 7) that “in me, that is,
in my esh, dwelleth no good thing,” we have thought quite
long enough about ourselves. Let us then think about Him
who thought about us with “thoughts of good and not of
evil” long before we had thought of ourselves at all. Let us
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see what His thoughts of grace about us are, and take up the
words of faith, “If God be for us, who can be against us?”
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62535
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Rom. 8:31
THERE is much to weary us, dear brethren, much to
draw out our anxiety as to present circumstances here; and
there is much as regards the natural mind which shrinks at
meeting God. e natural conscience of a man, even while
he is engaged in the things of this life, often testies to him
that all is not right: he may not always, perhaps not often,
feel this silent monitor; business, pleasure, gratication,
may dissipate the thought that there is something coming
which he is not prepared for. But though unwelcome, the
thought will obtrude, and weary him, and make him uneasy,
particularly if he is externally seeking righteousness; he
will be very weary to nd he has not courage to meet what
he knows he cannot avoid. Nay, even he who disclaims all
outward regard to what is right, who is on the broad road
of sin and ruin, delighting himself in abounding iniquity,
even in his very heyday of enjoyment and sport, an uneasy
thought will at some time or another be felt which tells
him, is won’t do, this is not the end for which I was made;
there is something coming. Perhaps he may not experience
this while in the very act of his jovial pleasures; but when
alone, a word that has been dropped, either in a discourse
or a conversation, or something he has read, or a passing
circumstance, will force him to acknowledge, Well, after all,
that is the truth, whether I believe it or not; this short life
must end in a coming judgment, and I am not prepared for
it.
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is feeling of uneasiness and alarm will obtrude on the
mind, whether we view the individual as seeking to justify
himself at the approaching day of account, or whether we
see him as delighting in the manifested wickedness of his
heart. In the one case, he feels his wants, but is looking for
strength where it cannot be found, and, making no progress,
is very uneasy; and in the other, the very thought of a God
who hates the things he is doing every hour in the day, is
a thought fraught with alarm. Now I suppose there is no
person who has heard the gospel preached, who has not,
at one time or another, been made thus uneasy, whether he
is seeking what he looks upon as a means of justication
from himself, or whether he is seeking for what he esteems
its own present value, present enjoyment in sin. is leads
him to the consideration of one great thing which in some
moment of time he experiences: Well, perhaps after all,
God may be against me. It is this that makes the sinner
alarmed; and he whose conscience is greatly troubled, who
feels his weakness, and nds the diculty by which he is
surrounded, his secret feeling is, God is not at peace with
me-He is against me. ere is the great truth, the great
cause of controversy in the conscience, there is no peace.
No matter what are his circumstances, they may vary and
change, but will make no change in what makes him thus
uneasy: for it is the same calm unchanging God he has to
meet, and he is conscious that that God is not at peace with
him, and he cannot say, I know, come what will, God is for
me.
It is this that makes the natural conscience tremble and
feel uneasy. ere are many under similar experience, even
by the teaching of God’s Spirit, and are deeply conscious
of their not being at peace with God, and continue thus
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in suering till God reveals Himself. But I am not now
speaking of them, but of those whose natural conscience
leads them to know that God is not for them. e Scripture
tells us, and the conscience when once enlightened sees,
that God met all this in a manner peculiar to Himself-
that He met all that a man’s conscience can make out
against himself, and met it in such a way as to make a man
conscious of possessing peace in the Lord Jesus Christ:
and it is really wonderful-wonderful beyond our utmost
limits of comprehension-when, amidst all our misery,
degradation, sinfulness, and weakness, God is found to be
for us.
“ What shall we say to these things? If God be for
us, who can be against us? “ When a man sees God thus
settling the question between them, suiting Himself to his
peculiar circumstances, and proving Himself to be for him,
he has a more realizing sense of God’s love, and of God’s
favor towards him, than the angels in heaven who never
sinned. When a man is brought to see God for him, there
is a breaking down of all that before opposed itself to God:
pride, the poor pride of man, is brought down, when once
he is brought to the conscious acknowledgment, “ God is
for us.” e soul then sees how completely everything is for
him, if God is thus for us. e comfort of the soul consists in
this, that God is for it, and that it is for God: then it begins
to be conscious of other wants, of which before it knew
nothing; it wants to know more of God, it wants to see Him
as He is, it wants the glory. It is a comfort to know that that
is what it wants. e soul is led to ask now, Why should God
be for us? have we been for God? have we rendered God
any service? have we acted by His mind? We have not. Why
then should we plead, God is for us? It is for nothing in
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ourselves, for we have slighted His promises, despised His
grace, lightly esteemed the more than ten thousand mercies
of His daily favor.
We have been like the prodigal son, who wasted his very
common blessings in riotous living. In all our circumstances
we have forgotten Him, in our intercourse with the world
we have been acting without Him, loving our ungodly
companions rather than Him. 0, the wonder, if after
all this we should nd God was for us! Look at the state
man is really in, as regards the trust he puts in man rather
than God. If his neighbor should ask him to do anything,
though his conscience may tell him God hates what his
neighbor wants him to do, still, rather than disoblige his
companion, he will sin against God. It would distress him
more to refuse him, either in going to ungodly places of
amusement, or gratication, or indulging in known sin. Sin
was the cause of the rejection of Christ; and therefore every
sin has this stamped upon it- the rejection of the Son of
God. Our own conscience tells us that sin is against God,
and there are few so hardy as to confess that they were for
God by the commission of it; and yet, we may say, there is
scarcely one among us who is not conscious of this sin, of
(rather than refusing our friend or companion) doing what
we know is against God. Seeing such to be the case, we see
no reason why God should be for us. His judgments have
been disregarded, His mercies despised, His name lightly
esteemed, little or no notice taken of any temporal favor,
except to abuse it; and must not this bring to our conscience
the upbraiding thought, Why should we expect God to
be for us? What has the world done for God? What has it
done with its natural blessings? Sinned them away. With
the law of God? Broken it. With the love of Christ and His
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coming? Rejected Him. With the testimony of the Holy
Spirit to the work of Christ? Refused it-takes no pleasure in
anything belonging to God, sees no glory, no loveliness, no
beauty in Him, which just proves this one thing, that there
is no real reason from us on earth why God should be for us,
but, as far as we are concerned, every reason why He should
be against us.
In this state of entire alienation from God, neither
seeing nor desiring to see His glory and loveliness, there
can be no love in the soul, as long as that soul is living
without God, and it has manifestly no interest in the things
of God. Being in this position, there is one terrible evil
necessarily evident: that if we are living without God, and
not following Him, we must be followers of Him who is the
enemy of God and of our souls: who is the great deceiver
of mankind, and, though he never shows himself, drags his
victim down to ruin, and then mocks at his calamity. is
is Satan, that arch-deceiver, who was a liar and a murderer
from the beginning; who casts out his bait to decoy man,
showing him that, but carefully hiding the hook, that he
may have his unresisting prey in his clutches; and man
rushes to take the bait, willingly selling himself to Satan,
though he is morally conscious that he is not acting
according to the commandments of God. And this is not
said of any one particular class of character or order of men,
for all are included in it: “ All have sinned, and come short of
the glory of God.” ere is nothing that can meet the glory
of God in all this.
ere is one great thing as regards unrenewed man:
he stands in dread of the holiness of God; he cannot
contemplate God’s glory with delight, but in that glory he
must stand if ever he is saved; he may be changed, and he
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must be changed, if ever he meet it with joy; but that glory
changes not. e sun is just as bright when earth obstructs
our view of it, as when we behold it; clouds may intervene
and hide its glory, but when the clouds are taken away, there
is the sun just the same, just as bright, as warm, as glorious
as ever; and the moment the veil is taken away, we see it as
such. Where is the soul that can stand in the presence of the
glory of God, and contemplate that glory in his sullied and
natural mind? “ Who may abide the day of his coming? and
who shall stand when he appeareth? “ A child, in order to
see the natural light, must previously be brought into life;
and so must we, for God cannot change. Were it possible
for God to give up one atom of His glory, or one particle
of His holiness, the eect would be that there would be no
place where sin would not enter. Who can tell what would
be the consequence if God could suer the least diminution
of His glory? Where is the spot that would then be sacred?
where would be the place of unfading glory? But God’s
glory cannot be lessened or diminished, and what secures
it is the unchangeable nature of God Himself. It is this, and
the consciousness of it, that brings uneasiness and alarm
into the soul unchanged by grace; for it is conscious of its
untness for that glory, that this glory is far removed from
what he loves, and that therefore we must feel convinced
that God is not for us. If it be really true that God’s glory
cannot change, who then can be saved? e believer sees it
an unchangeable glory, and it delights him. e unbeliever
is conscious it must be so, and he is angry: If God be thus,
he thinks, why should I have anything to do with Him?
He struggles, but unavailingly, to get away from God; he
would be glad then that there had been no God: he has
no objection to receive God’s earthly favors and blessings,
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sending rain on the just and on the unjust; but, provided he
could have what he likes on earth, and the enjoyment of it,
he would not care ever to see God, or His glory either.
It is not, it cannot be, pleasant to the natural mind to
contemplate the judgment. No man likes to be judged; it is
not natural to man; he does not like to have this sounded in
his ears: “ It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this
the judgment “: that is the fact, and therefore he is always
putting it o. Putting what o? God’s presence. He does
not want to see God; and is not this practically testifying
that he is not at peace with God, that there is something
which keeps him still desiring to be kept from God?
It is sorrow, brethren, it is grief, to dwell so long on this
subject. ere is no comfort in it, did we see nothing further
than this. It is sorrow to have to dwell on it; but it is the
truth, it is God’s truth, that we are sinners, and, as sinners,
are averse to God’s glory. But, brethren, it is another and a
blessed truth that is brought home to the heart of a sinner,
when, notwithstanding all this, he nds to his joy and
comfort that God is for him. Adam sinned and left God,
because he thought more of what Satan oered him; he
thought the devil a better friend to him than God: but he
has since found out to his cost that the devil was a liar: that
he never had the power of giving him what he promised;
and that by catching at the devil’s baits, he has received his
hook, and that “ the wages of sin is death.” is is what man
has done. But, oh! the blessedness of the consciousness that,
in spite of all we can do, or Satan devise, the blessing is ours,
the glory is ours! We come to see the truth that has risen out
of this great truth.
e fact turns out quite a dierent way, when the Holy
Spirit is bringing home to our souls that all the time God
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is for us. 0 what blessing, what wondrous blessing, is thus
brought home to the poor, aching, harassed, anxious soul,
when it is given to see that that God whom it despised, that
Jesus whom it crucied, that Spirit whom it resisted, are
for it! 0 what gladness to receive daily proofs, that it is one
upon whom God is looking in love, in pity, and that He is
for it! as the Lord, speaking of the children of Israel, says,
“ I have seen, I have seen the aiction of my people, and I
am come down to deliver them! “ 0 what wondrous extent
of love! nor height nor depth can reach or fathom it! We are
frail men, and Satan exercises his subtlety on us; he knows
what to lure us with, and therefore he puts suitable pleasures
in our way, and within our reach; he throws his baits most
skillfully; he knows the bait that is most seasonable, and
he presents it just in the time and under the circumstances
most likely to take eect. He knows what our natures like,
what they are going after; and so he presents the very thing
which, if continued in, must lead to destruction. All this is
terrible, dear friends; but under all this there is comfort-the
everlasting comfort, if we are believers in the Lord Jesus
Christ, that we have seen and found One who is able to
bear us through all this, and set us free from the power and
dominion of Satan, making us children of the living God,
heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.
In this blessed privilege ends all the argument which
Paul brings forward in this epistle; he shows them what
they are by nature; they did not like to retain God in their,
knowledge, and so God gave them over to a reprobate mind
(that is, a mind incapable of sound judgment in the exercise
of what was right or wrong), and the consequence was, they
committed all uncleanness with greediness. But “ in due
time Christ died for the ungodly.” Dear brethren, this is the
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thing that brings comfort and peace and joy to the soul; this
is what sets the devil aside; this is what brings a man to cease
from loving to sin against God, from rejecting Christ, or
refusing the testimony of the Holy Spirit. is is the eect
of having this blessed knowledge brought home to the soul;
and what a relief it is, after many sad experiences of deeper
and deeper misery in the consciousness of sin and anxiety,
to be released from it.
An individual under a sense of his own unworthiness
looks upon others whom the Lord has enabled to act for
Him, with a kind of jealousy, and he says, Oh, if I were like
such a one, if I acted as consistently and godly as he does!
I do not know how he does it; but it is not so with me: I
cannot act as he does. God is just bringing him by all this
to acknowledge, I am ungodly; and then God says, Yes, you
are ungodly; but “ in due time Christ died for the ungodly.”
How, in due time? It was just in due time for us, for we
were lost, ruined, had sinned away our blessings, and were
without strength, and then Christ died; yea, Christ died for
the ungodly. 0, what blessed intelligence for poor sinners!
“ God spared not his own Son “; He gave Him up for the
ungodly, for sinners; for those who have no strength, who
are without knowledge. en none are excluded from the
privilege, who will plead they are the ungodly; and this is
so simple as to be as intelligible to the poor and ignorant
as to the rich and wise, and perhaps even more intelligible,
and for this very reason, that they are poor and ignorant,
and that they are dealing with God in their consciences
only, and the others are endeavoring to deal with Him by
their knowledge. But God, who is rich in mercy, can bring
to nothing the wisdom of the wise, and make them see their
want of wisdom.
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When the Spirit of God brings to the soul of a sinner
this conviction, that he is ungodly, and that he has an
interest in the death of the Son of God, he is conscious
of being in Him also as a risen Savior, and has therefore
ample encouragement to look to the future. He sees One
by faith come down from heaven; he sees God determined
to save him, and in such a way as comes home to his heart,
by sending His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. By faith
he is witnessing what Jesus was doing here, and how He
was used. He had a purpose, a holy purpose of love, which
He came to execute here, and nothing could divert Him
from that purpose. He was pledged to perform it, and
therefore on He went, amidst all scorn, reproach, poverty,
and contempt. e settled purpose of His heart was to save
the ungodly, and so He despised all that was in the way of
its accomplishment; He despised the cross, enduring the
shame. e laugh of man, the scorn of sinners, was against
Him; but what was that to Him? e one thing for which
He came down was before Him, and so He went through
all, perfectly sinless, and yet unjustly accused; and not only
accused, traduced, ridiculed, and spit upon, but brought into
the very dust of death. When once the believer enters into
the spiritual apprehension of these acknowledged facts,
then does he learn that this holy and much-dreaded God
is for him-is on his side-has taken his part; then the spring
of hope is lifted up in his soul; then he sees it is God for
him, and not against him; that it is God, and not man is for
him. It was God did all this, and He is for me. He is now
no longer too proud to be a debtor to God; the arms of his
rebellion and enmity are laid down; he becomes a suppliant;
he no longer need dread, as a sinner, to appear before God,
knowing, as he does, God’s loving-kindness in Christ Jesus;
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he no longer need fear the day of judgment, nor be troubled,
for his cause is made out, and he stands acquitted.
is is the great truth that brings joy, peace, and comfort,
that in all these things God is for us! 0 what rest, what
happiness for the poor soul, when he sees he has to do with
One who has conquered all enemies for him, and in whom
he has treasured up all glory for him! Before he came to the
consciousness of this, the book of his daily transgressions
appeared to ascend up before God, black with the catalog
of his oenses, on every leaf of which was written--Sin, sin,
sin; but now these blackened characters are eaced, and
on each page is transcribed in letters of blood, in the blood
of God’s dear Lamb--Love, love, love. All the dark spots
are now obliterated, for He who is for us has triumphed.
He took the load of sin from o us, and suered the
punishment due to the commission of it, and this silences
all Satan’s accusations. Satan says to the soul, Oh, you are a
sinner, you have broken God’s laws. e Lord Jesus Christ
acknowledges this, takes the sin, and bears the punishment
of it unto death. Satan requires the right of judgment to be
passed against us, that the Lord in justice ought not to let
the sinner go unjudged; he accused him. But “ who shall
lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? it is God that
justieth.” Christ has taken the sinner’s place, borne the
punishment instead of us, poured out His soul unto death,
and thus put away sin. He now is risen, and has ascended
into heaven. us is sin expiated, and His people clear; thus
is Christ proved for us.
To enter into the full perception of this blessedness
constitutes the enjoyment of the believer. Here he nds a
resting place from the bueting waves of the world, when
he thus sees that, as sinners, God has proved Himself for
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us, and in the very act He commends His love towards us;
for it was while we were such sinners, “ while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us.” We see just two things in this-
that the sinner is without strength, without riches. Like the
poor prodigal, he has spent all he had, and now he comes to
himself, and is about to return, he has nothing to bring with
him. Like a shipwrecked mariner, all is thrown overboard,
everything going adrift, and he himself, struggling with the
dark billows, is just cast ashore, wearied and poor, having
nothing! but, blessed be God, if we have got to shore, God is
there, and He is for us; and this is the mighty point gained,
and we know we shall not be cast out again, and that we
may lay claim now to all things that God can give. “ He that
spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how
shall he not with him also freely give us all things? “
en, brethren, let us trust Him more; let us seek to get
more from Him; we cannot look for too much of His favor
who has not spared His Son for us: and this, dear brethren,
will not lead to presumptuous expectations, but a sense of
the greatness of His gifts will keep us humble; and the more
deeply we are humbled, the more we are in a state to see and
feel how God was and is for us, that Christ bled and died
for us as enemies, and that the Father gave His Son for us
when we were ungodly. 0 brethren, this is a blessed sight
for faith, and nothing but faith can see it, and seeing this
we can see everything is ours. Having Christ, we have all.
“ How shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
“ God has bestowed unnumbered blessings on man; but
there was one thing which He had in heaven greater than
all His other gifts: that one gift He gave, and having given
this, shall He, or can He, refuse us anything else that is for
our good? Christ is ours, and then it follows, all is ours; “ for
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ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” God, therefore, gives
us all things with Christ; not as man gives, for God gives
freely-” He freely giveth us all things.” e diculties in our
way may continue. Satan may still endeavor to distress and
annoy; but we may be well assured, that if God has given
us His Son, He has given us all things that will bring us
through.
He has tted us for the undertaking, and when once
put in order, set o, and set a-going by the power of
God, we may be satised as to the issue, for Christ has
engaged to see us through; we must arrive safely, for God,
who has brought us thus far, is still for us; and who shall
separate us from His love? “ Shall tribulation, or distress,
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
“ Shall the deceitful pleasures of a false world, or the
alluring baits of Satan tempt our souls to destruction? Nay,
brethren,.” in all these things we are more than conquerors,
through him that loved us.” Be our way dark or thorny, be
it dicult or dangerous, be it in the midst of temptations
or cares, the same God is for us, and we know that He went
through them before us. Christ suered, He was tempted,
upbraided; wept and made supplication, and brought us
through them all, even with groanings and tears, to look up
to God as our Father, and heaven as our home: what have
we to do with fear then?
Brethren, beloved of the Lord, seeing that our God has
done such great things for us, we know that God is for us,
by the love of Jesus, in going before us in all tribulations, so
that nothing should separate us from His love. If you are
tempted, dear friends, remember He was tempted before
you; if your friends forsake you, remember that Christ is a
“ friend that sticketh closer than a brother “; the world may
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leave you, but it is not your friend, but your enemy, “ for the
friendship of the world is enmity with God “; and you are
no longer debtors to the esh, to live after the esh, but you
live in the Spirit, and therefore should walk in the Spirit, in
the same mind that was in Jesus. Whatever temptation you
are under, be persuaded, with Paul, of this one thing, that
“ neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor
powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height,
nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us
from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
What the devil did was to undo our condence in God:
what Jesus did is to show us that we may trust Him. And
when the believer sees not this, he is looking to the devil and
his temptation more than to the love and power of Christ,
who has conquered all his enemies for him; but when our
eyes are o all other objects, and on Christ, then, and then
only, we can have peace.
Now, dear friends, I would just, in conclusion, ask you,
Have you been led to come, as you are, ungodly sinners,
to God? not to bring your own righteousness, which is
nothing but lthy rags; but have you come pleading the
blood-shedding of the Lamb of God? If you have, assuredly
there is peace for you, for that is a sure token that God is
for you. Or have you been acting against God all your lives,
and have never found peace? Are you still tormented with
a guilty conscience, and are you still rejecting and refusing
the way of salvation? I would earnestly beseech you to
consider the danger you are in, and I would ask you to look
before you, and see where you are going, and what you are
doing. You are wandering in the midst of the wide sea of this
world, you are toiling through its waves without a prospect
of deliverance; and if persisted in, you will, ere long, sink
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down into the sleep of death, to wake in eternal misery.
Should you be found thus when Christ comes, you will
feel, to your shame and grief, that there is One against you
greater than Satan, who can destroy both him and you.
But be of good cheer if your hearts are set on Christ:
there is your stay, the anchor of your soul. If He is such,
dear friends, stand forward for Him; be not ashamed to
own your relationship to Him, your dependence on Him:
be decided, cut short all expedients for deferring the bold
acknowledgment of your being His; confess Him before
men, and act for Him, and live for Him in an ungodly
world. He is not ashamed to call you brethren and will you
be ashamed to confess Him as your Lord and Master in the
face of all the world? Be not debating within yourselves,
when you shall avow yourselves; do it at once, decidedly.
Make the plunge, and trust God for the consequence. I
know it by experience, that an open bold confession of
being Christ’s is more than half the struggle over. I know
the devil tempts, and says, 0 do not be too hasty, you might
ruin the cause by over-forwardness; this is not the time
to confess yourself openly, wait for another opportunity.
But I say, dear friends, as one who knows, that if a man,
in the strength of the Lord, is just brought to say to his
companions and friends, I am Christ’s, and I must act for
Him- that he will not suer what others will feel who are
creeping on fearful and afraid to avow Him whom they
desire to serve. Believe me, my friends, it is as I say: by this
decided and open opposition to the world he may at rst be
laughed at and mocked; but what of that? Christ was served
so. But soon, when his companions nd him resolute, they
will give him up as a bad case which they can make no hand
of, and they will leave him comparatively free from ridicule.
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Are there any of you who are thus halting between two
opinions, and afraid to confess your obligations to the
Lord? Oh! I once more entreat you to be candid. Be open,
be decided, confess Christ’s name on earth, and He will
not be ashamed to confess your name before the whole
assembled universe.
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62524
e Accepted Man
2 Cor. 3
THERE are two ways in which we may approach the
judgment of man. We may judge of where man is (of the
condition in which he is looked at by God) by taking the
word of God and applying it to the condition of man in
himself, to his state as an actual sinner. us, for instance,
in Gen. 3, in the sin of Adam and Eve in the garden we
see the character of evil against God Himself; in Gen. 4, in
Cain’s sin, the character of evil against man’s neighbor. Here
then is direct opposition to the requirement of God in both
its parts; Luke 1 o: 27. But there is another thing of which
Scripture is full-the accepted man, the Lord Jesus. We get in
Him a precious living divine picture of what that Man is
whom God does accept- of the Man after God’s own heart.
If we nd in Christ the accepted Man, whatever any
other man’s thoughts may be about himself, it is evident he
is not this, because he is not like Christ (I speak not now as
to divine power). In the glory Christ is the accepted and the
acceptable Man before God. As the pattern for the saint He
is the exhibitor, not of divine power in grace toward man,
but of manhood such as God can accept. Now no man can
at any rate lay claim to being this. e unconverted man,
though he cannot comprehend the Man after God’s own
heart, can plainly see he is not this. A blind man may not
be able to tell what I mean when I speak to him about light
and color, because he has no perception of these things, he
is blind; but he knows that the things I am talking about
he lacks the knowledge of. So, when Christ is spoken of,
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the natural man is in a state of forgetfulness, or rather of
ignorance as to who and what Christ is (whether looked
at in relation to God or to the sinner), and therefore as to
the real dissimilarity between himself and Christ; but
he is perfectly aware that there are things which others
know about Christ that he does not know. He may say he
knows them, but he does not; and moreover he must be
conscious that he does not know that which he professes
to know. e blind man may hear me speak, or be listening
to sweet music, and in a certain sense lose nothing through
his blindness (in the present enjoyment of what he hears
he may forget his inability to see); but let him attempt to
walk across the room towards me, and he will be reminded
of it; for, unless one lead him, he will run up against that
which stands in his way. e blind man may get used to his
blindness.
So with the sinner. When the natural man hears the
word of God read, or when Christ is spoken of, he is blind,
ignorant (as was said before) of who and what Christ is;
but he is ignorant of the depth of his ignorance; his mind
is so occupied with other things that he does not think
about it, and he gets used to his ignorance. When the truth
is put before him he cannot see it; yet he must know that
he knows nothing about it. If he looks into the Scriptures,
he does not apprehend Him of whom they speak. He is
entirely ignorant of the motives that actuated Christ in His
path through this world; yet, if his attention be at all called
to what Christ was, he must have the consciousness that he
is not like Him, that he is not and has not the thing spoken
of.
If it be true that this is the acceptable Man, the Man
in whom God delights-acceptable in His spirit, and ways,
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and character, it must be evident to the natural man that he
cannot be. He may have many amiable qualities (in nature
there is much that is engaging and beautiful: we see it even
in the animals) but nothing that is acceptable to God.
Morally we do not nd one single motive that governed
Christ governing man, as man; it is evident, therefore, that if
Christ’s were acceptable motives, his are not.
Now being accepted is a great thing. It is impossible to
think of a day of blessing, or of a day of judgment, without
immediately having thoughts arise in the soul as to how it
will be with us, whether we shall stand accepted in that day,
whether we shall escape that judgment.
A man of the world must own that he has nothing in
common with Christ, except indeed that he is a man and
Christ was a man: he eats, drinks, sleeps; and Christ ate,
drank, slept. But there is sin in every man, and Christ was “
without sin “sin in the place of godliness, malice in the place
of love. As regards the moral motives of the soul, he has not
any of Christ’s, and Christ had not one of his. e world
would cease if its conduct were regulated by the motives
which actuated Christ; it could not go on an hour. ere
may be the outward imitation of that which was found in
Christ; but God is not mocked. But, it may be said, and
many do say it, God does not expect us to be like Christ
in everything. Now the fact is, God does expect us to be
like Christ. It is impossible for God to accept one thing as
that which is agreeable to Himself, and then accept or be
satised with the directly opposite. If the man of the world
is the very opposite of what Christ was, God cannot accept
him. He cannot deny Himself.
We shall see how God does bring into the very same
place as Christ those who are accepted in Him. You cannot
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have a third man. You must have either the place of the rst
man, rejected, turned out into the world, in the place of ruin;
or that of the second Man, accepted, brought out of the
world to God. ere is no third man oering an indenite
acceptance in some unknown condition.
What then is the Christian? We read here of two
things as characterizing him: he is an “ epistle of Christ “;
he has “ liberty.” What is the “ liberty “? You will nd this
a characteristic of man, as man, that he has not liberty
with God, and (though he has not liberty from Satan) he
has liberty with Satan. He is afraid of God; but he is not
afraid of Satan. He would not like to be with Satan in hell,
it is true; he is horried at the thought of that; but he is
not horried at walking with him every day. He is at liberty
with Satan, walking at his ease with him in the earth; but of
walking with God he has a perfect terror. Now do you, dear
friends, nd yourselves at liberty with God? I know that in
heaven by-and-by you would like to be with God; but do
you covet this nearness now? at is the question. Do you
feel at home with God? would you like Him to take you just
such as you are? Taking you just such as you are, could you
trust yourselves with God? You hope, perhaps, that when
the day of judgment comes, all will be well with you; you
have no thought but that you will be able to stand in the
judgment then. But if God were about to take you just such
as you are at this moment is there not something you would
be afraid of? What is there so terrible in thinking about
God, that you should be afraid of God, that you would not
like to trust God with your present condition? You are not
afraid to trust Satan.
Satan is “ the god “ (2 Cor. 4:4) and “ the prince “ (John
12:31; chap. 14: 30) “ of this world “; yet men are not afraid
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of making their way through a world where the Lord tells
His disciples to have their loins girded about and their
lamps burning, to watch and pray lest they enter into
temptation, to be armed at all points. Men are not afraid
there. Is not this strange? In Satan’s world they are at ease,
but with God they are not at ease. ey go readily into
places of temptation where Christ is sure not to be; and in
the place where Christ could honor God they are ill at ease.
ey go to seek their pleasures where Christ could not have
found His; and they are not afraid of Satan, though they
know he is there. ey are afraid where the light is: but they
are not afraid of the darkness. Darkness is their element;
light their fear. Now that is a terrible thing! “ God is light,
and in him is no darkness at all.” Satan is the prince of “
the rulers of the darkness of this world “ (Eph. 6:12), “ the
spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience,”
etc. (Eph. 2:2, 3).
Man can compare himself with the reprobate sinner,
and take credit in his own eyes for the dierence between
himself and the sinner, when God is not in the conscience;
but he puts away the judgment of God concerning himself,
he never compares himself with Christ, “ neither cometh
he to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved,” John
3:20, 21. Now let us look at Christ, as to this judgment of
man about himself. We nd Christ scorning what man
delights in, passing by those who could thus compare
themselves amongst themselves, and becoming the friend
of the proigate and the abandoned. When He met with a
publican, or a person of bad character, making no pretense
to be anything but a sinner, He was at home with the sinner.
Of such were His companions. He came in grace to sinners,
as sinners. He saw into the heart, and therefore detected the
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hollowness of all man’s pretended righteousness. He did not
come from heaven to this earth to look for righteousness-
that is the last thing He would have taken the journey for;
He came to seek sinners.
Again, you read a person’s character in his letter. Now
the Christian is Christ’s letter to the world. In verse 3 the
apostle speaks of him as “ the epistle of Christ,” written by
the Spirit of the living God in the eshy tables of the heart,
and contrasts him with the law written on tables of stone. A
Christian is therefore a person upon whose heart the Spirit
of God has engraved Christ, just as truly as God wrote and
engraved the law upon the tables of stone; so that the world
may read Christ in the man, as an Israelite might read the
law on the stones. Now how far can we according to this
denition call ourselves Christians? We come short, I doubt
not, we have blotted the letter; but I speak of the thing in
principle.
Oh the folly of man! he has taken for granted from the
Scriptures that there is a heaven, and then sets about getting
to that heaven his own way. How does he know that there
is a heaven at all to go to? It is impossible that he should
know it except upon the authority of God. I learn it from
the Scriptures, he says: it is in the Scriptures, and therefore
it must be true. Yes, doubtless it is in the Scriptures; but
having taken for granted just that, he does not go to God to
know who are to be there, or how he is to get there.
e very idea, fabulous as it is, he possesses of heaven,
renders the assumption of his being there less pardonable
than would have been his utter ignorance about it. A man
would be less wrong, supposing he did not know anything
about a regal palace (a savage, t only for the woods), than
a person who knew what the palace was, and had some idea
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of the requirements of the place, and yet thought to go and
live there. e unconverted man acts and thinks more apart
from God in thinking he ought to go to heaven, than if he
thought there was no such place at all; he in a state of sin is
expecting to get into the presence of a holy God!
One thing impressed my own mind most peculiarly
when the Lord was rst opening my eyes-I never found
Christ doing a single thing for Himself. Here is an
immense principle. ere was not one act in all Christ’s life
done to serve or to please Himself. An unbroken stream
of blessed, perfect, unfailing love owed from Him, no
matter what the contradiction of sinners-one amazing and
unwavering testimony of love and sympathy and help; but
it was ever others, and not Himself, that were comforted,
and nothing could weary it, nothing turn it aside. Now the
world’s whole principle is self, doing well for itself; Psa.
49:18. Men know that it is upon the energy of selshness
they have to depend. Every one that knows anything at all
of the world knows this. Without it the world could not go
on. What is the world’s honor? Self. What its wealth? Self.
What is advancement in the world? Self. ey are but so
many forms of the same thing; the principle that animates
the individual man in each is the spirit of self-seeking. e
business of the world is the seeking of self, and the pleasures
of the world are selsh pleasures. ey are troublesome
pleasures too; for we cannot escape from a world where
God has said, “ In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,
till thou return to the ground,” etc. Toil for self is irksome;
but suppose a man nds out at length that the busy seeking
of self is trouble and weariness, and having procured the
means of living without it, gives it up, what then? He just
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adopts another form of the same spirit of self, and turns to
selsh ease.
I am not now speaking of vice and gross sin (of course
every one will allow that to be opposite to the spirit of
Christ); but of the whole course of the world. Take the
world’s decent moral man, and is he an “ epistle of Christ
“? Is there in him a single motive like Christ’s? He may
do the same things; he may be a carpenter as Christ was
(Mark 6:3); but he has not one thought in common with
Christ. As to the outside, the world goes on with its religion
and its philanthropy; it does good, builds its hospitals,
feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, and the like; but its
inward springs of action are not Christ’s. Every motive that
governed Christ all the way along is not that which governs
men; and the motives which keep the world going are not
those which were found in Christ at all.
e indel owns Christ’s moral beauty, and selshness
can take pleasure in unselshness; but the Christian is to “
put on Christ.” He went about doing good all the day long;
there was not a moment but He was ready as the servant in
grace of the need of others. And do not let us suppose that
this cost Him nothing. He had not where to lay His head;
He hungered and was wearied; and when He sat down,
where was it? Under the scorching sun, at the well’s mouth,
whilst His disciples went into the city to buy bread. And
what then? He was as ready for the poor vile sinner who
came to Him, as if He had not hungered, neither was faint
and weary; John 4. He was never at ease. He was in all the
trials and troubles that man is in as the consequences of sin,
and see how He walked!’ He made bread for others; but He
would not touch a stone to turn it into bread for Himself. As
to the moral motives of the soul, the man of the world has
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no one principle in common with Christ. If then the world
is to read in a Christian the character of Christ, it is evident
the world cannot read it in him; he is not a Christian; he is
not in the road to heaven at all, and every step he takes only
conducts him farther and farther from the object in view.
When a man is in a wrong road, the farther he goes in it the
more he is astray.
ere is another terrible thing: we nd men agreeing to
take the commandments of God as their rule and guide, as
Christ took them. We take His directions, they say, all that
God says about what we ought to be, and what we ought to
do; we are not going our own way. Well, granted; but you
must take the law, such as it is, and with its consequences. If
man says, I accept the law to be judged by, I take this as my
guide, he makes himself the responsible party, that is, he has
to answer for himself. And mark how God began with the
law. What does the law say about him? It says he is “ cursed
“ already. is law that he is taking to get to heaven by is the
very thing thing that pronounces judgment against him: “
Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which
are written in the book of the law to do them,” Gal. 3:10.
Suppose I bring a right and true measure to a man who is
in the habit of using a wrong measure, what do I do it for?
Not to make him honest, but to prove his dishonesty. It is in
vain for him to say, I will change my character; the thing is
already done. e question is, has he a character? and he is
proved to be a dishonest man. Now the law was given “ that
the oense might abound,” Rom. 5:20. e right, perfect,
holy law of God was given as a rule; but if that rule be given
to a sinner who cannot keep it, and if it be applied with all
the searching power of the holiness of God, he is a judged
person, and brought in under its curse. He hopes perhaps to
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be better; he has some vague thoughts about the mercy of
God; but it is no use to talk about what he will be: judgment
is already pronounced against him.
But more than this, as a matter of fact the law tells man
not so much what he is to do, as what he is not to do. If we
look at the ten commandments we shall nd that they do
not tell him to do anything, except to honor his father and
his mother. at is the only positive precept. All the rest are,
“ ou shalt not “ do this, and thou shalt not do that. How
comes it then that such a form is employed? is of itself is
a sucient proof of evil tendencies in those addressed. Men
care not to make laws for a country to prohibit that which
nobody thinks of doing; and so God’s law forbids people to
do certain things because they have a tendency to do those
very things; it touches the motives and dispositions of men’s
hearts as they are known by God.
e law is given most surely as a rule; but it is given to
a sinner who already needs amendment. e rst thing it
does therefore is to prove sin, condemning the inward
disposition as well as the outward evil. Paul’s experience of
it (Rom. 7) is proof enough of this. He could say he was
pure so far as concerned outward compliance with its
requirements, “ touching the righteousness which is in the
law, blameless,” Phil. 3:6. “ Alive without the law once,” “
when the commandment came, sin revived,” and he died. “
I had not known sin,” he says, “ but by the law, for I had not
known lust, except the law had said, ou shalt not covet;
but sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in
me all manner of concupiscence; for without the law sin was
dead.” “ When the commandment came,” he found he was a
condemned sinner. e law, being the righteous demand of
God from man, and applying itself to those who are already
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sinners, must necessarily work condemnation and death. It
is “ the ministration of death “ (v. 7), and of “ condemnation
“ (v. 9).
But, again, there are not only wrong motives in man,
but a very strong independent will. Man likes to have his
own way. Now what is the eect of putting anything in the
way of a person who wants to go his own road? at he will
push it out of the way if he can. us the will of man, if the
man be resting on the law as such, and yet liking to have
his own way in a single thing, proves him to be a breaker of
all the commandments. e will of the man, being contrary
to God, if opposed, would push aside the whole law. is
is what is meant by “ whosoever shall keep the whole law,
and yet oend in one point, he is guilty of all,” etc. (James
2:10, 1; 1) e authority of God is attached to His law; and
therefore, if, when the authority of God meets the lusts of
man, he is guilty of the breach of that law in one thing, he
has overthrown the claim of the authority of God, and thus
broken the whole law. If he commit not adultery, yet if he
kill, he sets aside the authority of Him who made the law
that says, “ ou shalt not commit adultery “; for He that
said, “ Do not commit adultery,” said also, “ Do not kill.”
Suppose you had forbidden your child to do three things,
and he was not disposed to do two of the three, or lacked
the opportunity, would his not having done two of these
three things make you hold him guiltless? No; you would
say that he was not disposed to do them, or he would have
done them had he found the occasion. Having set aside
your authority in the one instance, your authority was not
his restraint.
How hard it is, you may be ready to say, that man when
a sinner should have a law given him to keep, which he
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cannot keep, and which therefore, after all, instead of
helping him, only works death and condemnation. ese
are man’s thoughts and not God’s. God never intended to
save man by the law: that was not His purpose in giving
it. He never meant to save any other way than by Christ.
Bounds were set about the mount (Ex. 19:12, 13)-it is a
barrier from God; and Moses required to have a veil put on
his face when he spoke to the people; Ex. 34:33-35.
People have taken the idea of heaven from the
Scriptures, and then they have taken their own way to it.
But they are trying to go to heaven by the very thing God
has given as the ministration of death and condemnation;
and they expect to get there by the very thing God says
pronounces them “ cursed.”
e rst principle of Christianity, whilst recognizing in
the most solemn manner man’s responsibility to answer for
himself, puts the Christian on other and entirely dierent
ground. is is the rst principle and basis of all Christian
truth, that there is a Mediator-a third person, between man
and God. Another has implicated Himself, and, because
man could not come to God, has taken up the cause of man,
and worked out an acceptance for him.
Two things (already noticed) are brought out here, as
the result of this. “ Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is
liberty,” the liberty of grace. And we become the “ epistles of
Christ “ (blotted ones, no doubt, in ourselves, but we are not
epistles of ourselves), transcripts of Christ “ written with the
Spirit of the living God.” is we “ are,” not merely we ought
to be. ough in ourselves most imperfect and failing, the
denition given by the Spirit of God of a Christian is that
he is a transcript of Christ.
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Now the natural thought of many a soul is this, ‘ Well, if
that be true, I do not know what to think of myself; I do not
see this transcript in myself! ‘ No, and you ought not to see
it. Moses did not see his own face shine. Moses saw God’s
face shine, and others saw Moses’ face shine. e glory of
the Lord, as seen in Moses’ face, alarmed the people. ey
could not bear that glory. But we see it now with “ open,”
unveiled “ face “ in Christ (v. 18), and yet are not in the least
afraid; we nd liberty, comfort, and joy in looking at it; we
gaze on it, and, instead of fearing, rejoice. How comes this
immense dierence? It is “ the ministration of the Spirit,” (v.
8), and “ of righteousness “ (v. 9).
It is Christ alive in the glory that I see; not Christ
down here (sweet as that was), but Christ at the right
hand of God. Yet though that glory is in the heavens, I can
steadfastly behold it. All that glory (and He is in the midst
of the glory and majesty of the throne of God itself) does
not aright me, because this wonderful truth comes in, that
that glory of God is in the face of a man who has put away
my sins, and who is there in proof of it; Heb. 1:3. I should
have been afraid to hear His voice, and have said with the
children of Israel (Ex. 20:19), “ Let not God speak with us
“; or, like Adam with a guilty conscience, have sought to
hide myself away; Gen. 3:8. But I do not say so now; no,
let me hear His voice. I cannot see the glory of Christ now
without knowing that I am saved. How comes He there?
He is a man who has been down here mixing with publicans
and sinners, the friend of such, choosing such as His
companions. He is a man who has borne the wrath of God
on account of sin; He is a man who has borne my sins in His
own body on the tree (I speak the language of faith); He is
there, as having been down here amidst the circumstances,
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and under the imputation of sin; and yet it is in His face
I see the glory of God. I see Him there consequent upon
the putting away of my sin, because He has accomplished
my redemption. I could not see Christ in the glory if there
was one spot or stain of sin not put away. e more I see of
the glory, the more I see the perfectness of the work that
Christ has wrought, and of the righteousness wherein I am
accepted. Every ray of that glory is seen in the face of One
who has confessed my sins as His own, and died for them
on the cross; of One who has gloried God in the earth, and
nished the work that the Father had given Him to do. e
glory that I see is the glory of redemption. Having gloried
God about the sin-” I have gloried thee on the earth; I have
nished the work which thou gavest me to do “-God has
gloried Him with Himself there; John 17.
When I see Him in that glory, instead of seeing my
sins, I see that they are gone. I have seen my sins laid on
the Mediator. I have seen my sins confessed on the head
of the scapegoat, and they have been borne away; Lev. 16.
So much has God been gloried about my sins (that is, in
respect of what Christ has done on account of my sins),
that this is the title of Christ to be there, at the right hand
of God. I am not afraid to look at Christ there. Where are
my sins now? where are they to be found in heaven or on
earth? I see Christ in the glory. Once they were found upon
the head of that blessed One; but they are gone, never more
to be found. Were it a dead Christ, so to speak, that I saw,
I might fear that my sins would be found again; but with
Christ alive in the glory the search is in vain. He who bore
them all has been received up to the throne of God, and no
sin can be there.
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As a practical consequence of this I am changed into
His likeness-” We all, with open face beholding, the glory
of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory
to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” It is the Holy
Ghost taking of the things of Christ, and revealing them to
the soul, that is the power of present practical conformity to
Christ. I delight in Christ, I feast upon Christ, I love Christ.
It is the very model and forming of my soul according to
Christ, by the Holy Ghost-this His revelation of Christ. I
not only get to love the glory, it is Christ Himself that I
love; Christ, that I admire; Christ, that I care for; Christ,
whose esh I eat, and whose blood I drink-what wonder if
I am like Christ? e Christian thus becomes the epistle of
Christ; he speaks for Christ, owns Christ, acts for Christ.
He does not want to be rich, he has riches in Christ-
unsearchable riches. He does not want the pleasures of the
world, he has pleasures at God’s right hand for evermore.
Does the heart still say, Oh, but I do not, and cannot
see this transcript in myself? No, but you see Christ; and
is not that better? It is not my looking at myself, but it is
my looking at Christ, that is God’s appointed means for my
growing in the likeness of Christ. If I would copy the work
of some great artist, is it by xing my eyes on the imitation,
and being taken up with regrets about my failing attempt,
that I shall be likely to succeed? No, but by looking at my
model, by xing my eyes there, tracing the various points
and getting into the spirit of the thing. Mark the comfort
of this! e Holy Ghost having revealed to my soul Christ
in the glory as the assurance of my acceptance, I can look
without fear, and therefore steadfastly, full at that glory,
and rejoice at the measure of its brightness. Stephen (Acts
7), full of the Holy Ghost, could look up steadfastly into
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heaven (doubtless in his case it was with more than ordinary
power), and see the glory of God, and Jesus standing on
the right hand of God, and His face shone as the face of an
angel. And look at his death. Just like his Master, he prays
for his very murderers. Stephen died saying, “ Lord, lay not
this sin to their charge “; Christ had died saying, “ Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do.” In him there
was the expression of Christ’s love for his enemies. By the
Holy Ghost he was changed, and that in a very blessed way
too, into the same image.
e soul at perfect liberty with God looks peacefully
and happily at the glory of God as seen in the face of
Jesus Christ; and because it sees that glory and knows its
expression, it walks before God in holy condence. Instead
of being happy and at liberty with Satan in Satan’s world,
the Christian dreads Satan because he knows himself. At
ease in the presence of God, he there drinks into the spirit
of that which bets the presence of God, and becomes the
“ epistle of Christ “ to the world, showing out to all that he
has been there.
Well, what a dierence! May we more and more make
our boast in Him, in whose face all this glory is displayed-
the Lamb, who has died for us, and cleansed away our sins
by His own most precious blood.
e Lord give us hearts freed by Himself, whilst still in
the midst of this poor world that is walking in a vain show.
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62525
Moses Veiled, and the Glory
of God in the Face of Jesus
Christ
2 Cor. 3; 4:6
THE apostle has been led to speak of himself (as
he says, afterward, chapter 12, “ I am become a fool in
glorying; ye have compelled me,” etc.) by reason of special
circumstances at the time at Corinth. He had been forced
to speak of himself, in order to maintain the truth of the
gospel he had preached, and to make good (not for his
own sake, but for theirs to whom he wrote) the authority
of his apostleship. He says, at the close of the epistle, “
Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, which to
you-ward is not weak, but is mighty in you … examine
yourselves,
53
whether ye be in the faith; prove your own
selves,” etc. (chap. 13: 3-7). So here, “ Do we begin again
to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles
of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from
you? Ye are our epistle, written in our hearts, -known and
read of all men: forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to
be the epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with
ink,” etc. emselves were a proof of his service. ere was
the epistle that recommended his ministry, and to which
his heart turned. It evidently led at once to the truth of the
gospel which he preached.
53 By the certainty of their own Christianity, which they did not
doubt, they were to be assured of his apostleship.
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415
In doing this he contrasts the church of God with the
tables of the law, and puts the church of God in the place
of (as answering to, in that sense) the tables of the law,
presenting Christ to the world; just as, in the letter written
and engraven on stone, there had been a presentation
to Israel of God’s mind in what He required from man.
(See verses 3-1 1.) He predicates of the latter, that it was
the ministration of death and condemnation; thereupon,
speaking of the value and importance of the gospel, and, as a
necessary consequence, of the plainness and clearness with
which it had been set forth.
It is plain, that the whole question, the great thing to be
done-if ever there is to be the knowledge of peace, salvation,
and eternal life in the soul-is to have the soul brought into
connection with God Himself. If to know Him is life, to
be near Him, to have the consciousness of His favor and
lovingkindness, is better than life; it is quite evident, that
the whole work to be done is to bring the soul really, livingly,
into connection with God Himself, into the conscious
presence of God.
After all, what the believer nds practically dicult is to
abide there. Abiding there, we cannot be in the unnatural
state (unnatural, that is, in the highest sense of the word)
of questioning whether or not God is our Father-whether
we belong to God. Is it the natural state for His creatures
to be in rebellion against Him? Alas! it is our natural state,
as fallen: still, speaking in the highest sense, it is a most
unnatural state. And it is surely most unnatural for us to be
questioning our Father’s love to us, if His children. Our only
natural state, as recipients of grace, is conscious nearness to
God. What is the natural state for a child to be in? Not that
of calling in question whether its parents are its parents, but
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one of undivided, conscious, unsuspecting certainty that
they are; one of freedom from all suspicion of their love.
Well, what would be the natural state of things as it regards
the creatures of God? An unsuspecting state of conscious
happiness with Him from whom all blessing ows.
It is evident, if God be love, to be uncertain of His favor
is not to know Him. If I suspect a person, it is because I do
not know him, or, knowing, have cause to mistrust him
(it may be so with man, we may reasonably suspect man).
e great thing we have to see in the word of God is: Is
there such a plain, clear, distinct, blessed revelation of what
God is, that He may be known such as He is? en we
shall conde in Him; or, if He be not known, it is a proof of
thorough blindness. Is there such a full revelation of God-
of what He is in Himself and of His actings in love, of what
He is and of what He has done-as to put those who believe
the revelation into conscious favor with God? If there is
the hope of this mercy, and the desire for it in the heart,
uncertainty will be misery; but if the revelation be clear, if
light be light, darkness is darkness; uncertainty as to what
God is (in the revelation) is blindness in us. Many things
may come in to disturb and trouble, as sin, the power of
Satan, etc.; but there can be no question about favor with
God.
e apostle declares it is the character of that which he
speaks of here to produce “ liberty.” e law, whatever it was,
did not that. Nothing but grace, nothing but the perfect
revelation of what God is, could do that. Anything out of
God is imperfect; but, if God is love, His actings are perfect
love, the expression and reection of what He is. e law
was not that (the apostle has spoken of the law); so far as it
went it was a revelation of God, but its character was that
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417
of requisition, from the unchanged heart, of what the heart
had not; and, therefore, “ the letter (he says) killeth.” It was
the ministration of death and condemnation.
But this is not all. Even though a great deal of grace
accompanied the law, so long as the law was such as it
was, it was necessarily obscure in its revelation of God;
the blending of the two, the exhibition of the goodness of
God with the presence of the claims of the law (that is, with
the question of what man was), could only lead to misery,
wretchedness, and darkness of soul. So long as the question
remained, ‘ What are you for God? are you what you ought
to be? ‘ so long as it was not a revelation of unmingled
grace-of that which did not, and would not, and could not,
mingle itself with anything else, it could only condemn.
e revelation of God’s demands on man must condemn.
No matter how much grace mingles itself with it-nay, the
more the kindness and goodness of God-the greater the
obligation of man to answer to it, and the greater the sense
of the sin of man in not meeting the character of God thus
revealed. If it is it not all grace, you must be condemned; if
it is anything but pure simple grace, you must take up the
question of what man is, that God is dealing with; and then
it is all over with you, for God cannot depart from what He
ought to be, as holy.
Man has failed in everything. But that disarms not grace.
It is the occasion of grace, not the source but the occasion of
grace. Now, God says, I must act for myself, I must manifest
what I am. Grace has this character; it is not simply love (it
is perfectly love, but it is not simply love); it is love acting
where evil already is, and towards that which is evil. ere is
perfect love between the Father and the Son, but that is not
grace. God loves the angels, but you cannot call that grace.
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Grace is the exercise of this same perfect holy love towards
that which is totally unworthy of it. It is this new wonder
come out-love acting when the occasion for it was in the
faults and sins of those towards whom it acts. is evidently
sets aside the question of what the sinner is (save indeed as
the need for, and enhancing, the grace); but grace does not
set aside the holiness of the law, it exalts the law.
e revelation of grace in a measure (that is, unless it be
in the fullness and perfectness of its own glory-God’s love
to the sinner in Christ) only enhances the sin of man, and
makes his responsibility and condemnation the greater.
And this is not mere abstract reasoning: God has brought it
all out in His dealings. When Moses put a veil over his face,
as referred to by the apostle here, it was not when it was pure
law.
When Moses came down from the mount the rst
time and broke the tables (Ex. 32), there was no veil. at
was all on the supposition of there being the possibility of
relationship between the people and God on the ground
of law. He had nothing to do but to break the tables, since
all relationship on that ground was gone. He could not
give them to Israel (they had made the golden calf); so he
broke them. He goes up again (v. 30), saying, “ Peradventure
I shall make an atonement for your sin,” and says to the
Lord, “ Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have
made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their
sin-and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book, which
thou hast written.” To this the Lord answers, “ Whosoever
hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book,”
etc. en (chap. 33: 12-23), we nd Moses, emboldened
by his knowledge of the exceeding lovingkindness of God,
interceding again. He beseeches God to show him His
Moses Veiled, and the Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ
419
glory; and God (in answer to Moses’ prayer), says, “ I will
make all my goodness pass before thee,” etc. is is not
merely law. Moses hidden in a cleft of the rock (chap. 34),
the Lord passes by before him, and proclaims, “ e Lord,
the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suering,
and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for
thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and
that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity
of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s
children unto the third and fourth generation.” In a certain
sense, that was grace; not the sovereign grace of God which
we know in Christ, but His “ goodness.” It is well to observe,
in passing (this being often quoted, as a general statement
of what God is), that it is not a revelation of what God is in
grace, as now presented to sinners. ere are certain things
in it, in which there is a partial revelation of grace; but it is
not a statement of the mode in which God now deals with
sinners; nor a general revelation of God’s character, but of
the terms on which He governed Israel. He had not taken
them from under law; after that He gives the law again.
When Moses goes up, saying, “ Peradventure I shall make
an atonement for you,” No, says the Lord, “ whosoever hath
sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book “; that is, I
will make every one that sinneth responsible for his own sin.
What is the consequence of that? It is quite true that
Moses’ face reects the glory of the Lord, which it did not
the rst time. When Moses had been up in the mount forty
days and forty nights, his face did not shine; but when he
had been hidden in the rock, and the goodness of Jehovah
had passed before him, he comes down with his face
shining. e law never made a man’s face shine. Yet, with all
this reection of the goodness of God-of His glory, if you
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420
please, but of His goodness (“ I will make all my goodness,”
etc.), the law is given again. Two more tables of stone are
hewn (chap. 34:1), and God says, “ Make thee an ark of
wood, and I will write on the tables the words that were
in the rst tables which thou brakest, and thou shalt put
them in the ark,” Deut. 10:1-5. It was broken the rst time:
how could he go and put the tables of the law by the golden
calf-the ten commandments in the camp along with the sin
which had already violated the law, the very rst word of
which was, “ I am Jehovah thy God, which brought thee out
of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; thou shalt
have no other gods before me “?
e law set up again, Moses comes down from the
mount with his face shining (himself unconscious of all this
shining), and the people, when they see it, afraid to come
nigh, are obliged to ask him to put a veil over his face. e
sight of the glory brought a sense of condemnation, and
they prayed that it might be taken from them. is it is that
the apostle refers to (v. 7, 13).
When there was a mixture of grace and law, an
exhibition of the goodness of God along with the presence
of the claims of the law (the law put in the ark, its holiness
still insisted on), the consequence was, that Moses must
hide the glory: they could not bear to look upon his face. It
was only condemnation and death to them. And it is always
so, when there is a question of seeking fruit from man. If the
Son Himself comes and looks for fruit, the end of that will
be, He will send His armies and destroy the husbandmen;
Matt. 21; 22 A mixture of law and grace ends in greater
disaster than law; man is more guilty than if there had been
no goodness at all.
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421
at is the thing that was, says the apostle, and it was
the ministration of death, and of condemnation. When the
veil was put upon Moses’ face, it was not pure law, but grace
and law; and it ended in the rejection of Israel. “ eir minds
were blinded, for until this day remaineth the same veil
untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which
veil is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when
Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless
when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.”
It is related in the history, that, when Moses went into the
holy place, he took the veil o; when he came out unto the
people, he put the veil on; Ex. 34:34, 35. So in the end with
Israel. “ Behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that I will
make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the
house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I made
with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand
to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant
they brake,” etc. (Jer. 31:31-34). In the end the veil shall be
taken away.
Not only, as it regards the law, is there conviction of
sin through it, and thus not any possibility of relationship
between man and God on the ground of it, where it is
simply law, but there is an impossibility of man’s being in
connection with God as the source of happiness, save on
the ground of pure grace that sets aside altogether what the
sinner is. ere is often more diculty in seeing this. Unless
it be pure simple grace, the only other idea we can have is
that God requires something; and if God requires anything,
the more the grace and the goodness shown, the more guilty
and failing are we, and the greater our condemnation; it
only increases responsibility. If it is a mixture of law with
goodness, man cannot bear to look at it.
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But then we come to another thing. What we nd here
is not law, though the holiness of the law is maintained and
secured. e veil is taken o. ere is no veil at all: “ We all
with open face, beholding the glory of the Lord,” etc. And
what is the consequence? Boldness, where there is faith. “
Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
“ Seeing then that we have such hope,” says the apostle,
“ we use great plainness of speech, and not as Moses, which
put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not
steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished,” etc.;
and again, “ erefore, seeing we have this ministry, as we
have received mercy, we faint not; but have renounced the
hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor
handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation
of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s
conscience in the sight of God.” ere is no hiding, no
concealment: God comes out such as He is in His holiness,
majesty, and glory, and, blessed be His name 1 in His love
too. “ But,” he adds, “ if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them
that are lost,” etc.
is is the declaration of the apostle. ere is no
veil whatever now upon the revelation of God, and the
consequence is, if it is not seen, it is the condemnation of
those who see it not. All the glory of God-what He is, and
in His ways and actings-is now perfectly revealed; and, if
this does not reach the conscience and aections, and put
in unsuspecting relationship with God, the man is lost.
Because, if God is thus perfectly revealed, he can have
no connection with God. Nothing but the revelation of
God could put man into connection with God. In Moses
it was hidden, darkened; but now there is nothing more
to reveal, for there is no veil, no hiding of God, and the
Moses Veiled, and the Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ
423
man is lost. Nothing else can be done. So Hebrews to:
26, “ ere remaineth no more sacrice for sins “: a man
rejecting that must be lost. He may reason against it, seek
to disprove it, prove that there is no glory: well, what has he
done? Proved this to his own satisfaction, and rejected the
counsel of God against himself. ere is not another gospel.
e whole thing is out now. Nothing else can bring back
man into relationship with God. ere cannot be another
gospel, if all that God is has been perfectly revealed. is
is a most solemn but a most blessed thought. We are set
in connection with a God fully known. ere is not any
uncertainty. ere is not anything can come out now, as to
what God is, or as to His ways and actings, that has not been
made known; all is perfectly manifested in the revelation
of Himself in Christ Jesus. What is the consequence of
this full revelation of God? To put in a known and settled
relationship with God.
When God revealed Himself to Israel, it was a question
of terms of relationship between Himself and a people
already in relationship, already formed, and recognized as
such. Whenever this (as with nominal Christians, where it
is not a matter of conversion of heart) is assumed to be the
case, we always nd persons putting themselves on a ground
partly of law and partly of grace-a mixture of goodness
and responsibility, and not on that of what God is. He had
brought up Israel out of Egypt and to Himself (Ex. 19), and
having shown His mighty power and goodness, He puts
them under law, as the terms of relationship with a people
then before Him there; as a people surrounding the Mount
to hear these terms of relationship.
But the gospel goes upon other ground. It sees man dead
in trespasses and sins-Jew and Gentile alike. “ ere is no
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424
dierence, for all have sinned, and come short of the glory
of God,” Rom. 3:23. If the nature of man is looked at, there
is no dierence; in the esh good does not dwell. And so
says Paul, “ Among whom we all had our conversation in
times past in the lusts of our esh, fullling the desires of
the esh and of the mind; and were by nature the children
of wrath, even as other,” Eph. 2:3. e gospel treats all
men on the common ground of not being in relationship
with God. e Gentiles were in “ ignorance “ (Acts 17),
not as Israel in relationship with God; and “ the times of
this ignorance God winked at.” God was not dealing with
the Gentile world then. “ But now [He] commandeth 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,” etc. Now God is
publicly revealed, and therefore, if He is publicly revealed,
the consequence is that “ the wrath of God is revealed from
heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men
who hold the truth in unrighteousness,” Rom. 1:18. is
manifestation of God brings out into full light all the evil,
darkness, enmity, and wickedness of man (the light brings
out into view the darkness); all his selshness, carnality,
pride, evil lusts, desire of gain, and the like, are brought fully
out in their opposition to God. It is the full revelation of
God which levels man, because it brings all men, Jew and
Gentile alike, into one sweeping condemnation of having
come short of the glory of God, and places them on a
common ground of being “ alienated from the life of God,
through the ignorance that is in them,” etc. As regards
standing with God, there is a perfectly common ground.
at is where man stands now; and upon this ground God
takes man up. ere is the occasion of grace. It is the fullness
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425
of the revelation of God in the face of Jesus Christ (the very
thing that has manifested man’s full alienation from God
and opposition of heart against Him), that introduces into
full condence in God.
ere is not one tittle of requirement now, no seeking of
fruit from man. Of course there is fruit produced in those
who have received grace. “ A sower went forth to sow,” etc.
(Matt. 13). is is a very dierent thing from requiring
fruit. People confound requiring fruit from man with the
blessed truth that there are fruits of the Spirit; but the fruits
of the Spirit are not the fruits of the man. If I go to a bad
tree, expecting fruit, I cast away all the fruit as bad fruit; but
if I graft it, that is quite a dierent thing. Many a person
fancies that, in mixing law and holiness together with
grace, he is going to maintain holiness. No! he maintains
unholiness, because he lets not in that full revelation of God
which shows out man in all his unlikeness to God. We must
not suppose that grace is an allowance of sin; we cannot
separate the holiness of God from His grace.
God does not come and tell us that He expects
something from man; He tells that which will trouble us
a great deal more-that man has failed in meeting His
requirements. “ I will take away the hedge of my vineyard,
and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof,
and it shall be trodden down; and I will lay it waste” (Isa.
5). He had planted a hedge, and He required fruit. He was
well entitled to require fruit: “ What could have been done
more to my vineyard that I have not done in it? “ But when
He looked for grapes, it brought forth wild grapes. He has
tried requiring fruit, but man has not produced it; He has
found too much bad fruit to require it again. Do not then
pretend to maintain the claims of God; if you do, you must
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426
satisfy them. Leave God to vindicate His righteousness in
that day; and if you talk about holiness and righteousness,
produce them. It is all too late to stand on that ground; if
God require anything, we are lost forever.
at being the case, we come to see how it is the
apostle could “ use great plainness of speech.” “ We preach,
not ourselves,” he says, “ but Christ Jesus the Lord, and
ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God who
commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined
in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
It is a very blessed as well as a most solemn thought, that
we have to do with a God fully revealed, as also who knows
all the secrets of our hearts. Are our souls at peace with
God? Are we in the full, unsuspecting, blessed condence
of the favor of God, that ows from God thus known in
perfect grace? ere should not be a suspecting thought.
at is the true state of a Christian; he may have to blame
himself as to many a thing, but he has never a doubt in his
soul of the divine and blessed favor of God towards him. It
is perfect grace. When Jesus was on earth He could not let
out the fullness of it-” I have a baptism to be baptized with;
and how I am straitened till it be accomplished! “ Death had
not come in; atonement had not been wrought. He could
not go and present to God that which let open the ood-
gates that the love of God might ow out in all its fullness.
e death of Christ did not procure it; but the death of
Christ must be there, as the only means by which it could
ow out.
at is where we see the unclouded fullness of God’s
love. “ If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost.”
ere is nothing to be learned about God but what is
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427
revealed and fully told out. He who has borne all the sin is
in the presence of God. e question of sin has been settled;
it has been gone through with God. Christ being in the
presence of God, it is there we see the unveiled glory. It is
there Paul saw Him. ere we see Him. “ Being justied
by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ; by whom also we
have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand,”
Rom. 5.
We are standing in grace, a present grace. It is not merely
that Christ has done something that has put away our past
sins; we are to “ reckon ourselves dead unto sin, but alive
unto God through Jesus Christ,” Rom. 6. “ Christ, being
raised from the dead, dieth no more; death hath no more
dominion over him. For, in that he died, he died unto sin
once; but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.” I have a
right to say, I am dead, and alive unto God.
e place where I see the glory is not Moses’ face-not
in one who says, “ I will go up unto the Lord, peradventure
I shall make an atonement for your sin “ with God, who
says, No, every man shall bear his own sin-” whosoever hath
sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.” at is
not the case now. e glory of God is in the face of Jesus
Christ, who does not say “ Peradventure,” etc., but who
makes the atonement before He goes up; and the glory seen
in the face of Jesus Christ is proof that the atonement has
been accepted. I am at home in the presence of the glory,
happy there. at which condemned me before is now
peace. Beholding it, I am changed into the same image.
Every ray of it is joy and peace to my soul, an evidence that
there is no question of sin now. It is “ the gospel of the glory
of Christ.” His was not a mere visit to man in his sorrows
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428
and sins to put him to the test. He did come seeking for
fruit; but besides that, He did much more; and now, as the
apostle says, light shines. “ God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of
Jesus Christ.” Again, “ 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.” It is there the glory of God is seen, it is in
Christ-” the face of Jesus Christ.” It is the declaration of the
full revelation of all that God is in His holiness, and glory,
and love, consequent upon the atonement made by Christ,
and the glorication of Christ. us all questioning is
ended. When we see it, we can look steadily and peacefully
at it, and we are transformed into the same image. ere is
no darkness there at all (1 John 1:5); and, beloved, if there
is no darkness at all, all sin is condemned. “ God is light
“: yes, but He is “ love,” and I see it in the putting away of
my sins. God was alone with Christ when the work was
going on. He has hid me in the cleft of the rock; and He
has taken o His hand, and I can trace, in the work that has
been done, the perfectness of the love that has left no sin to
be atoned for. God gives the privilege of not intruding the
remembrance even of sin to dele the place of His holiness.
But again, it is most important that all sin should
be confessed as regards our walk down here, we have
constantly to acknowledge our short-comings; but then we
have Jesus above (not to procure righteousness-that is done,
but) to maintain our intercourse and communion with
God in the light, whilst we are in our weakness. Nothing
else would do, because we are in the light. God is light; and
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429
whatever cannot stand in the presence of the glory of God,
whatever is not according to that light, is sin. ‘ All have
sinned, and come short of the glory of God “; but my sins
have not hindered my seeing the glory of God; nay, rather,
they are the occasion of the full manifestation of His glory.
Can you stand there? No! perhaps you answer, it is
presumption to think of it! If so, your gospel does not save
you. He that trusts in Christ can stand therein. It is the
fullness of divine favor, present grace, wherein we stand.
Are our souls standing there in the presence of God? or are
we mingling holiness and grace? ere is no mingling with
God; but perfect holiness and perfect love.
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430
62514
Man’s Responsibility and
God’s Promises
Gal. 3
THERE are two great points in this chapter:-
First, the eect of the law, when any one is under it;
Second, the contrast between law and promise, and
whether it be by law, or by promise, that the blessing of the
inheritance is ours.
In the early part of the chapter (I do not speak now
of the rst two or three verses), we are told that the eect
of being under the law is to be “ under the curse “; in the
latter part, we nd the blessings of the inheritance ours,
not by law, but by promise: “ If ye be Christ’s, then are ye
Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” us
are the counsels of God brought out, and that in a manner
that applies itself to the constant tendency of the human
heart and its actings, which ever go to exalt man, and to
debase God.
It is singular the way in which the human heart is
continually reasoning within itself, as if there was no
distinct revelation from God of His mind-searching
and inquiring in order that it may conclude something
about itself and God. Now it is quite true that the power
of grace must work, in order that this revelation should be
understood, but it is not merely in the unconverted man
there is this reasoning. Alas! he often reasons not at all
about it, but goes on in his own way, careless, reckless, and
unconcerned. In the heart of the saints there is constant
Man’s Responsibility and God’s Promises
431
reasoning with regard to their standing before God. And,
in all such cases, it is quite plain that faith is not in exercise.
Whenever I begin to reason on the state of my own soul,
faith is not in exercise. I do not say that the person is not
a believer, but I say, faith is not in exercise. is is quite
evident. Faith receives the testimony of God, and does
not reason about it. ere the diculty lies. It is not that
revelation is not plain, but that the heart of man is not
subdued.
It is not a proof that faith is in exercise when I do not
judge myself, because, when I judge myself, I judge myself
before the Lord, in order to have removed whatever may be
found within me that is wrong in His sight. Grace enables
me to do this. But whenever there is any reasoning from
myself as to my condition, faith is not in exercise. It is true
this reasoning may follow upon belief in testimony (be, in
that sense, a consequence of faith), but it is not faith. at is,
I may believe there is a judgment to come, and that Christ
can be my only Savior (seeing there is not salvation in
another, for “ there is none other name under heaven given
among men whereby we must be saved “), and I may set
about reasoning as to what will be my portion, whether I
can say that Christ is my Savior; but that is not, in itself, any
right exercise of faith.
We shall nd the testimony of the word of God to be
most simple. Yet, wherever the natural conscience is
awakened, there is a certain sense of responsibility to
God (indeed that is, in a sense, the awakening of it)-the
knowledge that God takes notice of all that is going on,
of what we do, and the like, and that there is a judgment
to come. ‘erefore the moment a man’s conscience is so
awakened (the grace of God not being known), he begins to
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inquire whether his conduct is such as God can approve and
accept; and thence he draws some inference as to his own
future happiness or misery. is is the natural state of man-
of every man that thinks about the matter. But it is, alas!
the real condition too of multitudes of believers in Christ,
and of those even who have once known redemption largely.
ere is a constant tendency in the heart to turn again to
self-to a condition in which man stands responsible to God.
It is always the case when the soul has got out of the power
of the testimony of the Spirit of God as to the completeness
of redemption; as also when we have not come to a distinct
knowledge of the hopelessness of our condition before
God as men. I say to a distinct knowledge; that is, when
the soul has not estimated truthfully the hopelessness of its
case, that in the esh good does not dwell and become fully
satised that everything-all the practical righteousness,
holiness, or graciousness of the saint-is consequent upon
the introduction of that new thing created in us by the
power of God because of the risen Jesus.
We get in these Galatians an example of this, where
the soul, after having had the knowledge of grace in Jesus
Christ “ evidently set forth crucied among them,” went
back. ey had “ begun in the Spirit,” and they now thought
“ in the esh “ to add to what Christ had done. at is,
that they could, by that which is in man, and of man-the
old man too-add to that which is of the new man, Christ.
And that, I repeat, beloved, is the constant tendency of the
heart. Wherever there is not the distinct knowledge of the
hopelessness of man’s condition before God, we go back to
get from man something which may be added to what God
has given us in the Lord Jesus Christ. John says, “ is is the
record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life
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433
is in his Son.” Now if we do not know that the esh cannot
in any way come in and take a share or part in it, we are
constantly adding and connecting something of the esh.
God began by giving “ promise.” And here there was
nothing at all of man. But, because (as we shall see more
especially in the latter part of the chapter, where the apostle
speaks about promise from God-promise coming from
Him when there was nothing in man to call it out, except,
indeed, the ruin and need of man), when He had given
the promise, before He had completed that which He had
promised- redemption, before the revelation of Christ, He
knew the constant tendency of the human heart to seek
to satisfy its own feeling of responsibility, God gave the
full extent of His demand upon it, with the consequence
of failure. Because, I say, He knew what was in the heart
of man, its tendency from the rst-natural tendency (that
is, until redemption and grace are fully known) to judge
about itself by itself as to its future state; and also the pride
of man, which supposes something in man which can be
brought to God, or something from man which can be done
for God-before He did anything for the accomplishment
of His promise, He brought in the law, thus trying man in
responsibility to the utmost.
It is quite right, most assuredly, to be what God has
required in His revealed will. God has required and
demanded a certain amount of good in me, and I have the
plain revelation of God about it. erefore I cannot act as
if there were no revelation. It is one of the sins of the heart
of man, that of “ intruding into those things which he hath
not seen, vainly pued up by his eshly mind,” thinking he
can approach God by some means of his own devising. God
requires something that is not merely the work of man’s
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hands, something real in the soul, something which has to
do with man’s relationship to Himself, and to his fellow-
creature. ere is this in the law-the direct requirement of
God from man, of what man ought to be towards God and
before Him. at is one way to take up the law. And, further,
there is the prohibition of what sin had brought in.
ere are these two things: rst, what God requires
positively of man, expressed in the summary given by our
Lord” ou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. is is the rst
and great commandment. And the second is like unto it,
ou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself “; and then, as the
other part, the prohibition of what man was indulging
in. e law presented the requirements of God, that is,
supposing man was right practically before God; and took
cognizance of what man was not, and prohibited it. And
that is all the law did; except, indeed, to pronounce the
curse, if there was failure in the things required.
Now as soon as this is tried-the moment we get here,
and see the law in this light-we nd man at once brought in
completely hopeless and helpless. And for this very reason,
that he has done the things God forbids. He is “ ungodly,”
but not only so; he is, moreover, “ without strength.” is is
his condition naturally; and the moment there is real desire,
and the endeavor, to serve God according to the law, it is
found out. Supposing he desires (which I assume and grace
produces it) to serve God, and not to do anything forbidden
in the law, he discovers the very principle of his nature to
be all wrong. ere is a law in his members, warring against
the law of his mind, and bringing him into captivity to the
law of sin, which is in his members, which has selshness
for its basis, and corruption for its object. It is in himself.
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Hence the reason that we so often nd persons crying out,
“ 0 wretched man that I am! “ Moreover, when he comes to
see what is in himself, it is that which brings him down into
despair. It is not his past sins-he could easily suppose God
might forgive them, nay, perhaps, that they are forgiven, put
away, when he was rst converted. e trial is not there. But
when he feels the principle of those sins to be in himself-
the principle that produced them there still and working in
him, now that he lives and “ delights in the law of God after
the inner man “-it is this which casts him down. And cast
down he remains until he apprehends the ministry of grace.
Now, beloved friends, you see God has given law for the
prohibition of evil. And, taking it in that point of view, He
gave it to man already in sin. It came in after two things,
evil and the promise. It was a thing “ added because of
transgressions, until the seed should come to whom the
promise was made “ (v. 19), neither the original condition
of man, nor the purpose of God about man. It “ came in,” it
is said (though its elements, no doubt, are everlasting and
eternal truth), “ by the bye,” added because of transgressions.
“ e law entered, that the oense might abound,” Rom.
5:20. Hence we are taught, that its object was to make plain
and evident-to discover that perverseness of the will of
man, which would never otherwise have been discovered-
the inclination, where there is the knowledge of good,
and the desire after good, to do evil; and, therefore, the
hopelessness of man’s case before God. Man is concluded
under sin (v. 22). at is the eect of the law. It was quite
clear that man delighted in sin. Natural conscience suced
to show there was sin and guilt. But then the law came in
and was added to these, “ that every mouth may be stopped,
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436
and all the world may become guilty before God,” Rom.
3:19.
What is said here? “ As many as are of the works of
the law are under the curse,” v. 10. Mark the force of that
expression. It is not, as many as are living in sin, neither yet,
merely, as many as as have broken the law (though that is
the reason of it); but “ as many as are of the works of the
law.” How universal the statement! It is quite true that
man is under “ the curse of the law,” because he has been
the breaker of the law; but it is all who are of the works of
the law who are under that curse. e law was not given to
prohibit lust, until man was a willful creature-a being in
whom lust was found-until after sin had entered. I am not
now speaking of the law respecting Adam’s not eating the
fruit, but of the law given by Moses (v. 19). Coming in at
that time, it pronounced the curse upon every one “ that
continueth not in all things that are written in the book of
the law, to do them.” It took this ground.
And even the very notice in the scripture before us
is remarkable. e apostle says, “ for it is written “ (v. 10),
that is quoting Deuteronomy, where we nd (chap. 27) that
six tribes were to stand upon mount Gerizin, to bless the
people; and six upon mount Ebal, to curse. But where the
details are entered into, there are no tribes mentioned for
blessing-the blessing is not heard at all; it is only the curse.
Again, “ the law entered that the oense might abound
“ (not that sin might abound: God could not do anything
that sin might abound), that is, that the sin already in
man’s nature might become positively and denitely
“ transgression.” e law did not produce sin, but only
manifested it. Let us ‘look at what the apostle says in Rom.
7, “ What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay,
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437
I had not known sin, but by the law; for I had not known
lust, except the law had said, ou shalt not covet. But
sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in
me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin
was dead. For I was alive without the law once; but when
the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the
commandment, which was ordained unto life, I found to be
unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment,
deceived me, and by it slew me. Wherefore the law is holy,
and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was then
that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But
sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that
which is good.” Again, we read in another place (I merely
quote it now as regards its application to this part of the
subject), “ e sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin
is the law,” 1 Cor. 15:56. Directly the law bent down on the
conscience, it proved man to be altogether wrong. Every
thought that man had was detected, and the will refusing
to submit, its acts became transgression, so that sin by the
commandment became “ exceeding sinful.” It produced
moreover a great deal more lust in the heart than there was
before.
We all know this to be the case. ere is a familiar
illustration of it constantly seen in our own houses. Request
your children not to do a certain thing: let it be only not to
look into a box (no matter what), and you nd that they all
long to look into it. So it is with grown-up persons, they
will perversely wish for the forbidden thing, and, what is
more, though they may be ashamed of it-ashamed of the
expression of it before men-the inclination is so great, that,
if they could but do it and not be seen, they would not be
satised until they had. Just so with the law.
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And now, beloved friends, if that is what the law is, if
all who are “ of the works of the law are under the curse “-is
that the law for me, to have any righteousness through, in
the sight of God? Never; because the law acts on a nature
which is already evil, and therefore it can do nothing but
lead to the righteous judgment of God against all that is
brought out in and from that nature.
What more could God do? (it is not the subject of this
chapter, but I would just advert to it)-what more than give
right directions, a revelation of what He required from
man? ere is another thing that He has done. He sent light
into the world. is is something added, as it were, to the
requirements of the law. e law cursed, but here (in Christ)
was life showing light to all around, and that man hated,
because it proved his deeds to be evil. It was the adaptation
of light to every possible state in which man’s nature could
move. I am not speaking of communicating life; but take
man in any condition, and he is without excuse.
Well, beloved, this is the eect of the law as revealed
from God. It took up fallen man with the knowledge of
good and evil, and did not touch the power he had to meet
its requirements, and therefore, necessarily, it brought the
curse. e apostle reasons, “ If there had been a law given
which could have given life, verily righteousness should
have been by the law. But the scripture hath concluded
all under sin,” v. 21, 22. Mark that word “ all “: it leaves out
none. It might be said, If you go and take a man without the
ordinances of God, and put him under the law, the eect is
known: but there are helps and ordinances; put a man with
them under the law, and he can get life. at was precisely
Israel’s case. It pleased God, in Israel, to test whether man
could get the promises, if under the law with ordinances.
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It has been proved to the contrary. God says (Ex. 19), “ Ye
have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare
you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself.” It was
not until He had ransomed them out of Egypt, and brought
them into the wilderness as His “ people,” that He gave
them the law-not until He had brought them unto Himself.
en He says by Moses the mediator, “ Now, therefore, if ye
will obey my voice indeed,” etc. (v. 5). And Moses returned
the words of the people unto the Lord, “ All that the Lord
hath spoken we will do.” e law was given on this ground.
en commenced the trial. And what was the consequence?
Failure.
“ e scripture hath concluded all under sin.” And
that is what the gospel more fully brought out. e gospel
supposes it. Man, no matter what you call him-a heathen,
a Jew, or a Christian, with every ordinance you please-is
man, and the Lord deals to man the “ curse.” Man should be
what man is not. And therefore that is what the law of God
must do, and did. If God gives a law, can He give that law
to suit sinners, or Himself? Is God to come down to give
the requirements such as would suit the sinner as a sinner?-
and, if so, what sinner?-where would you draw the line?-to
a heathen, who is corrupt in all his thoughts?-to a Jew, who
looks merely to outward things? where can I nd a man to
whom I might adapt the law, if it is not to be what God
requires? If God gives a law to sinners, He must give the
full demand of His holiness. at is what the conscience
of man recognizes as tting. ere can be no intercourse
between God and the sinner on the ground of what God
requires, without His either sanctioning or condemning
sin. Sanction it He cannot; therefore, and necessarily,
all He has to do is to condemn. Law can never go beyond
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440
that. No matter what man is called, God deals with man
as he really is. And now, what does the apostle put here in
the stead of law? “ Promise.” ere he rests the hope of the
soul. “ Promise “ was long before the law. All hangs upon
the faithfulness of God. is is the reasoning. A mediator
supposed two parties, God and man, and therefore failure,
as it depends on the stability of both. Not so promise, as it
depended on the stability of God only: “ God is one.”
If I make you an unconditional promise, a simple
promise, to-day, I have no right to say to you on the morrow,
Oh you did not do so and so, and therefore the promise is
nullied. Certainly not. No! you would reply, you promised
me the thing unconditionally, not if I behaved well or ill;
and therefore it is mine. ese “ promises “ were made after
sin came in, but before the giving of the law. Sin came in
before ever “ promise “ was heard of. When Adam had
failed in the garden, before anything was said to Adam of
the foulest sin in his mind, after he had said, “ the woman
whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree,
and I did eat “ (he had not only committed sin in disobeying
God’s command, but he had dared to reproach God); before
anything was said of that, as soon as the evil was traced up
to its source, God, in pronouncing sentence on the serpent
as the author of it, gave “ promise.” But He did not give “
promise “ to Adam in sin-to man in that condition (now
the law was given to man in that condition), but in the last
Adam. Before there was the slightest dealing on the ground
of responsibility, “promise” was made in Christ, as the
Second Man, the “ Seed of the woman.” Not a word of it was
spoken to Adam personally, yet it was that on which his soul
might rest, on which faith could lay hold.
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Well, before the Second Man came, before He
was revealed, the law was given to show the eect and
consequence of man’s being under responsibility. “ e law
was added [came in by the bye] because of transgressions,
till the seed should come to whom the promise was made.” “
But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth
his Son, made of a woman [the seed came], made under the
law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might
receive the adoption of sons.”
But there was another step, then, which was this: the
promises made to Abraham and his seed (chap. 3:17) were
conrmed of God in Christ. When Isaac had been oered
up (in gure) and raised (in gure), God spake and said,
“ By myself have I sworn, for because thou hast done this
thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, that
in blessing I will bless thee … and in thy seed shall all the
nations of the earth be blessed,” Gen. 22. Now Isaac was
not the true “ seed,” Christ, the true “ seed,” was typied by
Isaac, in whose oering the promise was conrmed. “ He
saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to
thy seed, which is Christ,” v. 16. e promises arc settled on
Isaac, after (in gure) he had died and risen again from the
dead; and that is what the grace of God has done for us in
Christ. Christ came here and lived, accomplishing in the
face of Satan, all that the spiritual man could oer to God
in his life. But “ except a corn of wheat fall into the ground
and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much
fruit.” ough Christ Himself, as man, might have had the
promises, yet He could not have taken up anything with us
except through death and resurrection. He could not have
had connection with man in the old Adam. Well, He dies,
and (having accomplished the work of redemption, done
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442
everything, set aside the consequences of responsibility
for man, as risen from the dead, in the power of a new and
endless life-” the seed “ to whom the promises were made)
He takes up these promises.
As men, we were under responsibility, and, therefore,
under the curse, for we had sinned. Yes, though, through
grace, able to say that we are “ heirs according to the
promise,” we had sinned. ere was no dierence in this
respect between ourselves and any poor Jew or Gentile,
we were all “ by nature children of wrath, even as others,”
“ fullling the desires of the esh and of the mind,” Eph.
2:3. e state of soul was the same. Perverseness of will
was there-the determination to do our own will, and the
pleasure of doing it, instead of the will of God.
Christ took all this upon Himself. He charged Himself
with responsibility, instead of putting man under it. He
underwent, to the full, the last eect of sin, as the result of
the wrath of God, and of the power of Satan, as well as of
the weakness of man. He bore the curse. He went down into
the grave. But He was still the “ holy One,” and (though
He might imputatively take sin) it was not possible that He
could be holden of the cords of death. erefore He rose
again- head of a new family of men, a new world, a new
creation- heir, according to the purposes of God, of all the
promises, and heir forever.
He has accomplished everything-all that was needed
for the remission of our sins, and, besides that, broken
the power of Satan under which man lay, in the very seat
of that power. rough death He has “ destroyed him that
had the power of death,” Heb. 2. Most blessed truth! Christ
has put Himself into the condition of man in death, the
last stronghold in which Satan held man captive, by the
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443
judgment and under the sentence of God Himself. He rose
out of it, and became the source of life, and heir for us of all
the promises. Grace has found its way into death, and “ out
of the eater “ has brought forth sweetness.
If we look at death, the Prince of life has tasted death;
if, at the power of Satan, Christ has broken and destroyed
his power; if, at the wrath of God, He has borne it all, drunk
the cup to the very dregs. “ All thy waves and thy billows
are gone over me.” “ ou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in
darkness, in the deeps. y wrath lieth hard upon me, and
thou hast aicted me with all thy waves,” Psa. 88:7.
But, further, He is the righteous inheritor of all the
promises; as it is said, “ All the promises of God in him are
yea, and in him Amen,” and we, through grace, can add, “
to the glory of God by us.” How then did we come in? As
heirs together with Him in life-united to Him-one with
Him. Our standing before God is in Christ-the Second
Man, as having no more part in the esh, though we have
as yet to struggle against it. Death is abolished. Life and
incorruptibility are brought to light by the gospel; and that,
because the responsibility question has been settled in the
death of Christ.
But it is “ by faith.” How blessed this!-how true of God!-
how blessed for us! By faith we receive all the promises
in Christ. By faith we nd everything done. It is only to
believe. Faith produces all manner of fruit in us, there is
wondrous power in it, but still it is only to believe: that is
all. Just as though you had been deeply in debt, and some
kind friend had paid the amount, and, when that was done,
had sent you word. e person comes and tells you that
your debts are paid, and you believe it. Now your believing
produces joy, and gladness, doubtless, in your heart, but,
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444
of course, it does not in any measure go to liquidate the
debt. So as to salvation, the debt has been paid, Christ has
nished the work, and the believing soul enters into all the
blessed results (v. 22). Faith is exercised upon that which
has been already accomplished. “ It is of faith, that it might
be by grace, that the promise might be sure to all the seed.”
Nothing redounds to the glory of the creature. It is a person
simply depending upon the truth of God.
When the soul is made hopeless in itself (and this must
always be the case when the conscience is really honest
under the sense of responsibility), it turns to see what God
is. e more the truth of God’s requirements is known, the
more wretched that soul becomes. e end of all is seen in
that exclamation of the apostle, “ 0 wretched man,” etc. I am
a man, and therefore a wretched being, one having the curse
resting upon me.
God, in the gospel, sees man wicked, miserable,
rebellious, lost; but He sees him according to His innite
compassions. e Lord Jesus has begun altogether a new
thing, not demanding what man is required to be before
God, but accomplishing what God is towards man-grace.
We nd in Christ, it is true, and to perfection, what man
is required to be before God; but more than that, what
God is towards man. Grace came by Jesus Christ. So that
the moment any person, let it be a convicted sinner, stood
before Christ as to what he was, he found Christ to be grace.
If he came as what he was not, Christ laid him bare; but, if
he came as what he was, then no matter what he was, a poor
helpless sinner, a wretched adulteress, or the thief upon the
cross (that was not the question-the question was, what was
Christ, who came not to judge, but to save), all was grace.
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445
Having found Christ, we have found one who has all
the promises of God. And, since He took those promises
as a consequence of what He had done in putting away sin,
there can be no further question about sin before God. Our
sins are necessarily left outside, because Christ Himself has
borne them all; as it is said, “ e Lord hath laid on him
the iniquity of us all.” He stood in our place, and took upon
Himself our iniquity, and bore the judgment due to us-
went down into the grave, but rose again from the dead in
the power of a new and endless life, and ascended up on
high, even unto the Father’s presence, as our representative.
ere He stands-we stand there in Him; as He is before
God, so are we, holy, unblameable, and unreproveable in
His sight, partakers of His life, joint-heirs with Him of all
the promises.
is, beloved friends, is our position before God; this
our standing in Christ. ere is an entirely new headship
in the second Adam. We are presented in a new character
to God, such as man never had before-man without sin in
the presence of God, the very pattern of God’s mind and
delight. We nd diculty, it may be, in apprehending it,
because of the weakness of the esh. e moment I look at
myself, I have another man full of failure. But I stand there
as having had sin forever put away. e knowledge of this
gives peace; and we worship. Make sin what you please, let
it take what form it may, you cannot mingle the state of man
under law with the condition of the new, the heavenly, man
in heaven.
e Lord grant us to know what we are in His love.
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446
62515
e Church, an Habitation of
God rough the Spirit
Eph. 2
THERE are two great ideas in this epistle as regards the
saints. e grand thought all through it is the grace of God
towards them; but, as regards the saints, there are these two
ideas about the church: rstly, its hopes; secondly, what it is
now meanwhile.
It is looked at, on the one hand, as having a certain place
in glory, and as enjoying the inheritance; and, on the other,
there is this second point, what it is even now before it
gets there. And this last gives it, in a certain sense, a higher
character of communion and fellowship in blessing than
is contained in the glory itself which it expects, though
doubtless the other will not then cease. You will see these
two things in considering the prayers of the apostle (chaps.
1 and 3).
We shall be in glory before Him, as children (that is the
expression), to bring out the glory of His grace, who had
predestinated us according to the good pleasure of His
will” holy and without blame before him in love.” And
here we have, “ In whom ye also are builded together for
an habitation of God through the Spirit “-before Him in
glory-and God dwelling in us.
We will just consider a little, beloved friends, how it is
that the church becomes thus the “ habitation of God.” It
is of the deepest importance to us. I said that the blessings
connected with this are in some respects superior to what
e Church, an Habitation of God rough the Spirit
447
might properly be called glory. And this is important,
because we nd that, even now, this blessing is brought to
us. In glory we shall be able to enjoy it better, but we have it
now.
At the end of chapter 1, where the apostle has been
speaking concerning God’s purpose about the saints, the
thought is the “ exceeding greatness of his power,” and
he prays. See v. 17-23. At the close of chapter 3 we have
a prayer founded upon the other point I have spoken of.
See v. 14-21. e character of this prayer is higher, and it
goes farther than the former. ere are two titles given to
God in this epistle. In the one He is called the “ God of our
Lord Jesus Christ,” because Christ is looked at there as the
gloried Man, who has been down here, suered, died, and
been raised again. In
the other He is called the “ Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ,” because Christ is not thus looked at as the risen and
gloried man, but as the Son of God.
Now the prayer in chapter I is founded upon the rst of
these titles (v. 17), and is connected with the glory of the
risen man. In chapter 3, the apostle bows his knees unto “
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole
family in heaven and earth is named,” and, therefore, he
looks more at intimacy of communion, and to our being
“ lled to all the fullness of God.” It is not God giving us
knowledge of the inheritance, but God lling us with
Himself.
We nd these subjects, and the distinction between
them, all through. In the one the Lord Jesus Christ is
considered as man, whom God has raised from the dead,
and there the church is looked at as “ the fullness of him that
lleth all in all “; in the other as the Son of the Father in the
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power and unity of that relationship, and so of the divine
nature; this latter point being more especially connected
with our being “an habitation of God through the Spirit.”
ere are two points in this expression, beloved friends:
one, that of our being the “habitation of God”; and the
other, that this is “ through the Spirit.” He is not speaking
of our dwelling with God (although that is true), but of
our being “an habitation of God.” He says, “ ye are builded
together,” etc. And this is evidently a dierent thing. It is
a dierent thing, our having glory together with Him, and
God’s dwelling in us. is is, I repeat, evidently a most
peculiar and special blessing.
God came down to talk with man (Gen. 3)-man already
fallen; and “ they heard the voice of the Lord God walking
in the garden in the cool of the day.” But God then had no
“ habitation “ on earth. God’s Spirit had dealt in power in
various ways in the history of man; but the moment the
people are called out, it is, “ e Lord is my strength and
song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God, and I
will prepare him an habitation,” etc. (Ex. 15:2.) is is the
rst thing we nd in the song of Moses.
David had the same thought; 2 Sam. 7. He would not
dwell in a house of cedar, whilst the ark of God dwelt within
curtains But the Lord answers him and says, “ I have not
dwelt in any house since the time that I brought up the
children of Israel out of Egypt, even to this day, but have
walked in a
tent and in a tabernacle.” “ But Solomon built him
a house.” Having settled His people in the land, the “
habitation of God “ was built-a carnal worldly temple, but
it was the “ habitation of God.” And then, when the Lord
Jesus came into the world, this truth applied properly to
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His Person. He says, “ Destroy this temple, and in three
days I will raise it up.” He is regarded as the temple of God.
erefore God was then dwelling (in Him) with man, in
the midst of the sorrow and evil into which man had fallen.
Well, here it is the church (v. 22).
Beloved friends, it is touching to see the place which
God takes (referring to the passage I have quoted about
David’s thought of building a house), according to the
state of His people. God always takes the place that suits
His people: a marvelous thought, but a most gracious one
on His part! If His people are enslaved under burdens as in
Egypt, He becomes their redeemer. If they are a journeying
people and in tents, He dwells there Himself. He takes the
same place as His people, for He is to be the center of their
blessing, and leads them by the cloud. is He did up to
Solomon’s time. When Joshua comes in and has to ght
with the Canaanites, He presents Himself as “ captain of
the Lord’s host,” Josh. 5. When the people are settled
(settled as far as they could be in their eshly condition)
under Solomon in fullness of peace and in blessing, God
builds a settled house. And God dwells among them.
Whatever the circumstances His people are in, God takes a
place suited to them.
e place that God takes to dwell in now (until His
people come into the rest) is, properly speaking, a tent or
tabernacle. It is surely just as blessed, but, so to speak, more
movable. In glory it will not be so. While we are on our
journey, it is a tabernacle, not a temple, but still God dwells
among men. His own grace has built “ an habitation “ for
Himself. I am speaking, let us remember, not at all of that
place of glory into which we are to come before God, but of
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that other thing, that God will come and dwell down here
upon the earth.
When Jesus was in the world, God’s presence was
there. And it was that which was the center of all blessing.
ey gathered around Him. Well now, it is the same thing
with regard to the church; God dwells upon the earth in
the church, as a “ habitation,” though not visibly, not in
manifested glory. And this comes to be of the last possible
importance.
If it is really true, that God dwells on the earth in a “
habitation,” evidently the “ habitation “ wherein He
dwells must be of the greatest importance. And this
remains always true. Failure though there may be, still the
church is His dwellingplace. Until Christ came, or, at any
rate, until Lo-ammi was pronounced upon Israel at the
Babylonish captivity, God dwelt there, and the blessing
of the people and the guilt of the people were in respect of
God’s dwelling. If it was a question of idolatry, “ they have
set (He says) their altars by my altar.” So when He is going
to judge the people in Ezekiel, He goes on, and shows the
prophet what they were doing in the temple. It might be the
ancients of the house of Israel in the chambers of imagery;
or women weeping for Tammuz; or the men at the door
of the temple of the Lord between the porch and the altar,
with their backs towards the temple of the Lord, and their
fades towards the east, worshipping the sun; but it was in
the temple. is was the place to which sin referred itself.
Having stated this general truth, I would now just see here
how this “ habitation “ is brought about.
All the rst chapter of the epistle, as also the beginning
of the second, is taken up with the other point of which I
spoke, that is, that God has raised up Christ from the dead;
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as it is said, “ according to the working of his mighty power,
which he wrought in Christ, when,” etc. God is here in
power stepping in (not merely a judge having satisfaction,
but in His own power stepping in for the accomplishment
of His purposes) to deal with man looked at as under the
consequences of sin. It is not only man in evil that is looked
at in this epistle, responsible to God, and having to nd that
which meets his state in the cross (we see that in Hebrews,
and elsewhere, it is not specially treated of here), but it
is God acting in His own power (when man was on this
ground-in utter ruin) for the deliverance of man. Christ
takes this place. He descends into the lower parts of the
earth, making Himself responsible for the consequences
of sin. He descends into the whole consequences of sin-He
comes down from the throne of God in the perfectness of
divine love, humbles Himself, takes upon Him, and comes
down into, the consequences of sin, where man had brought
himself.
Marvelous and blessed truth! Where we were looked at
as sinners, “ dead in trespasses and sins,” Christ has come
down-and put Himself there. Alas! the judgment of those
who reject Christ! they will nd the full consequences of
sin in themselves. But that is where faith rst sees the full
consequence of sin-in Christ. Sin was fully matured (man
had behaved lawlessly without law-the law had been broken
-Christ slighted and rejected); and He then enters into this
place, and goes under the full power of the consequences of
sin. We see Him brought down into the weakness of man
under the power of death-Satan’s power (though He could
not be holden of it), and under the wrath of God, into “ the
dust of death.”
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All that which the heart of Christ felt and suered is
told out wonderfully in the Psalms: whether it be from
the hiding of God’s countenance, or from His enemies
surrounding Him, or from Satan’s power, or from God’s
waves and billows going over Him, all is freely expressed
there. Occasionally we nd this breaking forth in the
gospels, but it is more especially given in the Psalms. What
the gospels present to us, generally speaking, is the perfect
walk of Christ-of Him, who, by virtue of His living by the
Father, and His perfect obedience and love, was always
towards man, what man needed in order to approach God;
man could see all that, while His thoughts about that
which pressed upon Him were hidden within His own
heart. “ I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am
I straitened until it be accomplished! “ Constantly His soul
was straitened, whilst, if you look at Him among men, they
were not straitened in Him; all was grace and love still.
He chewed forth the great principle of the oering up of
Himself as man to God. He had power to take that place,
and He took it. ough without sin, He suered all the
consequences of sin, even to “ the dust of death “; He went
down into it. But there He could not remain.
Having thus perfectly gloried God, it then became
a question what God should do for Him. And we read, “
He raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right
hand in the heavenly places,” etc. “ He that descended is the
same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he
might ll all things.” Having descended, in the perfectness
of love and obedience, to the dust of death, He went thence
back to the throne of God and is set above all. And thus,
whatever exercise of heart there may be, or whatever the evil
and rebellion of unconverted man, faith knows perfectly
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that from the throne of God down to the uttermost
consequences of sin, and from the uttermost consequences
of sin up to the throne of God, Christ lls all things. ere
is not one thing to the eye of faith, from the throne of God
to the dust of death, and from that up to the highest point of
glory, that is not lled with the redemption power of Christ.
e love of God has come down into the place of the sin
and ruin of man; and faith rests in that love, and in the full
accomplishment of redemption, as shown out in that He
who went down into the dust of death is now at the right
hand of the throne of God. “ He that descended,” etc. Woe
be to those who reject this! but that is what faith knows
about the work of Christ. He has gone down into the dust
of death, and the “ exceeding greatness “ of God’s power has
raised him from the dead; chap. 1:19, 20.
at is the redemption power of God. e results, it
is true, will be brought out afterward; God is waiting,
and souls are being gathered unto Christ; but that is the
redemption in the power of which we stand.
Well, now, the consequence of that is seen in the second
chapter: “ You hath he quickened, who were dead in
trespasses and sins “; and then too (because God has done it
for us in Christ), He “ hath raised us up together, and made
us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” e great
result of this salvation will be our being with Christ in the
glory by and by; but even now, by faith, we can see ourselves
“ in Christ Jesus “ (not “ with “ Him, as has been observed)
there. I know that the redemption power which has visited
me touched me, and has taken me up, when I was “ dead in
trespasses and sins.” I know that this has not stopped short
of the throne of God itself. It has united me to Him who is
at the right hand of God, and has therefore placed me there
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“ in “ Him, as having the same life, the same righteousness
(God’s righteousness now), and hereafter the same joy, and
the same glory.
is would have been true if there were but one saint But
there is a further thing. e apostle goes on to show that,
looked at according to the largeness of the purpose of God,
Jew and Gentile (whatever the distinction between them,
and that of God, “ in the esh “) were on one broad platform
of ruin-” among whom we all had our conversation in times
past, in the lusts of our esh,” etc. Having taken that ground,
he says, “ remember “ where you are-” He is our peace,” etc.
(See v. 11-17.) “ Peace “ having been made, the dealings of
God with man down here on the ground of redemption
are begun. Christ sat down on the throne of God, having
completed the work-the peace being made- redemption
accomplished. He could not go farther than the throne
of God. He has carried the “ wave-sheaf,” the rstfruits of
redemption-power in His own Person up to the throne of
God.
Well, on this the “ peace “ that is “ preached “ is based.
And here I would just for a moment (supposing there may
be some here who have not peace) notice how it is that He
preaches peace. He does not come and say to man, You have
to make your peace with God. He preaches peace. He does
not preach a peace to be made-a peace that is not made. He
preaches peace, a made peace. He has “ made peace through
the blood of his cross,” having sat down at the right hand
of God, the whole work being accomplished, so that He
is “ expecting until his enemies are made his footstool,”
Hebrews to. He comes to Jew and Gentile, no matter to
whom, and preaches peace- not a progressive work, but
a peace completely made. e soul may be a long while
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struggling under the sense of unanswered responsibility, it
may cling to the law, it may mistake the work of the Spirit
for the work of Christ, be looking for results in itself (we
naturally look to our own righteousness, and even the saints
often mistake holiness for the ground of peace), and the
like: all that may take place in the soul, but it does not at
all touch the perfectness of the work of Christ, or alter the
strain of what Christ preaches as being at the right hand
of God. Blessed thought! It is simple enough, and there
is nothing more suitable. For, as we shall see (without the
thought of holiness having anything to do with the ground
of peace), holiness ows forth as the consequence of peace.
Wherever there is simplicity of faith, there is peace. at
is the rst point-perfect peace, independent of anything in
ourselves. No matter what we were, Jew or Gentile, sinners
or honorable in the earth, it is a peace that has been brought
to us in Christ. e next thing (and that as a consequence)
is, that “ through him we both have access by one Spirit unto
the Father,” v. 18.
“ Now therefore ye are no more strangers and
foreigners,” etc. (v. 19-22). Christ, having wrought this
redemption, having ascended to God, having sat down at
the right hand of God, having gathered us together, makes
us, thus gathered together, “ an habitation of God through
the Spirit.” It is not God merely acting in certain men; it is
God dwelling in the church down here, as gathered through
the word of the gospel. e church is the place of God’s
presence on the earth. He has set us in redemption, and
He comes and dwells in us. When the church was gathered
together with one accord in one place, at Pentecost, the
Holy Ghost came down and dwelt there, the result of the
accomplished work of Jesus. And this is a real thing. I am
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not speaking now merely of gifts, but of the presence of
God Himself.
Now it is quite clear that the presence of God down here
must be of the last importance. His “ habitation “ is that
which He possesses, which belongs to Him, and nothing
that does not recognize the fullness of this blessed cost of
salvation, can be. It is those who are His redeemed ones,
brought together by the peace which Christ preaches, those
who have, through Christ, access by one Spirit unto the
Father, that come to be the place where God dwells.
ere are many places in which the Spirit of God could
act. We nd the expression, “ e eyes of the Lord run to
and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong
in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect towards him,”
2 Chron. 16:9. If we turn to certain dealings of God as
assuring the work He established by His Spirit, for instance
the laying the foundation of the temple by Zerubbabel
(Zech. 3; 4), we there nd mention of these “ eyes of the
Lord.” So in Ezekiel’s throne (chap. 1:18; chap. 10:12), the
operations of God in His governing power in the world.
See, too, Rev. 5:6. All this is the activity of energy of the
Spirit of God. It might act in glorious power, or it might
act in silent energy, but in all it is the activity of energy of
the Spirit of God going out and dealing in the world, and
is quite another thing. I am not speaking of that. We are
an habitation of God through the Spirit,” in grace to us: it
may be a tabernacle, but still it is “ an habitation of God “the
place where He dwells, where He lives, so to speak, where
He has taken up His abode, where He can have around
Him the things that suit His presence, that in which He
delights. Beloved friends, this is what we are; we may have
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dishonored it, but that is just what we are made, and in this
world-the place where God dwells.
Now to take a simple example of the eect of this (I said
a simple example, and yet it is a very important one), let us
look at the case of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5). at was
not a question of gift. Peter said, “ Ananias, why hath Satan
lled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost? “ God was there;
there was no gift exercised at all; and Ananias and Sapphira
fell down dead. ey had had the folly and madness not to
understand that God was there, and therefore, when they
came and brought only part of the price of the possession,
lying to God (it was not to Peter and John they were lying),
God showed the indignation of His presence, and they fell
down dead. ere was wonderful eect in this: we read, “
And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many
as heard these things,” etc. e fact was known that God did
“ in very deed (as Solomon speaks at the dedication of the
temple) dwell with men.” It was the real presence of God-
the church was there, having God dwelling in it, and acting
in it, by the Holy Ghost-and He proved it; His presence
sanctied the place.
Well now, beloved friends, that is always and constantly
true. As I have said, we may have grieved the Spirit,
dishonored the house, and been unfaithful (that alas! is
also too true), but it depends upon the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus. What is the consequence of redemption?
It is not merely that I have peace individually, nor yet that
we are heirs together of glory, nor yet that we have access
through Christ by the Spirit to the Father; besides all this,
it is the ground on which God dwells down here. It is in
virtue of the accomplishment of redemption by the Lord
Jesus Christ that God can come down here, and make His “
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habitation,” that He can comfort and strengthen those who
are within (not merely act in providential power without),
that He can be at home in the midst of His people. is,
His being at home in the midst of His people, practically
sancties us; it involves great responsibility: His house
should be according to His holiness. “ Holiness becometh
thy house forever.” But, at the same time, it becomes the
source of our power and blessing.
Suppose, for a moment, God was here, and we were all
His saints (the Lord grant it may be so!) and all the saints of
God that are in the world were here (which is not the case,
God forbid that it should be!) is it not quite evident that
the eye, the ear, all would refer to that, that every movement
would be consequent upon God’s being there, the presence
of God governing and stamping its character on the whole?
Again, if that were the case, supposing we could say that
God was there, and all the enemies in the world were raging
about us, beloved, would not the one thought be, that God
was there, and that it was God’s concern? He would be
the strength, the help, the condence of the soul. Yes, and
that was so beautifully shown when the Jews came back to
Jerusalem, and were in fear of their enemies. e rst thing
they built was- what?-a high wall? No, they built an altar.
God was their condence and strength.
Well, we are “ builded together for an habitation of
God.” And see what a blessed truth is connected with this.
On what ground could God come into our midst and dwell
with us? It is not on any uncertain ground. It is upon the
ground of God’s perfect and entire complacency in the
church-His perfect delight. It is not God’s coming down
to call us, as He did Adam after the fall, in order to nd out
that he was lost. Neither is it God’s coming down, as He did
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to Sodom and Gomorrah, to see whether the cry that has
gone up is such as it seems to be. Neither is it God’s coming
down, as He did to Israel, to put to the test whether He can
stay. He comes down on the ground, and in consequence
of, completed redemption-of peace being perfectly made.
His presence is the witness and evidence of accomplished
redemption. He says, as it were, I have so accomplished this
redemption, I am so pleased with you, so satised because of
Jesus, that I am come to dwell with you, to make My abode
with you:. you are to be My “ habitation.” What a character
does this give to the church! What manner of men ought we
to be?
But then there is another thing. If we are the “ habitation
of God through the Spirit,” the consequence is, not merely
the favor of God, but all the consequences of this favor. e
Holy Ghost comes down as the witness and testimony of
the fullness of the Father’s delight in Christ and of our joy
in Him. “ Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come,”
etc. (John 16:13-15). He ministers (I am not now talking
of the instruments) to us these things. He has all “ the
goods (as it is expressed of Eliezer, Gen. 24) in his hand,”
to minister the comfort and strength of what belongs to
us as the bride of Christ, the true Isaac, unto whom the
Father hath given all that He hath. And, that is the case in
the midst of innite diculty and trials (in that sense more
blessed than if there were none). is is one of the present
special blessings of redemption, one that we shall not know
or want in glory; we shall have the full result of redemption
there. But it is not merely to be brought into glory, to be
at home in perfect peace in the presence of God and with
God. Redemption is so perfect, that, before we get into
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glory, God by His Spirit can come and dwell with us here, in
the midst of our weakness, and because of our need.
As the apostle speaks in the Philippians, “ What then?
notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretense or in
truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and
will rejoice. For I know that this shall turn to my salvation
through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus
Christ.” Paul was tried, persecuted, taken as a prisoner to
Rome, and they were going on preaching Christ of envy and
strife, supposing to add aiction to his bonds, etc. Well, all
this, he says, will “ turn to my salvation,” etc. His soul thus
being fed and nourished by the Spirit, everything in which
he found trial and exercise of heart became but the means
really of working out of him that which was contrary to
God, in order that his sympathy might have free course, and
his soul joy only in Christ.
Again, beloved friends, in speaking of the sympathy of
the Spirit of God with the saints, and in the saints amidst
a groaning creation (Rom. 8), he says, “ Likewise the
Spirit also helpeth our inrmities,” etc. (v. 26). Here I nd
the Holy Ghost taking notice of certain trials, sorrows,
weaknesses, diculties, and the like, of everything, in
short, that can press upon the heart of the saint, and that
even when it “ cannot be uttered,” and “ groaning “ is its only
expression. It is the groaning of the Spirit of God in such a
poor feeble heart, that it does not know how to express it.
But it is said, “ And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth,”
etc. (v. 27). at is what He has found there-” the mind of
the Spirit.” It is not merely that human feelings are brought
out, but that the things (the very trials and sorrows) that
would have produced human feelings, have now produced,
if I may so say, divine feelings-feelings “ according to God,”
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which go up to God, and which God can answer; so that
they become the means by which He pours into the heart
all the fullness of His consolation, not perhaps taking them
away, but showing that He Himself is the sucient blessing
of the soul, because He dwells with it, and makes Himself
the portion of it. Now if we look at the way in which this
meets us where we are, and what we are, this is how it works.
He comes down into all our circumstances, and, for a poor
trie of aiction, I get to nd (not the thing set aside, but)
God Himself taking the place of our sorrow.
In the prayer in chapter 3 the apostle loses himself, as
it were, and no wonder. After he has said, “ I bow my knees
unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” he adds, “ that
he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to
be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;
that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being
rooted and grounded in love [that is what God is-the divine
nature], may be able to comprehend with all saints [taking
in the whole unity in which the Holy Ghost dwells], what is
the breadth, and length, and depth, and height “-he has now
got into the innitude of all God’s thoughts and purposes
of blessing, and he cannot say of what. Just as the groanings
could not be uttered, so the thought cannot be uttered. It is
God that has come in, and Christ lls all things according
to the power of redemption, from the throne of God, down
to the dust of death, and from the dust of death up to the
throne of God. Having all things, and lling all things
(he says), here I am placed, in the midst of this innitude.
And then he adds, and to know the love of Christ, which
passeth knowledge.” He could go to no place, but there he
found innite love and innite power-the love that brought
Christ down, and the power that took Christ up again.
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is meets all the exercises of the heart. If brought down,
even (as Christ came down) into the dust of death, the Holy
Ghost comes down to the poor man, who feels this power of
death in his soul, and dwells in him, and carries him up, by
the knowledge of redemption, into all the fullness of God
Himself.
Well, that, beloved, is the result of the dwelling of the
Holy Ghost down here, consequent upon redemption
accomplished by Christ. e Holy Ghost can come and
bring peace to our souls, and the eect of that peace to
our souls is to make us pass through all the evil around “
according to the power of God.” When the apostle speaks
to Timothy, he says, “ Be thou a partaker of the aictions of
the gospel according to the power of God.”
Where shall we stop? e soul rejoices in that which
must be the joy and gladness of the heart which knows God
has come down to dwell in it, the immutable blessedness of
God’s presence. en, whatever the circumstances in which
we are placed, if they be only those of sorrow and trial, what
is the consequence? God ministers of the fullness of the
sympathy of His love to our souls; and thus they become, so
to speak, as a door, or a chink, to let in God. All the riches,
“ the unsearchable riches of Christ,” are ours. And Christ
lls everything. ere is not anything we can think of, but
we nd there of the fullness of Christ. If we think of death,
we see Christ there-of sin, we do not know what sin is
fully until we see Christ “ made sin “-of God, it is only in
Christ we can know God-of man, it is only in Christ we
can see man raised to the height of his blessing-of peace, it
is through Christ we know the peace of God-of life, Christ
is our life- of glory, it is all in Christ. ere is not anything,
no matter what we think of, whether in creation, or above
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it, or between God and man, but we must think of Christ
in it all. He is the “ head over all things to the church, which
is his body, the fullness of him that lleth all in all.” We can
turn our thoughts to no one thing in which we do not nd
the fullness of Christ; and by the power of the Holy Ghost
our souls are brought into the joy of this fullness, as that to
which we are, through living union with Him, everlastingly
and perfectly united.
ere is another point which I have not touched upon,
the practical eect of this. What would the eect be on our
souls, if we really felt we were “ builded together “ etc.? if
we felt that, in the whole world, Christians were in truth
the dwelling-place of God? What a thought should we have
to act upon as to everything! at by which the church of
God has been corrupted, ordinances and the like, would
disappear as clouds before the presence of the sun. And
what thoughts of glory should we have-what thoughts of
holiness -what peace as to practical circumstances-what
jealousy of grieving the Holy Ghost-what love toward all
saints-what joy-what condence! How we should (not in
pride, but in the sense that God was there) mock at all our
enemies (Isa. 37:22, 23)-how live and act among men, as “
sons “ and “ heirs “ of God! What power for everything, in
short, would be ours, if we remembered the completeness,
the peace-giving completeness, of redemption, and could
really say, that God was dwelling with us!
is is our portion, and whatever our weakness and
inrmity (and alas! it is very great), whatever our failure, still
it remains true. We may grieve the Spirit, we may weaken
the consciousness of our joy, but still God is with us. e
Holy Spirit dwells among us.
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May the Lord give us to know and to own what this
presence of God in the earth, and that with men, is by
reason of the redemption which is in Christ Jesus!
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62527
A Christian - Who and What
Is He Now and Hereafter}
IT is rather a solemn thing to say what a Christian is,
especially when we think of what it is that made him one.
God is acting so as to glorify Himself. It is a solemn thing
to be a revelation of that of which Christ is worthy-of the
result of Christ’s work; as it is said, “ He shall see of the
travail of his soul, and shall be satised,” Isa. 53:11. It does
us good to think of this, because it makes us judge ourselves,
to see how far we are really that. Not that we ever shall be
the perfect display of it until we are “ like him “ (1 John
3:2), until we see Him as He is, and are conformed unto
His image in glory. Still, if we bear Christ’s name, we should
seek to present a tting result of His work in the world.
at is what a Christian is. Hence it becomes a solemn
thing to say what he is. Still, whilst it is a solemn question, it
is a matter of grace. ere is such a comfort in this thought!
Whilst most solemn, it is always happy, because it is of
grace- the free, full, and sovereign grace of God. is all
helps us a little.
With regard to the question itself, there is a great
dierence between what a Christian is “ now,” and what
he will be “ hereafter.” Not as regards the spring of life,
redemption, etc., but now a Christian is the expression of
the power of God in the midst of evil; hereafter he will be
the expression of the result of that power which has put
away the evil, when all the evil is put away.
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466
Take us at our best estate now-a Christian is the
expression of the power of God in the midst of the
prevalence of evil. A Christian will not be that exactly
hereafter; he will then be the expression of the result of
God’s power, in the highest sense, when the evil is put away.
As to the foundation in Christ’s blood, and the power of
His resurrection, and the love of God, this as much belongs
to his state hereafter as it is the basis of what he is now.
God’s love in Christ will be the spring of my joy then as it is
now.
One thing that gives such settledness of peace (as it
regards his own soul’s peace) to the Christian is, that it does
not depend upon what he is now, or will be then, but upon
that which is common to both states. e ground of it is
the same now that it will be in heaven. e thing displayed
may dier; but the ground of condence is the same now
as hereafter., As to the source and spring of it in the love of
God, His love is as true, and as perfect, and as complete, and
as much manifested towards me now, as it will be when I am
in glory; He cannot in His divine love go beyond the gift of
His Son. e life also that I have now is not a dierent life
from that I shall have then. No doubt the body hinders it. Its
manifestation will be dierent; but the life is the same.
And the ground of peace changes not. at upon which
I rest for eternity is just as much now as it will be then. e
blood of Christ has been shed and has been carried into the
holiest; Heb. 9, 1o. Whatever our conicts, our conicts
(properly speaking) spring from that ground being entirely
settled. Whoever is in conict as to that has not got to
God, or otherwise has not understood the ground of his
standing. Unsettlement of soul may arise from a man’s not
having seen the gospel simply; but as to the ground of his
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standing, it is just as much accepted now as it will be then.
ere is not another Christ to die-no fresh blood to be shed.
Nor is there another revelation to be made. ere is not a
love to spring up in the heart of God that has not been told
out. ere may be a fuller apprehension of that which has
been accomplished, but there is nothing new either to be
accomplished or revealed.
Whoever has not got upon that ground (has not had that
question settled in his soul) has not got as yet upon simple
Christian ground. God may be working in his soul; but I
do not call having life the getting upon simple Christian
ground. ere may be life without the knowledge of what
God is as for us, of the perfectness of His love towards us,
and of what He has done for us in Christ. Life may make
me anxious, and hope, and have desires after God, and
long to be assured of His favor, and the like; but, when we
speak of a “ Christian,” we speak of what a Christian is in
Scripture, and Scripture always speaks of him-of a believer
in any state- as to his standing. It is very necessary to see
this.
We must not confound the exercises of a Christian with
the standing of a Christian. e ground of his standing is
God’s work. In his exercises there comes in himself; his
esh, his ignorance, and many other things alas! may be
working. But it is entirely according to God’s thoughts,
and not according to my thoughts, that my standing is to be
judged of. Moreover the exercises of my own soul are never
the same as God’s judgment about them.
When I am thinking of these, it is my actual state that
occupies me; but were God to take notice of my actual
state, He must condemn me. What He has regard to is
the work of Christ for me, and my union with Him, not in
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468
this respect my actual state at all. It is always important to
recollect that, because my own judgment of myself ought to
be as to my actual state.
Whatever his exercises, however these may vary, the
Christian, in one sense, is just the same, because he is in
God’s sight as Christ. Christ being the perfectly accepted
man at God’s right hand, the Christian is looked at by God
in the same position (Eph. 2:6), sitting in heavenly places “
in Christ.” In that sense there cannot be any dierence; and
the ground of our acceptance cannot ever be imperfect. I
repeat, we must not confound the movements of life with
the ground of our acceptance. We can never have this too
simple and clear. It does not make one despise the rst
actings of life, its rst movings and breathings, however
feeble and imperfect: I do not despise my child because he is
not a man.
In the Ephesians (where what a Christian is is fully
brought out), men are viewed as the “ children of wrath “ in
their very nature (necessarily heirs of wrath, because God is
what He is, and man is what he is.) Every other distinction
is lost sight of, because, in his character of a sinner, man is
brought fully into the light of God. But having thus told us
what man is, the apostle does not stop with man; he turns
round and begins at the other end; he now tells us what God
is, that He is “ rich in mercy,” and (as the eect of this) that
He has set us in heavenly places in Christ.
But when we come a little more to detail, I would recall
the distinction which I made at rst-that a Christian is now
the expression of the power of divine life and the divine
presence (divine life, I mean, aided by the power of God), in
the midst of evil that he knows; but hereafter he will be the
blessed expression of the result of God’s power when evil
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469
is put away. So with Christ (there was no evil of course in
Him; yet, speaking abstractly, it was the same thing; in Him
it was perfect) when here; He was what He was in the midst
of evil. ere cannot be any increase in it in itself; but the
manifestation of divine power in us is capable of an
indenite increase.
Redemption, however, precedes everything else (I do
not mean by this that it precedes the counsels of God). First,
Christ “ loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he
might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water
by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious
church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but
that is should be holy and without blemish,” Eph. 5:25-27.
Redemption precedes the washing. Washing may go on, but
it comes after redemption. He makes her His, before He
sets about making her what He would have her to be. ere
may not be a clear thought as to it; but the thing is done
nevertheless. Redemption being accomplished, the Lord
sets about producing in us the eects and fruits of His grace
in conformity to Himself.
e rst eect of divine life in the midst of evil is not
merely to see, but to have the conscience exercised about,
certain things. e moment life begins to work, we get the
consciousness of evil inside, as well as of evil outside; that
is, it gives the judgment of evil in ourselves. Not that the
instant Christ is presented to the soul in grace, the soul sees
the evil plainly; it may see the grace and blessing, knowing
evil in a general way, without being exercised about it
through any denite application of what Christ is to the
man within; there may be rather the loveliness of Christ
attracting than any deep work in the conscience. I can quite
understand that. But then, before we get into a properly
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470
Christian state (the process may be longer or shorter), the
necessary eect of life working is to give us the judgment of
what man is, in the main bearing of his present condition, as
looked at by the Holy Ghost. It brings in the consciousness
of what we are in the presence of what Christ is. en we
get the man brought down into the distinct consciousness
that it is all over with him. And it is all over with him. I
mean by this, not merely that he has sinned and there is
condemnation, but that he has no right or title or claim to
anything now that he has, either to the promises of God
or to anything else. Now that is the place the soul has to
be brought to (so hard to come to), to nd out what it is
in God’s presence. He may hope to get out of the scrape if
he thinks he has any right to the promises, because these
may help him; but it is no use talking of God’s promises
when God is talking of what I am and of judgment. If
I am thinking about what I may be some time or other,
promises have their place, they come in most beautifully;
but if it is what I am, promises do not touch that. e Syro-
phoenician woman (Matt. 15) will serve as an illustration.
No promise could meet her condition; for as a Gentile she
had not any claim to the promises. e Lord says, “ I am
not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” If
you come to me as an Israelite, I may do something for you;
otherwise “ it is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to
cast it unto dogs.” But when she replies, “ Truth, Lord, yet
the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’
table,” she in eect says, God is rich in mercy; and Christ
cannot say He is not-that there is nothing in God for a poor
sinner.
I do not believe that a person gets upon right Christian
ground (one has to make allowance for ignorance, but there
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471
is no true, no solid ground, as to simple and abiding peace),
until the soul has been brought to the consciousness that it
has no claim whatever or title to promise.
Having been brought down to this by what goes on
within, there may be attraction; but the rst full eect is that
the man is judged, he sees what he is, and becomes entirely
hopeless as to what he is, and is turned over entirely to the
thought of what God is. We have only to say, “ What hath
God wrought! “ I am now upon new ground, namely, upon
that of what God is towards a sinner who is altogether vile.
If the sinner is perfectly vile, God is perfectly good. Further,
I come to see what He has done because He is so. It is not
that He has taken him out of the world. “ I pray not that
thou shouldest take them out of the world,” etc. He will do
that by-and-by.
e rst thing in this new life, inasmuch as it is all in
Christ, is, that He is raised from the dead. We have to look
at what God has done in Christ. I nd Christ dead because
of sins (our sins); and then I nd the quickening life-giving
power of God coming in and raising Him from the dead.
I should separate this entirely from the heavenly standing
of the saints. We have all been too much accustomed to
confound these two things, resurrection-life, and heavenly
standing. What I see as the eect of resurrection-life is
this:-a man quickened and raised with Christ becomes
a pilgrim down here. is is not the whole of a Christian.
But it is the power of divine life in the new creature moving
in a world that does not belong to him, and to which he
does not belong. e Christian begotten by the resurrection
of Christ is a distinct thing to consider from a Christian
sitting in the heavenly places in Christ. ough the same
individual is both, they are distinct things to consider.
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In 1 Peter 1 we read, “ Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant
mercy hath [not, “ blessed us with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ,” as in the Ephesians; but]
begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead; to an inheritance incorruptible,
and undeled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven
for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith
unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time,” v.
3-5. I nd here persons begotten unto a lively hope, and
what is their hope? are they sitting in heaven? No, they
are hoping for it. erefore the apostle says (chap. 2:11),
“ Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims,
abstain from eshly lusts, which war against the soul.” It is
the Christian on his pilgrimage that is contemplated. He
is a stranger here. He has an inheritance in heaven; when
he is in his inheritance, he will be no stranger; but he is not
there, he is going towards heaven. He is a resurrection-man
on earth, walking through the world with new aections
and feelings, going on towards his inheritance, but he is
not there; an Israelite in the wilderness, redeemed from
Egypt, and a stranger, but not in Canaan. And there comes
in the trial of faith. e apostle goes on to say, “ Wherein ye
greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are
in heaviness through manifold temptations: that the trial
of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that
perisheth, though it be tried with re, might be found unto
praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.”
Where do I nd the Christian in Ephesians? Not going
a journey at all; he is sitting down; and where? “ In heavenly
places in Christ Jesus.” at is what I am doing now; I am
sitting in heaven, settled there. And, Christ being Heir of “
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473
all things,” the inheritance is not heaven. e inheritance of
Ephesians is dierent from that in Peter; it is all that Christ
possesses, and therefore earth comes in. e inheritance of
“ all things “ is the heavenly man’s hope; but heaven is his
home, his position. In Peter heaven is his hope: he is going
towards heaven as his home, and towards his inheritance
which is in heaven. ere I get a very dierent condition.
Both these things are true of the same person-both are
true of the Christian. It is good to have the trial of faith,
it supposes faith to be there; it is good to sit down with
Christ where no trial is, and it is good to come down into
trial. But these are dierent conditions. e place of Christ
on the mount, when with Moses and Elias (Luke 9), was
dierent in the midst of the excellent glory from that in
which He stood when He came down from the mount,
and had to meet the crowd, and then cast out the devil.
My true position as a heavenly man is to sit in heavenly
places in Christ; but on the other hand, as begotten to a
new hope by the resurrection of Christ, it is simply going
through the world, but it is through the world that I am
going. Here I am, a new creature, quickened and raised
up with Christ; and what a world am I in! So with regard
to Christ’s coming; if walking on earth, I am waiting for
Christ, the hope of the coming of Christ, and His appearing
to set things right here; but if sitting in heaven, I am there in
Christ, and wait to be there with Christ actually, and there
enjoy Christ fully. e Lord’s coming is not spoken of in the
Ephesians; the saints are viewed as sitting in heaven.
I get these two elements of a Christian’s position; and in
one sense I do not call one more important than the other.
I may look at the Christian at the springhead of peace,
in full enjoyment of heavenly places, and in settled peace
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474
with God, and ghting for Him in conict with Satan.
But I cannot have him ghting for God in Canaan till I
get him into Canaan; I may have him in Egypt under the
enemy’s power, but that is not conict with him. It needs
redemption by God. But this places him in the wilderness, a
second element of his Christian life.
A person acting under the consciousness, and in terror,
of Satan’s power, fearing he may be lost if left there, is
sometimes more in earnest than when he has got peace; but
I do not trust this energy. He has not learned what the esh
is, though he may have learned what Satan’s tyranny is. It
is when he has to say to God that he will nd out what the
esh is. A man will always go fast enough if he nds Satan
behind him. e Israelites traveled faster when Pharaoh
was at their back, than they did afterward in their stages in
the wilderness.
ere was no murmuring because of the way when
Pharaoh was behind them; but then it was afterward in the
wilderness that they were put to the test. en came the
question, Is Christ sucient, or is the manna “ light food “?
If a man is not spiritual, he must get something to satisfy his
craving. All this is put to the test; put to the test, not when
a man is ying from Pharaoh, but when he is walking with
God.
And there comes in the mediation of Christ. In this
wilderness state I get Christ between me and God-” if any
man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ
the righteous “; but this is not union with Christ: I am
looked at in myself; we get individualized. A man may be
oundering about, through not having his eye simply xed
on Christ, not knowing how to get to the end; but he nds
a thread let down from heaven to bring him to the place
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475
exactly where he ought to be, while he is only thinking of
the mud, or judging himself for not having valued Christ
enough. ere are a thousand thoughts and feelings and
aections brought out, and into play, as the result of our
having resurrection-life. We get the constant loving care
and tenderness of Christ brought home to the soul; and
there is a necessary character of intercourse with Christ
which heaven itself will not give.
is is one part of a Christian. He is a pilgrim and
a stranger in the power of resurrection-life, with the
mediation of Christ carried on, not to procure for him
life, but to maintain his intercourse and communion with
God in the light on the footing of what Christ is there. On
the footing of that, himself imperfect, he is maintained in
intercourse with a perfect God. Everything that the heart
of man can be exercised about is met by the fullness of God
through the mediation of Him who is both God and man.
e other thing is this (where there is no question or trial
at all), the Christian sitting in heavenly places. And there,
let me say, it is not yet the church, though in touching on
it we touch the church’s position. As resurrection-life did
not take a man into heaven, so taking him into heaven
does not in itself put him into the church. at is, it may
be viewed as an individual thing. When I get into heaven,
I am getting wonderfully close to the truth of the union of
the church with Christ; still I may look at myself as a single
individual in heaven, without at all taking in the unity of the
body which is the church.
54
I can speak of the “ children of
54 e diculty of separating these two things in the mind is
this: the moment I talk about “ sitting in heavenly places “ I
must bring in Christ, because it is “ in Christ “ that I am there;
and thus, also, the whole church is sitting in heavenly places in
Him.
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476
God,” and of “ joint-heirs,” without bringing in the idea of
the body. I take the Christian sitting in heavenly places. As
an individual Christian I have done with conicts when I
get there; it is no longer the journey in exercise of heart. I
shall still have conicts with Satan, but these are for God.
I may too have daily to judge my esh in these conicts;
but judging the esh is not conict for God; it is a dierent
thing to have conict for God, and to be judging the esh
as hindering. When in heaven I am in the result of God’s
work.
In the Book of Joshua, before a single conict, there
was a table spread, and they had done with the manna.
God had spread a table for them in the presence of their
enemies (chap. 5). When they got across the Jordan, they
sat down and ate the “ old corn of the land.” e manna (the
provision for the wilderness) had ceased, and they were
eating the “ old corn of the land “; they had Christ looked
at as indigenous to heaven. It is not for my wants that I
have Christ in heaven; I have no wants there, I have Him
there to enjoy Him, to sit down at God’s table and feed with
everlasting delight upon what God delights in. It is the “
old corn of the land “ that I sit down to there. And mark the
dierence as regards the passover. ey did not eat it with
the blood upon the doorposts, as in Egypt; they were there
enjoying the results of redemption in the consciousness
of the quiet security of the land. e aspect of the blood in
Egypt was that of keeping God away as a judge. ey were
sitting down too in the plains of Jericho, in the presence of
that great city, the type of all the power of the enemy; and
there they ate the “ old corn of the land “ (Jericho’s land in a
certain sense), before one bit of conict began. So with the
Christian.
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477
And here comes in the connection between our sitting
in heavenly places and our passage through the world. I
should be manifesting distinctly what is heavenly here, and
thus be practically a heavenly man, in the midst of worldly
men. I should be a heavenly man, as one that is there and at
home there, showing out what I have learned and enjoyed
there. Christ was, while walking and acting on earth, “ the
Son of man which is in heaven.” He manifested towards the
world the blessedness of the spirit and tone and character
of heaven. He could not be Messiah for the Jews without
being the Son of God for men.
If a Christian man is not walking in the Spirit, if the
esh is not subdued, he cannot display to the world the
temper and spirit and character of heaven-he is manifesting
something else. But the conicts of the heavenly places
(Eph. 6:12) are not merely conicts in the subduing of our
esh; they are conicts carried on in realizing and laying
hold of the things in Canaan that belong to ourselves and
others. If Joshua and the Israelites took cities in Canaan, it
was because they were in Canaan. Our enemies are there,
and there it is we should meet them. ere are things in
which we have to be faithful on earth; but there are also
things that belong to us because we are sitting together in
heavenly places in Christ. A man may be consistent in the
one, without displaying the heavenly man. You may see
some tolerably consistent on earth, whose souls are not
seeking to realize what is theirs in Christ: Satan’s eort is
ever to hinder our doing that. We cannot carry the esh
into the heavenly conict. If my esh is not mortied, I
cannot wield the weapons of that warfare. e esh always
brings in Satan’s power, who has got a title against it; and
God can never act with the esh, or display His power
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478
for us against our enemies, where it is allowed. If we were
walking as born of God, and as having on the whole armor
of God, the esh being habitually mortied, he could have
no eect; we should be able to go on in the simplicity of our
own service, and he could not come in with his wiles, as in
the case of Achan (Josh. 7), and of the Gibeonites (Josh.
9). e moment we get upon heavenly ground, as soon as
ever Joshua is in Canaan, I see the Lord’s sword drawn, and
the question is, “ Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? “ So
with us, there is the drawn sword. e moment we get into
heavenly places, the Canaanites are against us. e church
of God should be seeking to realize by faith whilst down
here all that belongs to it as sitting there in Christ. As soon
as Joshua crossed the Jordan, it was Canaan; but Canaan
and conict. All this has the character of the power of God
brought in where evil is.
As Christians we have to be pilgrims in consistency
with our condition in the wilderness. e Lord may give
us palm trees and wells of water (Ex. 15:27); the ark may
go before us to search out a resting place (Num. 10:33);
but if we are not prepared to go with the cloud whenever
it moves, we are not pilgrims and strangers, and we in
heart go back to Egypt. But the heavenly man, besides his
being a man with resurrection-life and the pilgrim of faith,
is to be the manifestation down here in the world of that
which is heavenly. It may be in the power of hope, but the
thing which he presents is that which is his now. He shows
plainly and distinctly that he is Canaan, and acts upon the
ground of being there. If the land was not as yet cleared of
its inhabitants, whose abominations deled it, still Joshua
knew what was suited to it; and therefore, when he had
taken the kings and hanged them, he did not leave them
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there after the sun went down; Josh. 10. He could not allow
God’s land to be deled.
As to what the Christian is “ hereafter,” it may be said
he is a risen man still, a heavenly man still. Hereafter, as an
individual, he will be the perfect result of the power of God,
not in the midst of evil, but of the power of God that has put
aside the evil. “ ere shall be no more curse; but the throne
of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall
serve him: and they shall see his face; and his name shall be
in their foreheads,” Rev. 22:3, 4. It is not another man, but
the same man, in the perfect enjoyment of blessedness in
the midst of good. ere are many points of view in which
who and what a Christian is now and hereafter might be
taken up. e question is far from being exhausted.
One branch of the subject, not touched upon as yet,
divides itself into two parts-heirship, and reigning with
Christ. A christian is an heir, as well as a child, an “heir of
God” and a “ joint-heir with Christ,” Rom. 8:17. Again, he
will reign with Christ; and it may be of use to see what the
part in our life here is corresponding to that of reigning.
e inheritance is connected with our being children, “ if
children, then heirs,” etc. e moment a person is in the
position of a child, there is an heir. e reigning part we nd
connected with suering: “ If we suer with him, we shall
also reign with him.” Both these things are no doubt spoken
of the Christian; still this is the principle, “ if we suer with
him,” etc.
Again, there is another character which this statement
suggests to the mind, and that is his priestly character. I
only refer to this now. We are kings and priests unto God.
In taking up this it would be interesting for us to see the
present intercessional character of priesthood; for in
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480
reigning by and by it will be as a royal priesthood, rather
than intercessional.
Life in Resurrection
481
62533
Life in Resurrection
Col. 3:1-4
THE great principle upon which a Christian stands is as
to what is his life, and from whence it ows. e Christian
is said to be raised from the dead-to have risen with Christ;
and whatever is not thus quickened and risen is not of
Christ. “ He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath
not the Son of God hath not life.” All blessing and comfort
is associated with this life in resurrection. ere is the
entering on a new position, and the setting aside forever all
previous and natural situation.
e apostle alludes to this in the preceding chapter
where he says, “ And you, being dead in your sins and the
uncircumcision of your esh, hath he quickened together
with him, having forgiven you all trespasses.” And again,
in chapter 3: I: “ If ye then be risen with Christ.” e
principle of life ows then from this: that he is dead, dead
with Christ, quickened with Christ, risen with Christ; thus
manifesting his practical identication with Christ in all
things.
In Eph. 2 it is said, “ You hath he quickened who were
dead in trespasses and sins,” to manifest “ what is the
exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe,
according to the working of his mighty power which he
wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead.”
e same power which wrought in Christ’s resurrection is
eectual for the spiritual resurrection of His people. “ God,
who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved
us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us
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together with Christ … and hath raised us up together, and
made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”
e Christian then, being quickened with Christ, has
the resurrection-life of Christ, and is privileged to sit in
Him in heavenly places, unto eternal life, as Christ is now
sitting at the right hand of God; and the consequence of
this position, when made known to the soul, is to bring in
a rich revenue of joy and comfort, even “ joy and peace in
believing.”
Now, where an individual is not in this position, it is just
to be under all his trespasses and sins-to have them upon
himself. He is a sinner, as all are; but he is nothing else than
a sinner in thought, principle, aection, and standing;
all that he is, and he is nothing else. Perhaps he may not
outwardly have manifested as much sin as others. He may
have been restrained by regard to decorum; he may not have
been placed in such circumstances as to draw it out equally
with others. He may not have had the opportunity as others
of appearing as great a sinner, but still he is a sinner, and
nothing else. If he has committed, in thought, word, or act,
one sin, that is the evidence that he is a sinner, as one bad
fruit evidences the unsoundness of the tree. Where did
he get the inclination to transgress? No union of outward
circumstances could have brought forth what was not
within.
Now there is no association of principle with God
as long as man remains in that state; but it decidedly
manifests his departure from God. It was that which caused
Adam to be driven out from the presence of God; actual
transgression, arising from dissociation of principle from
God; and all Adam’s responsible posterity have actually
transgressed; and so their natural position is, alienation
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from God: and except those who have received the new
life, being dead with Christ and risen with Him-that is just
the position and standing of every individual. ere is no
dierence of their being driven out- all were driven out in
Adam. As it says in Romans, “ ere is no dierence, for all
have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”
ere is one grand sin which leads men to the
commission of all others-the desire to please themselves.
If this has once been acted on, it constitutes that man a
sinner; just as the breach of one law of the land stamps a
man a criminal. We do not require him to run through the
transgression of every law in the statute book in order to
bring him in guilty; his having broken one is the evidence
of his guilt: we need no further proof. While acting then on
this as a principle, we are spiritually dead in trespasses and
sins. ere is no life, no love, in us; as our Savior said to those
by whom He was surrounded: “ I know you, that ye have
not the love of God in you.” Now this is the real fact, that
there is no assimilation to God in man’s natural state; but
the contrary principle-hatred, enmity.
Now this is the position of every individual of the
human race, until called out of the general mass by divine
grace. He is sprung from Adam, associated with him in his
sin, as to its guilt and condemnation, belongs to that world
which has the guilt not only of leaving God but of positively
rejecting Him. at is the world he loves, belongs to, and
forms a part of; and whether his transgressions are few or
great, he is doomed to destruction, if he continue so to the
end. Just as in the case of the ood: doubtless there was a
wide dierence in the amount of actual transgressions
among the sinful inhabitants of the world at that time;
but none were saved but Noah. Many might even have
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bid fair to be saved, so as to be near the ark, but none were
saved except such as were in the ark. So in Sodom: many
had not so openly exhibited their enmity to God as others,
and yet, in the general conagration, Lot alone escaped;
and why? Just because all the others, without distinction,
were opposed to God-were quite opposite to Him in every
principle, and consequently had come to that state of
exclusion from God’s presence.
If so, we are at present without God in the world; and to
be forever without Him is perfect misery. And is not this
really the present position of the world, though they are
unconscious of it? ere is a veil cast on futurity, as it regards
them. ey are occupied in the pleasures, amusements,
prots, and pursuits of a Christ-rejecting world. But when
the veil is raised, then will their position be disclosed. And
whosoever is of Christ will have Christ’s portion; they will
enter on the enjoyment of that portion, which by faith they
now see is prepared for them.
By faith alone have we any ‘of these exceeding great
promises now. Now is the time for us to ascertain by faith
our personal identication with Christ. Now are we to
know our interest in Him. e time is coming, yea, swiftly
coming, when we shall know even as we are known; and as
we are now quickened, raised, brought forth, what should
be the eects but to manifest our identication with Christ,
in a union so close and abiding that Paul says, “ We are
members of his body, of his esh, and of his bones “?
Christ went down into death for our transgressions,
though holy, yet accounted guilty. He did suer the penalty
of sin, and was brought “ into the dust of death.” He became
dead. Having thus put away sin, He rose again-He is
a risen Christ. A risen Christ is one that was dead; and it
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is with a risen Christ that we have now to do. is state of
blessedness He reveals to the soul by the Spirit of truth. He
reveals what He had done in man’s estate for man: as having
borne our sins, and thus evidencing that “ the wages of sin
is death.” e believer then knows experimentally what
Christ was doing here. He was bearing sin on the cross,
and making sacrice of Himself to the justice of God; “ It
pleased Jehovah to bruise him.”
Now there is the point on which the Christian rests:
the power of the recognition of God’s pleasure and God’s
approbation in the suerings and sacrice of Christ; the
point at which we feel the woes of Jesus inicted: not the
external perception, irrespective of a personal interest in His
unexampled aictions, such as the daughters of Jerusalem
felt, when they bewailed and lamented Him. “ Daughters
of Jerusalem,” said He, “ weep not for me, but weep for
yourselves and for your children.”
To weep in tender sympathy for human suerings and
woe does not testify a union of sentiment with God; but the
recognition of the wherefore “ it pleased Jehovah to bruise
him,” leading us to sorrow for those sins, and to rejoice at
the Lord’s approbation of their removal. is is a godly
aection; this brings to the soul a perception of Christ’s
woes, when He says, “ ou hast brought me into the dust
of death.” When the cup of suering was presented to Him,
mixed up with the bitterness of our sins-holy, yet agonized-
sinless, yet bruised: does not this present us with the view
God must take of sin? When we see, not the perpetrator,
but the bearer of sin only, exposed to such unexampled
suerings; and yet where, in what position, can we perceive
so clearly and completely the riches of divine grace, and
love, and mercy, as here?-” He spared not his own Son.”
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It is not merely the fact that He was left as it were to
the unmitigated rage of man; it was not merely that Adam’s
sinful race were permitted to “ persecute and take him “; but
God Himself withdrew the comfortable perception of the
light of His countenance, which extorted from Him that
bitter cry, “ My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me? “
e prophet, in the prospect of tills event, declares in Isa. 53
“ He had done no violence, neither was deceit found in his
mouth: yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him “-and why?
ere must have been some great concern passing
between heaven and earth; some wonderful transaction
pending between God and man; some immense
negotiation which was now to be decided, sucient to
awaken the world, and into which the very “ angels desire
to look.” ere must have been a something great and
tremendous to have had such consequences attached to it;
to have seen Him of whom the Father’s testimony was, “
is is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased “; and yet
“ pleased to bruise him! “
When this great mystery is understood (and none but
a believer can enter into the spiritual perception of it),
the soul is brought out of a state of death and darkness,
and is translated into life and light. It then sees and feels
what it was that caused the Father to bruise Him, and the
Son willing to be bound. When the believer sees Christ
reduced to that state of suering as to cry, “ Now is my soul
troubled,” then the believer himself experiences something
of this soul-trouble; when he hears Him exclaim, “ e
waters are come in, even unto my soul! “ and sees Christ “
sore amazed, and very heavy,” then he participates in spirit
in it; he sees, feels, believes it; and, seeing in it the evidence
of the love of Christ, is glad, and rejoices.
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And now, what were all these suerings about? Sin,
sin was the cause of all, and such sin as to draw down such
fearful consequences on the bearer of it-how tremendous!
Now, if we are not such wrath-deserving sinners, for whom
was it undertaken? Assuredly not for us. If we have not
come to the consciousness that our individual sins were so
aggravated that in full justice they deserved What was laid
on Jesus; that as He was bearing our sin, so was He bearing
the penalty of it; if we are not brought to see these sins as
ours, and the guilt of them ours, we have no consciousness
of assimilation or union with Christ. If any of you can say,
I know nothing of this soul-trouble, this does not describe
my feelings and state, then what have you to do with the
promises of eternal life to the miserable, wretched, sinful?
If you can say, It is not so with me; I do not think myself
so bad as to draw down such heavy judgments upon me
individually; I am not worse than others, and sin is not such
a grief to me; then assuredly all these suerings and agony
and woe cannot be manifestly about you.
If the consciousness of it has not been to make you “
sore amazed and very heavy,” troubled and oppressed, then
is Christ crucied no concern as yet of yours. But if we
have seen and received the truth, that the death of Christ
was the wages of our sins; if we have seen and understood
the meaning and sense of His suerings and death, and
by appropriation can lay claim to them as ours, then the
resurrection comes home to our souls with a quickening
and revivifying power.
If we have seen Him really bearing the consequences
of our sins, brought into the dust of death for us; if we can
experimentally understand Christ on the tree, bearing the
heavy burden of His people’s sins-so heavy, that they bore
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Him to the very dust of death and brought Him low, even
to the grave; if we can see Him rising without them, having
put them away by His precious blood; then are we in a state
to enter into the perception of that glorious privilege, “
having forgiven you all trespasses.” ough our sins brought
Him down to the grave, yet they could not hold Him there,
“ because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.”
He rose, having triumphed over sin; He left sin no longer
on His people or Himself, but washed it all away, never to
appear against them, never again to draw down heaven’s
wrath.
e grave then has borne witness with us that He was
dead; that He put away sin, rose above it and every enemy:
the full tide of His people’s iniquity was here expiated,
and forever! Eternal justice poured down the punishment
which sin deserved, until sin was no more. Christ, having
risen from the dead, became the living witness that the
justice and truth of God were forever satised. Had there
been one sin unatoned for, there the surety must have
remained. “ ou shalt not depart thence till thou hast
paid the very last mite “: that is what the law exacts; but
the penalty was paid in all its demands, and eternal justice
perfectly satised.
ere was no more required, nothing more demanded;
and all this in perfect accordance with the purpose, counsel,
and determination of God. e sins were owned, were
confessed in penitence and shame, were mourned over, and
the bearer held up to heaven, on which were to be inicted
the terrible eects of God’s wrath. at wrath He met, and
thus forever settled the question between God and sin.
ere is no more suering for sin; the controversy
is now at an end forever. Now the believer has done with
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sin, as regards God’s anger and condemnation; he also is
risen, risen with Christ-has recognized it as his sin which
is put away by the Redeemer-that He was accounted
the guilty one. Seeing this, he sees his sin put away; if he
did not, it would be to suppose that the suerings were
not commensurate to the extent of sin; that the death of
the victim has not expiated all; that it is not all done away
with; but the believer, who is conscious of having risen with
Christ, sees sin gone, forgotten, no more to be remembered.
It is actually gone as regards us (believers); and in that
position we are actually standing in the presence of God,
justied from all things, risen with Him without sin unto
salvation, brought up before God in a justied state.
Who then can (or shall) lay anything to the charge of
God’s elect? It is God Himself that justieth; it is Christ
Himself that died, yea rather, that is risen; nay in Him
His people are complete, and made one by virtue of union
with Him here. How solid is the ground for peace, and
an occasion for great rejoicing, “ He was delivered for our
oenses, and was raised again for our justication.” Now we
see that this mighty transaction was all about us, and that
we are the persons interested in it. Now indeed we see why
Christ became incarnate, suered, and died: it was for us,
and for us too He rose again. e moment we can, by faith,
see our personal interest in the sinless suerings of Christ,
that moment we have the certainty of our redemption; we
taste of the cup which He drank, and are associated with
Him in all He did and suered.
Having seen what we belonged to as heirs of the rst
Adam, “ by nature children of wrath, even as others,” we
now see our entrance on another position, as heirs of the
second Adam; we see that, as we did belong to that system
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of whose members it is said, “ ey have all gone out of
the way “; and that “ there is none good, no, not one “; and
that “ they drink in iniquity like water “; believers can say,
“ Jehovah hath laid on him the iniquity of us all “; they are
now translated into another state, another system of things;
they are “ risen with him through the faith of the operation
of God “; they have heard the voice of the Son of God, and
live; they live the life of Christ; and though this life is not
fully exhibited in this present dispensation, yet it is a real
true life.
ere is more truth in God’s life than in man’s life: it is
not a name, a voice, a notion, but eternal life, that very life
which Christ has now, that very life which is without end,
that we have. “ He that hath the Son hath life “; he has it
now: there is no such thing as shall, as regards our possession
of it. “ He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life
“; and is not the believer called upon, by these wonderful
mercies, by this stupendous grace, to exhibit his possession
of this eternal life? He is. And how? e apostle says, “ Seek
those things which are above,” Col. 3:3.
Now, brethren in the Lord Jesus, are you doing so? Are
you dead now to all that you were conscious of being alive
to before? It is true, your life is hid now to sight, you see
it not; but “ blessed are they that have not seen, and yet
have believed.” It is, nevertheless, a certain life; and when
Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall they who
have been quickened by the life-giving power of the Son of
God appear with Him; then will it be seen that there is, and
there can be, “ no condemnation to them who are in Christ
Jesus.” Of this they are now conscious, for “ he that believeth
hath the witness in himself.” Yes, they have the eternal
Spirit testifying to the believer of the truth of God, making
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known to him his personal identication with Christ, his
oneness with Him, as well as his perfect acceptance and
justication in consequence of His work.
In the sensible enjoyment of this the believer lives, and
walks accordingly. He lives, subject to this new life which he
derives from Christ; it has its desires, aections, and objects
of delight. Your natural life has its likings and attractions,
“ the lust of the esh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of
life “; and so has the life of God-Christ in glory, having
triumphed over every enemy, and holiness and happiness
with Him in heaven: these are our objects, our desires-the
aections tend upwards to them.
Suppose a person now alive with Christ in glory, what
would be his desires, feelings, and pursuits? Just similar,
then, should be that of those who are alive with Him with
that life which Christ gives. e glory of God should be
their one end and aim. ey have not merely the forfeited
life which Adam lost, but eternal life.
e peculiar joy of the believer is the consciousness that
he stands before God as Jesus stands; that he is a partaker of
that love which God has for Jesus. So prayed Christ, “ that
the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and
I in them.” Where can we know anything of this love but in
Jesus? e only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the
Father, He alone declares it. He brings it to our souls as one
that knows it Himself, and tells us that God has loved us as
He loves Him.
Here then is the position of the Christian, and it is a
position of deep blessedness, everlasting blessedness, to
stand as Christ stands before God, without the shadow or
imputation of sin, perfectly justied, to be loved with the
same love. is is wondrous blessing; and this is Christ’s
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joy and delight, to bring them into the same blessedness
with Himself, as happy as Himself. It is His very rejoicing
to come and make known to the soul these great and
inestimable privileges, to reveal Himself and the Father
by the eternal Comforter; and, notwithstanding the
weariness of the esh, the body of corruption, and the
many, many hindrances to the enjoyment of this privileged
spiritual existence, yet doth grace triumph over all in the
soul of the believer, enabling him in faith to enter into the
appropriation of Christ’s declaration: “ My Father and your
Father, my God and your God.” Standing as in the presence
of God, free from all condemnation, resulting from what
Christ has done and suered, having made reconciliation
for iniquity and brought in everlasting righteousness. Now
faith realizes this; it recognizes the justice of God satised,
and His love well pleased; it rests on this, and lives in the
enjoyment of it.
Now do you believe this? If you do, what practical eects
has it led to? Are you dead to the world? Would you like to
be dead? Would you feel it painful to be as dead to the world
as Christ is now? ere can be no assimilation to heaven
in the things, desires, and pursuits of this world. e world
does not like heaven, nor anything belonging to heaven:
such is the judgment that was passed on it; it was proved
when the Lord came down from heaven, and they turned
Him out of the world. God had one Son; there was just one
thing in heaven with which God would try man; “ I have yet
one Son, it may be they will reverence him.” But no; they
would not let Christ have the world, neither would they
have Him. Men did not like Him; He was not the portion
they wanted, and therefore they got rid of Him.
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Now we must either have the portion of the world, or
Christ’s portion. Happy they who have the Lord for their
portion! Happy they who are dead to all the little gilded
toys of the world, which Satan has scattered around in order
to entrap us! All the blessings and fullness of the Father’s
love are in Christ’s portion; but then He is a Savior that is
dead to every other portion; soon will this be, not a hidden
treasure, but a manifested one. He is now gathering out
of the world His own, picking them out from among all
nations, testifying His unwearied patience and forbearance
towards still unpunished sinners; but when the last saint
has been brought into the church, Christ Himself will then
appear, to the joy of those who have confessed His name
here and borne testimony to His truth, who have been
content to give up all for Him. It will be then quite another
scene from what the world anticipates, quite another
dispensation; and what the saints have been waiting for will
then be accomplished-” the manifestation of the sons of
God.”
Have you believed this? If you have, do you act on it?
Are you looking for, and hastening towards, the appearing
of the glory of the Lord? Are you conscious of being dead
to that world which crucied Christ? When you say, We
are “ risen with Christ,” are you conscious of a distaste to, a
dissociation from, those things that crucied Him? or are
you alive to a judged world? are you favoring that world?
If you are, then are you t assessors over it? for the word of
God declares, “ the saints shall judge the world.” “ ey that
are Christ’s have crucied the esh with the aections and
lusts.” “ If we suer with him, we shall also reign with him.”
“ Set your aection on things above, not on things on the
earth.”
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If you are one with Christ, walk in the privileges of that
union, and “ when Christ who is our life shall appear, then
shall ye also appear with him in glory.”
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62530
Faith and Its Footsteps
Hebr. 2
IT is impossible to deny that there is some principle
livingly working in the world which has signally called out
the hatred and opposition of man. It has been so from Abel
downwards to the present day.
e “ course of this world “ has gone on. It is now going
on around us. But in the midst of this there has been, and
there is, a motive acting, which calls out the hostility and
proud judgment of the world. at history is the history
of the town in which we are, as well as of Cain and Abel.
In every age and in every country it has been so. We nd
the people of faith the objects of the hatred of man. But
God owns this people. “ Others,” we read here, “ had trial
of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds
and imprisonments: they were stoned, they were sawn
asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they
wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins; being
destitute, aicted, tormented, of whom the world was not
worthy “ (v. 36-38). Here God gives His history of them.
He does not interfere. He leaves them “ destitute, aicted,
tormented.” He does not meddle with the world, and the
world goes on. It will not be always so, but that is the present
fact. “ Because sentence against an evil work is not executed
speedily, therefore the hearts of the sons of men are fully set
in them to do evil.” ey go their own way, “ the course of
this world,” Eph. 2:2. It is not God’s world. So little does He
meddle with it, that, when His own children-those whom
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He owns-are “ destitute, aicted, tormented,” He does not
interfere. It has departed from Him and He will not own it.
We nd the same thing in the message to the angel of
the church of Smyrna, in the book of Revelation: “ e devil
shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried, and
ye shall have tribulation ten days.” How came that? could
He not interfere? “ Be thou faithful unto death, and I will
give thee a crown of life.” ere is hope in another scene.
If a person will walk with God, he must walk by faith; he is
walking in the midst of a world where God is not owned,
and where God does not interfere-a world ripening for
judgment. He sends a testimony; and just in proportion as
we are faithful to His testimony, the prince of this world
will torment us. “ I say unto you,” the Lord Jesus tells
His disciples, “ that Elias is come already, and they knew
him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed.
Likewise shall the Son of man suer of them.” at is the
character of the “ course of this world.” God may control
by secret providence and overrule, but that is its character.
Faith has its testimony, and goes on with it, recognizing
that God does not own the world. “ We give thee thanks,
0 Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to
come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and
hast reigned: and the nations were angry, and thy wrath is
come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged,
and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the
prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name,
small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy
the earth,” Rev. 11:17, 18. Until then they must live by faith
of that which is unseen.
is was specially a trial for the Hebrews. eir very
religion was one of sight. ey had a system to walk by, a
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visible temple, sacrices, priesthood, and the like. Messiah
they expected to see. When they did see Him, they hated
and put Him to death; and this Messiah was gone to
heaven. In becoming Christians they lost all they had
possessed, and gained nothing-nothing that was tangible
to the esh. ere was therefore the constant temptation to
deny an unseen Messiah, and to turn back to things seen.
e apostle sums up in this chapter, and shows that all
through man’s history, no matter who had obtained a “ good
report,” it was by faith. Men will count us fools. We may
give as a denition of folly, a man’s acting most consistently
for an object that nobody sees, and nobody believes to be
true. e saint’s warrant is the word of God. e moment
he acts upon any object seen, he ceases to act as a Christian.
Christ lived, in that sense, the life of faith. It is the life of
faith we get here, not salvation, or the nding peace in the
way of faith. ere is a single exception (Abel), or which
may be so in measure. Faith is looked at as the power by
which they walked.
ere are these two things in faith: as it regards, rst,
peace of soul; second, power for walk. If I talk of faith, I may
mean belief of a testimony-a person tells me a thing, and I
believe him. But there is another sense in which I may have
faith in that man; that is, I may put my trust in him. We
often confound these things. ere is the testimony of God,
which I have to believe, and a trusting in God, which is the
power of my walk. at which gives me peace is, receiving
the testimony of God: I do want condence in God for
power of walk, but I must not confound this condence in
God with His testimony.
We shall nd the two things in Abraham. God called
Abraham, and showed him the stars of heaven, and said, “
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So shall thy seed be,” and Abraham “ believed God.” In the
oering up of Isaac (v. 9) there was not the receiving of a
testimony, but “ believing in God.”
Here I am, a sinner, with the consciousness of sin:
how can I trust in God? I know Him to be a holy God, a
hater of sin: how can I trust in Him? I dare not be in His
presence with sin upon me; what can meet that? it is not
denying the holiness of God; it is not my putting away my
sin; but God tells me my sin is put away. I believe Him. is
is not trusting in His power. e thing that gives me peace
is my receiving a testimony. My spirit cannot rest, when I
am conscious of sin, unless I know that it is not imputed to
me: it is God who has seen it just as it is; my being content
with myself will not do; I must have God content about
me. ere is a wrestling going on in the soul that wants to
be content with itself. Believing God’s testimony, it would
be at peace. It has never yet been brought to feel itself a
thoroughly worthless sinner. e question is, not as to my
not having sin, but do I believe what God says when He says
it is put away? ere is really a work of the Spirit of God in
this, not in producing what will satisfy me, but in bringing
my soul to say, It is all over with me. God often allows it to
struggle on, trying to get better; He lets it, and, like a man
in the mire who pulls one foot out to get the other in, its
case is only worse. e answer to this comes in, the blessed
truth of the gospel by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ,
that “ by him all that believe are justied from all things,”
Acts 13:38, 39. I nd God perfectly at rest: He is resting in
Jesus, perfectly satised. Christ says, “ I have nished the
work which thou gavest me to do “; and God says, “ Sit thou
on my right hand.” I get rest to my soul, because I nd that
God has not one single thing against me. ere is often this
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499
struggling under the sense of conviction before the soul gets
peace.
Another thing is the walk of faith. Come sifting, come
trial, come what may, the ground of my peace is never
touched. If it were not completely settled-done, it never
could be; and why? because God says that “ without [not
‘sprinkling’ but] shedding of blood there is no remission,”
Heb. 9:22. erefore, if not perfectly done, Christ must die
again, shed His blood again. But it is nished. e Spirit of
God will make me see it; but it is done. I take this word of
Jesus, “ I have gloried thee on the earth, I have nished the
work which thou gavest me to do “; and I say, “ It is nished.”
Now I nd the path of faith opened before me. I am sure
God loves me, and is nothing but love; I can therefore trust
in Him. I know His love. He has saved me as a sinner, I can
trust in His love as a saint. Mark the order in which things
are presented here. To faith that which is unseen becomes as
near and as real as though present to sight (v. 1); yea, much
more so; because there is deception in seen things; but there
is no deception in things communicated by the Spirit to
the heart. rough faith we know that creation was by the
word of God (v. 3). en (v. 4) we come to the great basis on
which a fallen creature can have to say to God. Let us look a
little at the distinctive character of Abel’s sacrice.
Cain oered to God what cost him more. His was not
the case of a thoroughly irreligious man; he oered to God,
worshipped God, and was utterly rejected. He was not
an indel or an irreligious man; but a worshipper, and a
rejected worshipper. His worship was founded on unbelief.
A sinner, one out of paradise, he thought to go to God as
though nothing had happened! So with man; they think
they can go and worship God, paying a compliment to
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Him. And what did he bring? e very thing that had the
stamp of the curse upon it. God had said, “ Cursed is the
ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the
days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to
thee; thou shalt eat the herb of the eld; in the sweat of thy
face shalt thou eat bread.” at is what comes of a person
thinking he can worship God (“ do his duty,” as he terms it);
it is the denial of the whole truth of his condition.
What does Abel? Quite another thing: he brings a slain
lamb, he comes through death (in principle, through the
atonement of Christ). He sets between himself and God
the testimony of a provided sacrice. “ By faith he oered.”
Before the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the revelation
had been that such a thing would be done; as though I
were to say to a debtor in prison, I will pay your debts. All
that we enjoy as a nished work was a subject of hope. “
Whom God,” it is said, “ hath set forth to be a propitiation
through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for
the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance
of God; to declare, at this time, his righteousness: that he
might be just and the justier of him which believeth in
Jesus,” Rom. 3:25, 26. We are not looking onward to a future
sacrice; I have not a promise of getting out of the prison-I
am out. We have a testimony that the thing is done, and the
Holy Ghost is the seal of the testimony. e Holy Ghost
cannot testify anything to my soul otherwise than that the
work is done, the debt paid, the door opened, all nished.
Two things are spoken of in 1 Peter 1:11, “ the suerings of
Christ, and the glories that should follow “: we are between
these two things. e believer stands upon one-half done.
e Old Testament saints looked for both; we come after
the suerings, and look for the glories. e Holy Ghost
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has been sent down meanwhile to testify of accomplished
redemption. is is not my hope. I am not waiting for my
sins to be put away: they are put away. is is the basis on
which we rest. God rests in the accepted work of His Son,
and there I rest.
Next (v. 5), we come to the walk of Enoch. Here I
nd another thing. Of course everybody is not translated
as Enoch and Elijah were. Not only can I approach God
(faith does not merely tell me this), but that has come in
which has set death altogether aside. Death belongs to me
now; it is not (as it is called) a “ king of terrors “: all things
are ours; life is ours; death is ours; for we are Christ’s and
Christ is God’s; 1 Cor. 3:22, 23. In Enoch we nd a walk
with God; a power of life with God, and such a power that
death is not seen. We have the life of the Son of God, and
not only His death; the blessed truth, not simply of a made
sacrice, so as to give my soul peace, but that all the power
of Satan in death has been destroyed. God allowed Satan
to do his worst: all that “ the prince of the world “ could do
was brought to bear upon His Son, and it is gone forever.
“ I am crucied with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I,
but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now life in the
esh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and
gave himself for me.” “ We are always condent, knowing
that whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from
the Lord … condent, and willing rather to be absent from
the body and to be present with the Lord,” 2 Cor. 5. What I
am looking for is not to be “ unclothed “ but to be “ clothed
upon “; but if I die, the life that I have is untouched, and I am
“ present with the Lord.”
Here I nd two things which faith recognizes: rst,
the blood of atonement, by which sin was put away; and
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secondly, a power of life, by which we walk (not merely as
His people, but) with God. e result will be that the power
of death is entirely gone. We are identied with a living
Christ-as we are saved by the death of Christ.
We do not hear anything about “ condemning the
world “ in the case of Abel, or in that of Enoch. God “ bears
testimony to the gifts “ of the one; and the other “ walks
with God.” But I nd another thing (v. 7). We are going
through the world, and God has given us a testimony about
the world, and about what is going to happen to the world-
infallible judgment. He has “ appointed,” it is said, “ a day,
in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by
that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given
assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the
dead,” Acts 17:31. “ By faith Noah, being warned of God
of things not seen as yet [prophetic testimony], moved
with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house, by the
which he condemned the world, and became heir of the
righteousness which is by faith.” Warned of what is coming
on the world, he owns and recognizes the judgment,
and falls in with God’s revealed way of salvation; and
he condemns the world. Mark this: faith “ condemns the
world “; not merely is it belief in a sacrice that saves, and
power for walk with God; but it says of the world, that it is
altogether departed from God, and is going to be judged.
We have the testimony of the word of God, that the
thing that is coming upon the world is judgment. ere is
many a person who, as a saint, would rest in a saint’s walk
with God, but who shrinks from breaking with the world.
e saint is so to act upon this testimony as to the judgment
of the world as practically to condemn the world. Had we
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Noah’s faith, as well as Abel’s and Enoch’s, we could not go
with the world.
If His people are saved by Him, He is coming to judge
the world; and therefore they have their portion with
Christ, and in Christ, so that when He comes they will be
with Him. As sure as Christ rose from the dead, He is “ the
man “ God has ordained to judge the world-” this present
evil world “; and so sure there is no judgment for you and for
me, if we believe in Him. at by which I know there will be
a judgment is that by which I know there will be none for
me. How do I know there will be a judgment? Because God
has raised Him from the dead. What more has God told me
of His resurrection? at my sins are all put away.
ere is another thing which we cannot enlarge upon
now (v. 8). e apostle turns to another point, the practical
active manifestation of the power of faith. It was this
strengthened Abraham. He trusted, so to speak, blindly in
God. God called him by His grace, and he went out, not
knowing whither he went. ere comes in condence
in God; not simply the receiving a testimony, but blind,
implicit condence in God. A person might say, If I only
knew what would be the consequences of my doing so, I
could trust God. en you will never go. Look at Adam;
how did Adam act? He had present external things, but he
took the devil’s word in faith. God turns round and says, You
have believed the devil, when you had all My good things;
now you must trust Me. You go out not knowing whither
you go, because of trusting in the person that is leading you.
God will give light enough to say, God wills this, and I do
not see another step. When you have turned the corner, you
will see what is round the corner.
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Further, when we have taken a step, we shall nd that
the Lord never satises us: He blesses, but He does not
satisfy. When Abraham comes into the place which he
should afterward receive for an inheritance, what has he
got? Nothing. He is still a stranger. is the heart dislikes.
Hence the disappointments often experienced. As regards
our prospects, we have our own thoughts about them; we
are thinking perhaps of what we are going to make them
twenty years hence. God is going to bring us into His rest.
He brings Abraham into the land; and then He begins
to lead his thoughts to another country. He gets near God,
and is placed upon a high enough platform of faith to see
it is all before him yet. e Lord reveals Himself to him in
communion; speaks with him, unfolds to him His purposes;
and Abraham worships. He has his tent and his altar. And
this is what God does with us; He makes Christians of us,
brings us into the land of promise, and makes us see it is all
before us yet. is is not the time for rest. e eye becomes
clear in the ways of God; and we have the privilege of
being strangers and sojourners with God, and we shall be
strangers and sojourners until we get home in the home of
God.
Beloved friends, how is it with you as regards this? Can
you really say, My home is in God’s home (the home of
your hearts, that is); I have no home till then, and I do not
want one. ere is not anything between us and God, no
sin between us and God, or Christ is not there (He is there
because He has put it all away); both cannot be there. Are
your souls then resting on the Lord Jesus Christ? or are you
working to settle something that has been settled already?
e Lord give us to believe His testimony, and to trust in
His power.
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It is characteristic of faith to reckon on God, not simply
spite of diculty, but spite of impossibility. Faith concerns
not itself about means; it counts upon the promise of God.
To the natural man the believer may seem to lack prudence;
nevertheless, from the moment it becomes a question of
means which render the thing easy to man, it is no longer
God acting; it is no longer His work where means are
looked to. When with man there is impossibility, God must
come in; and it is so much the more evidenced to be the
right way, since God only does that which He wills. Faith
has reference to His will, and to that only; thus it consults
not either about means or circumstances, in other words
it consults not with esh and blood. Where faith is weak,
external means are beforehand reckoned on in the work of
God. Let us remember that when things are feasible to man,
there is no longer need of faith, because there is no longer
need of the energy of the Spirit. Christians do much, and
eect little-why?
Verses 13-17. Not only were those spoken of here
“ strangers and pilgrims,” but they “ confessed “ it. People
sometimes wish to be religious in the heart, and not to
speak of it: there is no energy of faith there. To see the world
to be lost and condemned, to have our hopes in heaven-
such facts must, of necessity, produce a proportionate
result, that of making us think and act as “ strangers and
pilgrims “ here. And it will be manifested in the whole
life. e heart already gone, it remains but to set out. is
evidently involves open and public profession of it; and
herein is a testimony for Christ. Who would be satised
with the friend that owned us not when circumstances were
dicult? e concealed Christian is a very bad Christian.
Faith xed on Jesus, we embrace the things we have seen
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afar o; we are not mindful of the country from whence
we have come out, we have at heart that which is before
us. Where diculties are in the path and the aections
not set on Jesus, the world rises again in the heart; Phil.
3:7-14. Paul had not acted in a moment of excitement to
repent forthwith; his heart lled with Christ, he counts
all but “ dross and dung.” Perseverance of heart marks the
Christian’s aections to be onward, his desires heavenly.
And God is not ashamed to be called his God.
It is either the esh, or faith; impossible that, at bottom,
there can be a stopping half-way. e aim of the Christian
must be heavenly things. e appetites, the necessities,
of the new man are heavenly. Christians may be used
for bettering the world, but this is not God’s design. e
seeking to link ourselves with the world, and the using
Christianity for world-mending, are earthly things. God’s
design is to link us with heaven. You must have heaven
without the world, or the world without heaven. He who
prepares the city cannot wish for us anything between the
two. e “ desire “ of a “ better country “ is the desire of a
nature entirely from above.
Verses 17-19. Abraham held to the promises more than
to natural aection. e strength of the trial to him was in
this, that God had pointed out Isaac as the accepted seed,
the one connected with the promises. Faith counts on God.
God stops Abraham, and conrms His promise to the seed.
In obeying we get an acquaintance with the ways of God,
of which otherwise we should have had no conception.
Unbelief causes us to lose joy, strength, spiritual life; we
know not where we are.
Verses 24-26. e carnal heart uses the providence
of God against the life of faith. Providence brings down
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Pharaoh’s daughter to the child Moses. In the midst of the
world’s wisdom, at the court of Pharaoh, providence has
placed him (as it might seem) to use his inuence in Israel’s
favor. e rst thing faith makes him do is to leave it all. He
might have been able to succor Israel through his inuence,
but Israel must have remained in bondage to Egypt. Faith is
“ imprudent “; yet it has that eternal prudence which counts
on God, and nothing but Him. It discerns that which is of
the Spirit; and what is not of the Spirit is not of faith, and
not of God. To hold to providence thus is at bottom the
desire to “enjoy the pleasures of sin.” e world is loved, and
there is the wish to lean on circumstances, instead of God; it
is not a “ good providence “ when a man is ruined.
Moses appeared to be weakening himself in preferring
the reproach of the people of God, and of the people of
God in a bad state. He might see them in a sad condition;
but faith identies the people of God with the promises of
God, and judges of them, not according to their state, but
according to His thoughts. Energetic against evil, he counts
upon God as to the people.
Verse 27. e world would persuade us to be “ good
Christians,” whilst acting and walking as others. Called to
glory, faith of necessity quits Egypt; God has not placed
the glory there. To be well o in the world is not to be
well o in heaven. “ All that is in the world is not of the
Father.” To leave the world, when the world has driven us
out, is not faith; it is to show that the will was to remain
there as long as we could. Faith acts on the promises of
God and not because it is driven out by the world. Moses “
sees him that is invisible.” is makes him decided. When
we realize the presence of God, Pharaoh is nothing. It is
not that circumstances are the less dangerous; but God is
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there. In communion, they become the occasion of tranquil
obedience. Jesus drinks the cup, Peter draws the sword; that
which brings out obedience in Jesus is a stumbling-block to
Peter. Where there is lack of communion, there is weakness
and indecision.
Verse 30. At the blast of rams’ horns, after they have
been compassed about seven days, the wall of Jericho
fall down. ings which appear base and contemptible
are not so when done before the Lord; 2 Sam. 6. To faith
Jericho’s walls are not any more than the Red Sea, or the
Jordan. Verse 31. Who would have thought of Rahab? yet
by faith she acknowledges God. Faith makes nothing of
distinctions amongst men; it says that God is rich in mercy
towards all that call upon Him. ere is no dierence, for
that all have sinned. In the midst of diculties she sides
with the people of God.
e condence of faith is manifested in the Christian
life as a whole. Christians are often brought to a stand,
through measuring their own strength with temptation,
instead of exclusive reference to God. ey go on well up
to a certain point. One man talks of his family, another of
the future (if any have not faith, all we can do is to pray for
him); in the various concerns of life our reasonings means
but this, I have not the faith that counts on God. Faith has
reference entirely and exclusively to God. Duty ever leads
into diculty; but I have the consolation of saying, God is
there, and victory certain; otherwise, in my apprehension,
there is something stronger than God. is demands a
perfect practical submission of the will.
When the children of God are faithful, God may leave
them in trial and diculty to bring out that in them which
is not of the Spirit. He may also allow evil to have its course
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and test us, in order that we may understand that the aim
of faith is not here at all, and see that, in circumstances
the most dicult, God can intervene, as in the sacrice of
Abraham and the raising of Lazarus.
Man looks not beyond the circumstances which
surround him. To tarry in circumstances is unbelief;
aiction springs not out of the dust. Satan is behind the
circumstances to set us on; but, behind all that, God is there
to break our wills.
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62507
No More Conscience of Sins
Heb. 10
THE object of redemption is to bring us nigh to God,
as it is written, “ Christ hath once suered for sins, the
just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.” But
what is our state before God when thus brought nigh?
e right understanding of this is most important. It is
impossible that we could be happy even in the presence of
God, if there still existed a thought of His being against
us. I need the perfect settled assurance that there is no
sin upon me before Him. e sense of responsibility ever
makes a person unhappy when there is any question as to
sin standing against him: see the case of a servant and his
master, or that of a child and its parent-the conscience is
miserable if there be upon it the sense of that which will be
judged. So God’s presence must be indeed terrible, unless
the conscience be perfectly good. If there be happiness for
me there, it can only be in the sense of His favor, and of the
completeness with which we have been brought back-the
perfect assurance of “ the worshipper once purged “ having “
no more conscience of sins.”
God speaks to us according to His estimate of our
standing: it may not be our heart’s experience. ere is
a distinctness between the operation of the Spirit of God
in bringing me unto Jesus, bearing witness to me of God’s
love, and of the ecacy of what Christ has done, and His
operation in my soul in producing in me the love of God.
at which is the subject of experience is what is produced
in my own soul, whereas that which gives me peace is His
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testimony to the work of Jesus. A Christian who doubts the
Father’s love to him, and who looks for peace to that which
passes in his own heart, is doubting God’s truth. e gospel
is the revelation God has given of Himself; it displays the
love of God towards us, and what is in His heart. I can trust
the declaration of what is in God’s heart, and not what I
think of myself.
e apostle speaks of a due time: “ When we were yet
without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.”
It is almost always true that there is in us a terrible process
of breaking the heart, in order that we may be brought to
the ascertainment that we are lost and ruined sinners; but
the gospel begins at the close of God’s experience of man’s
heart, and calls us from that in order that we should have joy
and peace from the experience of what is in His heart. Man
left alone before the ood, put under the law, in Canaan,
indeed under all and every trial of his nature and tendency
up to the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, was just God’s
putting him to the test.
One would have thought, after Adam had been turned
out of paradise for transgression, that would have been a
sucient warning; but his rst-born became a murderer.
We should have supposed that the ood which swept o
the workers of iniquity would have repressed, for a time
at least, by the terror of judgment, the outbreak of sin; but
we nd immediately afterward Noah getting drunk, and
Ham dishonoring his father. e devouring re of Sinai,
which made even Moses fear and quake, seemed sucient
to subdue the rebel heart and make it bow beneath God’s
hand; but the golden calf was the awful evidence that
the heart of man was “ deceitful above all things, and
desperately wicked.” Again in Canaan a part of the world
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512
was tried to the utmost to be cultivated, but it would not do.
A bad tree producing bad fruit was the only type by which
God could set Israel forth. See Isa. 5 He might dig about
it and dung it, but after all these eorts it could only bring
forth more bad fruit. At last He said, “ I have yet one son,
perhaps they will reverence my son,” but man preferred
having the world for himself, and so crucied Jesus.
Looking to His cross, Christ said, “ Now is the judgment of
this world,” John 12.
At the crucixion of Jesus, the veil was rent, and the
holiest opened; what God was within the veil then shone
out in all its fullness. When grace reveals this to me, I get
condence. I see God holy and expecting holiness-true; but
the peace of God is in knowing what He is to us, and not
what we are to Him. He knows all the evil of our hearts.
Nothing can be worse than the rejection of Jesus-man’s
hatred is shown out there, and God’s love to the full. e
wretched soldier (who, in the cowardly impotence of the
consciousness that he could with impunity insult the meek
and lowly Jesus, pierced His side with a spear), let out, in
that disgraceful act, the blood and the water, which was able
to cleanse even such as he. Here God’s heart was revealed,
what He is to the sinner; and this is our salvation.
Death and judgment teach me redemption. God judged
sin indeed in sacricing His well-beloved Son to put it
away. It must be punished: Jesus bore the blow-this rent
the veil, and showed out what God really is. e very blow
that let out the holiness of God put away the sin which His
holiness judged. e perfect certainty of God’s love and the
perfect cleansing of the conscience is that which the deled
and trembling sinner needs. “ By the grace of God “ Jesus
Christ has “ tasted death.” Death, the wages of sin, is seen in
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513
the cross of Jesus as the consequence of “ the grace of God.”
“ Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong
sweetness.” Were anyone to demand of me a proof of God’s
love, I could not give more than God has done in that “ He
spared not his own Son “: none other could be so great. But
then, it might be asked, may not my sin aect it? No, God
knew all your sin, and He has provided for it all: “ the blood
of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”
In real communion the conscience must be purged;
there can be no communion if the soul be not at peace.
We read here, “ By one oering he hath perfected forever
them that are sanctied.” ere is very frequently the
confounding of what faith produces with what faith rests
upon. Faith always rests upon God’s estimate of the blood
of Jesus as He has revealed it in His word: faith rests on no
experience. Jesus said, “ Lo, I come to do thy will, 0 God!
“-” by the which will we are sanctied by the oering of the
body of Jesus Christ once for all.” “ We are sanctied,” it is
not that which is proposed for our attainment; it was the
good will of God to do it, and the work is done, to bring
our souls back unto Himself. Jesus has said “ it is nished.”
But then there must be the knowledge of this also, in order
for us to begin to act. You might have a person willing to
pay your debts; nay, you might even have them paid; but
if you did not know it, you would be just as miserable as
before. We are not called upon to believe in a promise that
Jesus should come to die and rise again. e work is done.
He “ sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high “ “
when he had by himself purged our sins.” But then this is
not sucient for me: I must know that the work is done; and
therefore He sent down the Holy Ghost to be the witness
that God is satised.
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Knowing perfectly their guilt and amount, God has
declared, “ your sins and iniquities I will remember no
more.” Faith rests on this, “ God is true “: “ he that hath
received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true.”
e Lord said to Israel in Egypt concerning the blood of
the paschal lamb, “ When I see the blood, I will pass over.”
Could there be hesitation if we were in a house marked
with the blood on the door-post? Should we not know that
He would pass over? Faith is always divine certainty. God
has said, “ I will remember no more.” is is the ground
on which we enter into the holiest. “ e worshipper once
purged “ has “ no more conscience of sins.”
God has found His rest in Jesus: our peace and joy
depend upon knowing this. Were anything more necessary,
it could not be His rest: God is not seeking for something
else when at rest. None else could have aorded this. “
God looked down from heaven upon the children of men
to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek
God.” “ ey are all gone out of the way “: “ there was none
righteous; no, not one.” But God bore witness unto Jesus, “
is is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” God
is well pleased in Christ; God rests in His Son, not merely
in His life, though that was holy and acceptable unto Him,
but in His work on the cross. Jesus said, “ except a grain of
wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but
if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit,” and that meets our
need. When He shows His glory to the angels, He points
to what has been done by man. In man was God gloried;
as in man, the rst Adam, He had been dishonored. Christ
reversed all this: “ Now is the Son of man gloried, and God
is gloried in him “; which God recognizes in straightway
glorifying Him. Righteousness cannot be looked for from
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515
the creature, but the fruit of righteousness will-the thing
itself is only in Christ.
God is not a grudging giver. Did Satan, tempting Eve,
question this in the forbidden fruit? He has given His Son;
He rests in Him; the sinner likewise rests there. What can
man do for me? Nothing. If I were to come to him to deliver
me from death, could he help me? No. He might ll my
hand with those perishing things which could only swell
the triumph of death and decorate the tomb, but there his
power ends.
In Jesus God has found His rest-this is mine also; I
know it from the testimony of God’s truth. Have you found
rest in God’s rest? If you say, I have not, will you say that
God has not found His rest there? Will you look to your
own heart? In that you can never nd it-it is only in Jesus:
who had said, “ Come unto me, and I will give you rest.”
Would that all knew the perfect rest to be found there!
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62519
e Passage of the Red Sea
Heb. 11:23-29
WE have in these verses a little picture drawn by the
Spirit of God, of the ways of God in bringing up His people
out of Egypt, by the hand of Moses. And we may say it
is just a picture of the deliverance of the church from the
power of Satan, of the salvation of God and the means by
which it is brought about.
Verse 23: God had taken the tenderest care of Moses in
his infancy. So in the days of our natural estate, God’s care
has been over us in a thousand ways.
Verses 24-26: A word here as to guidance through the
providence of God. Many cling to providences, as though
they were to be the guide for faith. Nothing could be more
remarkable providence than that which placed Moses in
the court of Pharaoh, but it was not the guide for the faith
of Moses. Brought up as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter,
instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, mighty
in words and in deeds- there providence had placed him.
If ever there was a remarkable providence, it was the case
of Moses. After having been hid three months of his
parents, till they could hide him no longer, he is put in an
ark of bulrushes among the ags by the river’s bank. us
exposed and crying, the babe attracts the attention of
Pharaoh’s daughter, who with her maidens is brought
down to the place just at the moment. She has compassion
on him, listens to the suggestion of the young woman
his sister, gives him in charge to his own mother to be
nursed for her; and he becomes her son. e rst thing he
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does, when come to years, is to give it all up. Had Moses
reasoned, his reasoning might have had great scope of
argument; he might have said, God’s providence has placed
me here; I can use all this inuence for God’s people, and
the like. But he never thought of such a thing. His place
was with God’s people. He did not act for God’s people
merely; he did not patronize God’s people; his place was
with and amongst God’s people. God’s providence had
given him a position which he might relinquish; but it was
no guide for conscience. ere may be the most plausible
reasoning about the thing; but when the “ eye is single,”
the “ whole body will be full of light.” Moses saw in his
brethren (though a feeble people) “ the people of God,” and
he identied them as such with the glory of God. is is
what faith always does. ey may be in a feeble and failing
position, or they may be in a blessed position; that is not the
question: faith identies the people of God with the glory
of God, and acts accordingly.
e children of Israel were in a very bad condition: still
they were “ the people of God “; and the rst thing recorded
of the faith of Moses is, that he took his place amongst the
aicted people of God. If reproach was on them, it was “ the
reproach of Christ “; and he “ esteemed it greater riches than
the treasures in Egypt.” He reckoned with God, and this
kept his soul clear of every other inuence. He looked right
on: “ Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look
straight before thee,” etc. e light cannot shine down along
another path.
Verse 27: Faith had brought Moses into a straight
line with “ the recompense of the reward “; and when
in that path, faith enabled him to identify himself with
God, to look up to God as his power. At once came “ the
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wrath of the king.” But the same faith that saw glory for
him at the end of the path saw God for him all through
the path. is is the secret of real strength. What unbelief
does is to compare ourselves and our own strength with
circumstances. What faith does is to compare God with
circumstances. Take the case of the spies; Num. 13; 14 ey
said, “ all the people of the land are men of a great stature;
and we saw the giants there, the sons of Anak, that come of
the giants; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers,
and so we were in their sight.” If the Israelites compared
their stature with that of the Anakims, they had no business
there. What said Caleb and Joshua? ey stilled the people,
saying, “ey are as bread for us: their defense is departed
from them, and the Lord is with us: fear them not.” at
is, they compared these sons of Anak with God; what
matter then whether they were giants or grasshoppers?
ey spoke the language of faith. It was no reasoning about
circumstances; it was just simply saying, Greater is He
that is for us than all that can be against us. God was there.
at is what makes the path of faith so simple. How did
David reason? He did not go and reason about the height
of Goliath and about his own smallness of stature; he
brought God in. ere is an “ uncircumcised “ man, he said,
defying “ the armies of the living God “-right, and very good
reasoning!
When the glory set before us leads in the way of the
promises, and we take our place with the despised and
aicted people of God, the world will not like it, and the
“ wrath of the king “ will be the consequence. Now this is
always a thing feared and trembled before, until God
becomes clearly known by the soul as a God for it. When
Pharaoh pursued after the children of Israel (Ex. 14) with
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all his chariots and his horsemen and his army (he had let
them go from serving him, but there was no change of heart
towards them), the Lord allowed the people to be shut in
between the pursuit of Pharaoh (the power of evil) and the
Red Sea. ey were quite shut in; and then he says, “ Fear
not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord,” etc.
But if God is coming to deal with sinners, He must
deal with them as what He is-a holy God. Let them be
Israelites or let them be Egyptians, He must deal with
them as what He is. e judgment of God against sin
must be met. God’s purpose was to save Israel, and in
doing this He was about to judge Egypt: But then, He
says, if I come to deal in judgment with the Egyptians;
if I come to deliver my people; I must come such as I am;
and I must therefore raise the question of sin. And it
is always so. When God deals with the heart, if there is a
question between it and Satan’s power (and when the soul
is freshly awakened, the miserable consciousness of Satan’s
power, the slavery of Satan’s service, will often have more
real power in producing exercise of heart than all the fear
of the consequences of sin), that is not the rst question.
God never begins there: He does deliver from it; but He
never begins there. He begins by raising a question between
Himself and the sinner.
e children of Israel had fallen into idolatry. ey were
worse than the Egyptians; they had the promises of God
(Genesis is), and were worshipping the idols of Egypt. But
they felt not their sin against God. ey groaned under
their taskmasters, and sighed by reason of their bondage.
Well, in all the tender commiseration of His having seen
the aiction of His people and His being love, God came
down and spake to Moses as to about to deliver them. But if
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judgment against sin was coming in, Israel must be secured
from that judgment, or it would fall on them as surely as it
did on the Egyptians. e question was riot whether Israel
could stand in the presence of Pharaoh, but whether Israel
could stand in the presence of God.
Verse 28: God told them (see Ex. 12) to take of the
blood of the paschal lamb, and strike it on the two side-
posts and on the door-posts of the houses wherein they
dwelt. “ For,” said He, “ I will pass through the land of
Egypt this night, and will smite all the rstborn in the land
of Egypt, both man and beast … and the blood shall be to
you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when
I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall
not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of
Egypt.” e destroying angel passed through the land. In
the darkness and dead of night he did his work. He knew no
dierence between the houses of the Israelites and those of
the Egyptians, unless marked with the blood. Over such a
house he passed; he saw the blood on the lintel and on the
door-posts, he looked no further-he entered not into the
house.
All God’s dealings with sinners must be upon the
ground of His holy judgment of sin. But then, in the case
of salvation He awakens the soul to the sense of this; He
says, Judgment is coming in, and there is the consequence
of it. And then He puts upon the lintel and the door-posts
the blood. Before God sets us out on the journey He makes
it evident that He has settled the question of sin; that the
demands of His justice have been perfectly met. God will
not go on with us until the question between Himself and
us is settled. He may deal with us in grace, but He does
not set out with us on the journey until that is done which
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entirely satises His moral being. Before Israel began their
journey God had passed through the land, and over them,
in judgment. ey had feasted in the happiest condence
under the protection of the blood of the lamb.
Before we commence the walk of faith, the question
of God’s judgment of sin must be a settled question. All
that which is properly speaking Christian life, the path of
experience, the life of faith, is based on God’s having passed
over us. He cannot pass over sin. What He does (working
faith in us by His Spirit) is, He shows us the blood. Having
awakened us to the consciousness of sin, before we are even
beginning the journey of faith, He teaches us that He has
settled the question about it once and forever. “ Your sins
and iniquities I will remember no more.” en He becomes
a God for us by the way. Faith sees and apprehends (not
that there is no sin, no judgment, but) that by God’s own
work and word the question between itself and God is a
settled question. Blood has been put between the soul and
God-the blood of God’s own Son. Never was there such a
judgment of sin. I may see myself to be the vilest of sinners,
but I see that which has perfectly met the demands of God’s
justice. “ e blood shall be to you for a token,” etc.
But then the soul has been accustomed to be a slave.
After the children of Israel had seen the blood upon the
door-posts, we nd them trembling before the power of
Pharaoh. ey were on the road, but they were not out of
Egypt. ey were still in Pharaoh’s territory. ey had the
knowledge of deliverance from the judgment of God that
had fallen upon the rstborn (of the blood of the lamb as
having met and sheltered them from that), yet they were
still in conict with Pharaoh. At the appointed time they
set out on their journey. Leaving the world, they forsake
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Egypt, the place where they had been slaves; and Pharaoh,
the prince of the world, pursues after them. en comes
dread and dismay. Till we know that the death of Christ has
emancipated us from the country of Satan, we never know
full rest of soul. Satan can make some claim on us till we
can tell him that we are dead and risen with Christ. Because
they had been slaves to the power of Pharaoh, and because
they dreaded Pharaoh (and there is no wonder), they had
not the faith that says, “ If God be for us,” etc. Pharaoh was
stronger than Israel; but God was stronger than Pharaoh.
When they lifted up their eyes and beheld the Egyptians
marching after them, they were sore afraid. And they said
unto Moses, “ Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast
thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? wherefore hast
thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt? Is
not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let
us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians? For it had been
better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die
in the wilderness.” ey were here in a worse condition as to
their feelings than ever before. And it is so often with saints.
We have need of the power of God with us and for us, and
to know it too (as well as that when the judgment of God
was against us the blood satised His judgment) in order
to fullness of peace. I may have seen the virtue of Christ’s
blood to screen from judgment; but it is quite a dierent
thing to have a constant settled certainty that God is for me.
e rst thing, when God has awakened the soul to
a sense of sin in His sight, is the question how it may be
secured against its righteous judgment. en it sees the
blood on the doorposts, and gets peace. erefore if I lose
sight of the blood, God is still, to my soul’s apprehension, a
judge. Now that is not at all the proper place for a believer
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to be in. ere is the justice of God, and “ without shedding
of blood, is no remission.” If I can say that the blood which
has been shed has satised that justice, I can see that God
is no longer a judge-His justice has been satised. But if on
the other hand His justice has to be satised, God is still a
judge.
e Israelites got so terried, distressed, and dismayed,
so under the power of evil which was against them, that
they got into the practical question, in conict whether
God or Satan was to lave them. And so constantly it is with
saints. We have been such slaves to the power of Satan that
we have not a consciousness of redemption to God. ere
was Pharaoh (Satan to us), the power of evil, pursuing them,
and driving them up to this point, till death and judgment
(of which the Red Sea is the symbol) stared them in the
face. e question must be settled, if they could get through
death and judgment. ey could not get out of the diculty
by their own strength: the Red Sea was before them, and
they could not get through it; Pharaoh and all his host
behind them, and there was no escaping by another road.
ey were quite shut in, and brought to the sense that there
must be a deliverer or it was all over with them. All this
was exceedingly alarming in itself, but it was God’s way of
delivering. “ And Moses said, Fear ye not, stand still, and
see the salvation of the Lord, which He will show to you
to-day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to-day, ye
shall see them again no more forever.” You can neither go
backward nor forward; you must just stand still and see the
salvation of the Lord. “ e Lord shall ght for you; and ye
shall hold your peace.”
e Lord steps in, and puts Himself between Satan and
His people. “ e angel of God, which went before the camp
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of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of
the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind
them: and it came between the camp of the Egyptians and
the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them,
but it gave light by night to these; so that the one came not
near the other all the night.” Before He gives the comfort of
deliverance, He always takes care that Satan does not touch
us.
What comes to Israel then? Verse 21: e very thing
that seemed to be their destruction becomes their salvation.
“ And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the
Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all
that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were
divided, And the children of Israel went into the midst of
the sea upon the dry ground: and the waters were a wall
unto them on their right hand, and on their left.” It was
no battle for Israel against Pharaoh. “ And the Egyptians
pursued, and went in after them to the midst of the sea, even
all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots, and his horsemen. And it
came to pass, that in the morning watch the Lord looked
unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of re and
of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians, and
took o their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily:
so that the Egyptians said, Let us ee from the face of Israel:
for the Lord ghteth for them against the Egyptians. And
the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand over the
sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians,
upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen. And
Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea
returned to his strength when the morning appeared; and
the Egyptians ed against it; and the Lord overthrew the
Egyptians in the midst of the sea. And the waters returned,
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and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, and all the
host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them: there
remained not so much as one of them. But the children of
Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea; and
the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and
on their left. us the Lord saved Israel that day out of the
hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead
upon the sea shore.”
Death is the wages of sin; there is no escape; the Red
Sea must be passed. “ It is appointed unto men once to die,
but after this the judgment.” ere is not one into whose
hands this may fall, looking at it as our natural portion (I
am not now speaking of Christ taking it for us, as He has
for all those who believe; as it goes on to say, “ So Christ
was once oered,” etc.), but must come there. It is the
natural consequence of sin. No matter whether Egyptians
or Israelites, death and judgment overtake all. e Red
Sea must be passed. But if met in grace, as it was by Israel,
we shall see that this very thing is our full and unmingled
deliverance. ere poor Israel stood and looked at the
eternal overthrow of their enemies. When the Egyptians
were lying dead on the sea shore, they were safe, singing the
song of redemption. True, the wilderness had to be passed,
Amalek to be fought with, and the like; but they were out of
Egypt. ey were singing the song of deliverance in simple-
hearted condence; Egypt was left, and left forever; the
power of Pharaoh broken; not an Egyptian to be seen.
And now about the “ assaying “ to pass the Red Sea:
it is that, alas! which many are doing at the present hour
(in a better spirit indeed than these Egyptians, yet with
an equally terrible result to themselves). I am not now
speaking of the avowed enemies of God, though we are
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526
all by nature enemies of God; neither of those who are
pursuing after the people of God; but of those who are “
assaying “ to pass through death and judgment in their
own way. Just because they are in a Christian country and
amongst Christians, they hope with the name of Christ
to get to heaven in company with the people of God. But
each must pass through all that is in God’s road there. If we
have got up to the Red Sea, death and judgment must be
passed; and where shall we be with all our Egyptian wisdom
and learning, with all our chariots and horsemen, before
death and judgment? Death and judgment must be passed
through. If we are “ assaying “ to do this without God for us;
if the question of death and judgment be not already and
altogether settled (as it was for Israel when “ by faith they
passed through the Red Sea as by dry land “), it must be our
destruction. People confess they have to die, and that after
death there is a judgment, and that they must stand in that
judgment; but if they are “assaying” to do this in their own
strength, it must be then positive and infallible destruction.
We must all, converted or unconverted, give up the
world. e veriest votary of the world must sooner or
later give up its vanities and its pleasures, its hopes and its
interests; he must give them up. e only dierence is this,
that the Christian gives them up for God; the worldling
gives them up because he cannot keep them. e king of
Egypt gave up Egypt and Egypt’s court, as well as Moses;
but there is this dierence, that the king of Egypt gave it up
for judgment, Moses gave it up for Christ.
e very hopes people have will be their ruin. ey see
God’s Israel going to Canaan, and they hope to get there
too. But they are going to heaven in their own way, and they
are going to heaven in their own strength. What does the
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Psalmist say? Give thy servant a favorable judgment? No: “
Enter not into judgment with thy servant? for in thy sight
shall no man living be justied.” ey are hoping that it will
be all well with them in the judgment; they take the name of
Christ upon their lips, and think to get as safely to heaven as
real believers. But they must pass through that which brings
out into full light, clearly and evidently, what they really are;
they must pass the barrier God has set in the way; they must
go through death and judgment; and there, there will “ no
man living be justied.”
God’s rod of power was stretched out when Israel was
passing through, and there was no sea (except as a wall on
their right hand, and on their left, shutting out Pharaoh).
Where do we nd the ground of the condence of faith?
It is altogether of a dierent sort from that of the mere
professor. at sea! says the believer, I dare not go through
it; I dare not put a foot in it, except at the bidding of God,
and then there is no sea. Because people call themselves
Christians, the mischief is that they expect to get through
as well as the real people of God. Because the way has been
opened to faith, so that faith can tread it, and walk through
as on dry ground, they think they can go too. e path is
opened to faith, and there is not a drop of water there; death
is gone, and judgment is gone-all is over: it is dry ground,
and God has made it so; but it is the people of faith alone
who can tread it. at which is dry ground to Israel is sea to
all besides. Let the Egyptians attempt to follow, and things
take their natural course: death and judgment are there,
and there shall be no man living justied. e believer has
no such thought as that of going to stand in the judgment.
When God steps in between him and Pharaoh, what does
he see? e “ salvation of the Lord.” e very thing he
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dreaded becomes his security. Christ is there in the deep.
He sees the judgment of God in all its weight and in all
its power borne by Christ. “ Deep calleth unto deep, at the
noise of thy water-spouts: all thy waves and thy billows
have gone over me.” e waves and the billows of the Red
Sea have gone over Christ. ere I have seen death and
judgment; I have seen the Son of God sweating great drops
of blood because of my sins; I have seen the Son of God
crying, “ My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
“ I have seen Him made sin, bearing the judgment due to
sinners; yes, I have seen all the weight and terror of those
waves; but they have passed over Christ. It is the thing that
saves me, is death; it is the thing that saves me, is judgment.
Grace has found its way into death, and it is all “ dry land.”
God takes me there, and says, “ Stand still, and see the
salvation of the Lord.”
I see this great and full salvation in a risen Christ; and
what I get is, that death is mine. “ All things,” the apostle
says, “ are ours “; yes, death is “ ours.” Satan has meddled
with death and judgment, and his power in death is
completely broken. Like Pharaoh, he has been overcome in
the last stronghold in which he held us captive. “ rough
death “ Christ “ has destroyed him that had the power of
death,” etc. Have the waves of the Red Sea, the billows of
the wrath of God, gone over Christ? He has abolished all
that was against us. Satan has come and meddled, and what
has he done? He has put Christ to death; but the triumph
of the prince of darkness was but the display of his defeat.
He has come and grappled with Christ, put forth all his
strength against Him, struck Him with the whole sting and
power he had in death; but Christ has risen out of it on the
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other side, beyond his reach; and now, morally, death has no
power for the believer.
As the captain of salvation Christ had come down and
put Himself in the place of those over whom Satan had the
power of death by the judgment of God. If He has taken
their cause in hand, He must be treated according to their
circumstances. He stood there, and felt all the weight and
horror of the place. Knowing the terrors of the wrath of
God, the bitterness of the cup He had to drink, He prayed
that if it were possible the cup might pass from Him. But
love had brought Him there: “ by the grace of God “ He
tasted death. God has settled the question. All the account
against me, the ground of Satan’s accusations appealing to
the righteous judgment of God, is gone. God’s wrath has
all passed over. e moment we come up on the other side
of the Red Sea it is all done; we have only our song to sing-
” e Lord has triumphed gloriously,” etc. e Egyptians
whom we have seen to-day we shall see again no more
forever.
Israel could sing this song before they took one step
in the wilderness; they could say, “ ou in thy mercy hast
led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast
guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation. e
people shall hear, and be afraid: sorrow shall take hold on
the inhabitants of Palestina. en the dukes of Edom shall
be amazed; the mighty men of Moab, trembling shall take
hold upon them; all the inhabitants of Canaan shall melt
away. Fear and dread shall fall upon them; by the greatness
of thy arm shall they be as still as a stone, till thy people
pass over, 0 Lord, till the people pass over, which thou hast
purchased. ou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the
mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, 0 Lord, which
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thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the sanctuary, 0 Lord,
which thy hands have established. e Lord shall reign
forever and ever.”
ere was all possible dierence marked now between
poor Israel who had God for them, and the Egyptians
who (with a great deal more human possibility of getting
through) were driving on in the carelessness and folly
of their own power, to be met and brought to a stand-
still by the power of death and judgment; just like poor
unconverted people, who, because they see Christians
going to heaven, are “ assaying “ to go also; but without the
knowledge of the blood (that which can alone settle the
question of death and judgment, so that they should have
God for them to step in between themselves and Pharaoh),
as having been sprinkled on the houses in Egypt. To all such
the very place of salvation will be the place of ruin.
Israel never sang this song when it was merely a question
of blood on the door-posts. ey did not sing it till they
had taken four of ve days’ journey from the place of their
bondage, and had been shut up between the Red Sea and
Pharaoh. ey were on the road, they had journeyed from
Rameses to Succoth, and from Succoth to Etham, and they
were encamped before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and
the sea. ey had left Egypt, and had brought over all the
malice of Satan against them. But the power of God was
with them and for them, and it was simply, “ Stand still, and
see the salvation of the Lord.” e controversy was between
God and Pharaoh (not between Israel and Pharaoh); and
it was soon settled. God would have us broken down to
this. ey had seen the blood upon the door-posts (there
was not any question of sin between themselves and God;
weak, feeble, and failing, they might be, but their sins were
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blotted out); they had set out in good earnest from Egypt,
with their kneading-troughs bound up in their clothes
upon their shoulders. Now they sing of accomplished
redemption. ey had the desert to tread, where there was
no way, nor food, nor water; the manna had to be gathered
day by day, and if the sun was up it was all gone. Spiritual
diligence is needed: “ e diligent soul shall be made fat.”
But they were redeemed, and they had God with them, and
God for them, to lead and to guide them in the way.
Well, beloved, have our souls seen this redemption?
Have we been brought yet to the Red Sea, and to feel
that we could not tread the path opened to faith in our
own strength; that if we attempted to do it we should be
drowned? And have we found that it is no sea, but dry
ground, that there is not a drop of water left there? If we
have known the blood of Christ as our only hope before
God, looking at Him as a judge; if we have known that we
must leave Egypt and tread the wilderness on our way to
the promised rest, we may still be in measure unable to say,
“ ou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou
hast redeemed,” etc. at does not mean that we are not on
the road, but that we do not know, properly speaking, God
to be for us. We may as sinners have looked simply to the
blood; but if we have not fully understood the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ as emancipating us from the
country and power of Satan, we have not stood still to see
the salvation of the Lord. e waves and the billows of
God’s wrath have gone over the head of Christ; and He has
made it to be no sea. He has come down into the very place
of wrath on account of sin; and He has risen out of it, and
all is over. e thunderbolt has come on the head of Christ,
and the storm is over for faith. Nothing gives such a sense
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532
of the horribleness of sin, nothing is such a testimony to the
judgment of God against sin, as seeing Christ under it; and
yet nothing is such a testimony to the love of God towards
the poor sinner.
God Speaking From Heaven
533
62523
God Speaking From Heaven
Heb. 12:25
THE apostle, in addressing this exhortation to the
Hebrews, acted upon the ground of the character is which
Christ spoke, and the consequences resulting therefrom.
Observe: His character is specically brought. forward as
speaking “ from heaven,” contrasted with His character as
speaking on earth: “ If they escaped not who refused him
that spake on earth [that is, when He spake from mount
Sinai, thundering out His righteous law], much more shall
not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from
heaven “-speaketh from the right hand of God, in the midst
of His glory.
Here is the contrast: Christ, as speaking now
from heaven, and then on earth; an awful warning to
transgressors, by the evidence of what then happened, to
eect much more: “ Whose voice then shook the earth.” is
having occurred sanctions the word spoken, which says, “
Yet once more I shake not the earth only but also heaven;
and this word, Yet once more, signieth the removing of
those things that are shaken, as of things that are made.”
And those things, dear friends, are what the saint is in now-
not of them, but in them. erefore is he, thus surrounded,
warned not to turn away from Him “ that speaketh from
heaven.”
is then is the ground on which he stands. On the one
hand, he sees the full blessedness-the unqualied hope-
which this voice, speaking from heaven, makes known
to him; and, on the other hand, he sees there is nothing
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else to rest upon but the word of Jesus, which is perfectly
stable in that it has been tried and proved. is cannot be
removed or shaken; everything, no matter what, that is
not in association with this, being liable to be shaken, shall
be removed. When the voice speaks from heaven for the
removal of all that opposes it, all that is not of this heavenly
character must go.
is same speaking then implies the deep blessedness
of the believer, and his not having anything else to rest
on but Jesus; not merely to rest on Jesus in the way of
righteousness, but for all things-for everything; for all else
is in opposition to God, and when the time of this speaking
closes, all that is not of grace goes. “ He then shook the
earth.” Tremendous was the sight. e mount was all on re,
and there was a very great earthquake. is was calculated to
inspire great terror. But here is manifested the blessedness
of the child of God, he is not come to that: “ For ye are not
come unto the mount that might be touched, and that
burned with re, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and
tempest … but ye are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the
city of the living God,” etc.
Here we have the character of the dispensation to which
we, as believers, are called; it is spoken nominally of all
the professing church, though only true of those who are
alive to God. ey have come to this; their warrant is, that
this voice has spoken to them from heaven, and that they
have heard it, and that it is the voice of Jesus. us He is
presented, as having entered into His glory, and from
thence speaking.
us then we learn from this word that this same Jesus
who spake on earth is now speaking from heaven. “ Who
is he that ascended but he also that descended rst into
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the lower parts of the earth? “ e Lord Jesus is speaking
specially, as having eected the entire accomplishment of
all that His people failed in, and that could in any degree
militate against their happiness. is voice tells us that it
is the same Person, the same Christ who was humbled for
our sins; who went through the world, weary and sorrowful;
the same man who was crucied, dead, buried, raised, and
ascended, that now speaks from heaven, as having passed
through all these, and is now at the right hand of God, from
whence He is inviting His people up thither.
is then is the joy of the child of God, when he hears
this voice of Jesus addressing him from heaven, testifying
of what He has done, and speaking as a witness of peace;
speaking in the consciousness of having so overcome-so
entirely to have borne the sin of His people as to set it aside
forever by the one sacrice of Himself once oered. And
in this position He speaks-I have set aside forever the sin
which kept you excluded from God; and I am entered into
the rest and glory, as your representative, in the presence of
the Father. When this voice is heard and known, we have
peace.
When the Lord Jesus therefore speaks from heaven,
He speaks of having accomplished all the work which the
Father gave Him to do. He speaks in the consciousness
of this; and He gives us the consciousness of the same in
the power of the Spirit, when He visits us individually.
He, the Redeemer- He who stood the bearer of sin-stood
responsible for His people; and by His perfect satisfaction
acquitted them entirely. Now He, having ascended, says, I
have done; I tell you, as in the presence of the Father, the
result of all the work I accomplished: I am now in the very
glory to which I am about to bring you. Here is the voice
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with which He speaks; and if ever He speaks from heaven
to any soul now, it is just thus. e voice may be heard very
indistinctly indeed; but that is just what the voice declares-
that is the story which Jesus brings to the soul.
It is a tale of mercy, of boundless, inconceivable mercy.
It may indeed, poor trembling soul, begin with a tale of
thy sin. is is calculated to originate deep thoughts-deep
searchings of heart; but the beginning and end is for peace-
blessed peace! e voice still continues to speak; to say,
those sins are gone-utterly put away, no more to incur God’s
wrath; no further requirement to satisfy for them: Jesus has
done that. You may indeed have sorrow still as to this world;
for you are in the very midst of that world which crucied
and rejected Christ, the Lord of glory. You are still in that
world which displayed its utter and total enmity, even in
rejecting the Author of all blessedness. at the world did,
and He triumphed over it. He was crucied by the world,
and He returned to the Father. What brought Him there,
but the total rejection of Him by the world? ere He is
now, and speaks. And what does this voice declare? Why,
that He has no part with the things of the world. He does
not own it. e world would not own Him when He came in
humiliation, and now He will not own it when seated at the
right hand of God the Father.
Christ is now speaking from heaven with the witness
of His rejection on earth, but with the full recognition of
having passed through it, and triumphed over its most
inveterate malice. is constitutes the blessedness of
God’s people here; for they see a full salvation. Christ now
speaking from heaven, who once spoke on earth, brings
with it the certain evidence of the full accomplishment of
all He engaged for. Nay, more, by His thus speaking from
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537
heaven, we, as believers, are privileged to know all that we
are come to, even here. For this voice says, “ Ye are come
unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the
heavenly Jerusalem; and to an innumerable company of
angels, the general assembly; and to the church of the rst-
born, which are written in heaven; and to God the Judge
of all; and to the spirits of just men made perfect; and to
Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant; and to the blood
of sprinkling.
Here we have, not only the condence of acceptance, but
the entireness of deliverance; not only as having overcome,
but the blessedness to which believers are privileged
to come. Blessed indeed is the portion to which they are
called! A salvation which is already nished for them-a
present salvation! is voice speaks, not of something
which occurred some time ago, or in a distant place; but,
when brought with power into the soul, it shows the present
realization of these things. It brings the soul to say, I am
come to these, because He is there. us faith brings near
these things. is then is the conscious position of the
believer when under the energy of the Holy Ghost-the total
putting away of all that hindered and dissociated him from
that intimate communion with God, to which he is united,
and which it is his privilege to enjoy.
All this Jesus speaks from heaven, and therefore His
voice is a voice of peace-peace under all circumstances. He
speaks the same under all the variety of exercises and trials
of this mortal life. We may be bowed down, and think hard
things of ourselves: but there Jesus sits in the calmness of
conscious victory, and His words are only words of peace.
Persecution, aiction, and woe, may speak from earth; yet
the voice from heaven speaks nothing but peace. e voice
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538
of the Lord Jesus is a voice of peace and conscious rest.
Whatever conicts with this peace is not in or from Jesus.
is position of the Christian is his perfect identity
in spirit with Jesus as He now is: “ Bone of his bones, and
esh of his esh,” and therefore He can well sympathize
with us. We may be tempted, harassed, oppressed; but,
notwithstanding that, we are really come to “ the things
which cannot be shaken.” “ He that is joined to the Lord is
one spirit.” is may indeed be but dimly seen here, but it is
not less real, and it is known to be real, by the power of the
Spirit dwelling in them that believe. ey see the “ old man,”
in their weaknesses which they have crucied, and now are
raised, according to the power of the Spirit of holiness, by
the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Christ, our Savior,
is a risen and ascended Savior; and He now speaks from
heaven, as a pledge that He is in the very place to which He
will bring us, and where we shall behold Him.
Moreover He so pleased the very mind of God, having
performed all His will, that therefore He can say, It is
done- it is accomplished-it is nished forever. us He now
speaks from heaven one whole testimony of peace; it must
necessarily be the voice of peace, bringing in the blessedness
of the results of that which brought peace. It is only of
peace then that He speaks, whether it is heard or not. As
Paul says, “ and came and preached peace to them which
were afar o, and to them that were nigh.” Christ wrought
sorrowfully, even to the death of the cross, to obtain this
peace for His people; and now He proclaims it. Man knew
not peace while at enmity with his Maker; and so the Lord
Jesus undertook the whole responsibility attaching to His
people, and has overcome all impediments to obtain their
peace. And this is the only way true peace can be obtained-
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this is what Jesus died to obtain, and, having obtained, now
testies to the truth and certainty of it. See then that your
eyes are xed on Him that speaks from heaven: else you
never can obtain peace; for, in very deed, it is the word of
God.
Christ now sits in heaven proclaiming peace, which
brings before us the unspeakable blessedness of the
manifestation of the prerogative of God’s love against the
extent of man’s sin, not only in His excelling greatness
triumphing over it, but being made the sacrice Himself,
so putting it away. We come now to see the stability of
God’s promise, and the certainty of its accomplishment:
“ Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath
promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only,
but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signieth
the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things
that are made.” We have seen the association with Jesus
into which we are brought, and are come to things spiritual,
which, being stable, and resting on the security of God’s
word, cannot be removed when all else shall be shaken.
We will just see what they are: “ Ye are come unto
Mount Sion; and unto the city of the living God, the
heavenly Jerusalem.” And shall that be shaken? No; the city
of the living God rests on the living God, and can never
be removed. “ To an innumerable company of angels, the
general assembly.” Can they be shaken? No; there was one
great shake in heaven, and the rebel angels were driven
deep into darkness, there to remain; the rest are upheld by
His power. “ And to the church of the rst-born, which
are written in heaven; and to the spirits of just men made
perfect.” And can these be shaken? No; being made perfect
by God, they must remain perfect; they cannot be shaken.
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540
And ye are come “ to God the Judge of all.” He being the
very security and support of all else that cannot be shaken,
He must so stand. And ye are come to Jesus, who is where
all these will be-that is, not on earth, but in glory; He was
on this earth, and the men of the earth did not like Him,
and therefore rejected Him. His voice once shook the earth,
but now He is in heaven, and speaking from thence, He has
promised, yet once more, to shake all that can be shaken.
In the word, “ Yet once more,” we have a remarkable
expression, for it comes to us as a promise on the authority
of God; it presses itself upon one’s spirit, and bears witness
to the truth in the power of the Holy Ghost; it comes to us
as a promised truth. Now let us consider whether Jesus has
so spoken to us from heaven, as to lead us to thank God that
He has promised this from heaven-that in truth we believe
the promise, and are looking for the accomplishment of it.
Have we understood this voice from heaven? and do we
rejoice in knowing that everything which Satan, the world,
and the esh have set up in opposition and enmity to God
shall be shaken terribly, even to their destruction? Can we
say in faith, I understand the voice so speaking, and am
looking forward with joy to its accomplishment, when all
that oends Christ shall be done away with? But have I also
heard the voice so speaking to me from heaven as to identify
me with all and everything that cannot be shaken?
Well will it be for the saints when they see the removal of
all that burdens and keeps them from the perfect realization
of their unspeakable privileges. ey have nothing to fear
from that terrible voice which shall “ shake terribly the
earth.” ey have heard, and are identied with that blessed
voice which speaks to them naught but of love and mercy
and peace, and they want no other.
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Brethren, beloved of the Lord, what a contemplation
is it to enter into, that of our being established-rmly
established and settled in those things which cannot be
shaken! e extent of that tremendous shake, which is full
of woe to him who is xed here-who is settled on any of
those things liable to be shaken-is full of joy to him who is
come to the things which cannot be shaken, and which shall
therefore remain.
“ ere shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and
in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with
perplexity; men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for
looking after those things which are coming on the earth;
for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.” is shaking
time will come; but it is your joy, that those things on which
your mind and aections are set, and with which you are
associated, cannot be shaken. And further, this voice to
believers implies much more, wonderfully much more,
than the removal of all things which cannot stand the
shaking; it implies their whole blessedness; that they shall
then be brought into the full perfectness of the joy of Jesus,
resting alone on the stability of God. All things which are
made shall be shaken. At that time, he who is associated
with God, and he alone, shall stand the shake. For he
is now come spiritually unto that to which he shall enter
personally, where nothing deling, nothing unstable, shall
nd an entrance.
e believer therefore rests on these two grounds: that
the Lord Jesus Christ is thus speaking to him from heaven-
speaking peace, and therefore taking away all fear, as
regards himself, in the promised convulsion and upturning
of all things, and also that the promise of God shall stand,
in the setting aside of all that shall not participate in his
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present glory. Here we see the total dissociation of all and
everything connected with an interest in the things of this
world: that they are opposed to the things of God-they are
quite distinct, and never can be united.
As soon as the season is past for the exercise of God’s
longsuering and patience with a guilty world, then will the
shaking commence: happy they who are in a way of grace
then! Yet there is an admonition to them to watch: “ What
I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch! “ and this watchfulness
is to continue to the end, amidst all opposition, supported
therein by the life-giving energy of the Holy Ghost. e
believer’s life is thus manifestly a life of watchfulness; but he
rests not here, he looks forward. “ If in this life only we have
hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable “: but he
sees beyond this life, he has come to perceive eternal things;
and in the power of the Spirit to discern the unquestionable
blessedness to which he is called-into the spiritual
enjoyment of which, even here, there is no hindrance, not
the least impediment, except as regards himself. Christ has
done all that could be, all that was necessary to be done, in
order to make the reconciliation perfect.
ere is then no hindrance as regards Christ’s work;
it is a mark of complete perfectness. All things that could
keep us from God have been overcome, set aside, triumphed
over: and He is now in heaven, in the full consciousness of
victory- altogether nished as regards our salvation; entered
into heaven, in the presence of God for us, and continually
speaking peace to us His people-the consciousness of
which, on our part, is wrought in our souls by the eternal
Spirit, who, testifying of the joy into which Jesus is entered,
and the peace which He proclaims, makes us also full of joy
and peace in believing, and looking to that glory into which
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we also shall be brought, “ whither the forerunner is for us
entered.”
is is the only ground of peace which Christ promised,
and it is the privilege of the believer to enjoy this peace,
even in the midst of trials and conicts and aictions. He
looks to Jesus where He now is; and, resting on Him who is
now speaking from heaven, he has that peace which passes
all understanding, arising from his union, his oneness, his
identity with his Lord and Master. Have you thus known
the Lord Jesus Christ, as speaking from heaven to you, and
speaking peace? Has He told you that all is nished, and
that you are privileged to have peace? Do you see your own
personal iniquity put away?
I would ask you still further, dear friends, in how far you
are associated with that which shall be removed? e voice
from heaven has witnessed, has promised, the removal of
all things which can be shaken. If you are associated in any
way with those, oh, how sad, when Christ comes, to nd
you thus! ey that are earthly do mind earthly things-that
is their character: as the apostle says to the Philippians, “
Whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, whose
glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.” e voice
speaking from heaven proclaims the dissociation of Christ
and His company from these-from all that is earthly.
I solemnly put it before you, dear friends, Are you thus
engaged? or are your hearts, aections, and desires lifted
up to Him that is higher than the heavens-to that which
cannot be shaken, and can never be removed? Could you
receive the shaking of all things, as the promise of God? He
has promised, “ Yet once more I shake not the earth only,
but also heaven.” Blessed, everlastingly blessed, are they
who are established in Him who is higher than the heavens!
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ey who are thus xed are as secure as they will be when
associated with Him in glory.
Let me again ask you, dear friends, If this shaking were
to come now, where would it nd you? Would you be found
trembling under the consciousness of being mixed up with
that which is to be removed? or borne in perfect peace
upon the heart of Him who is to shake all things? May
the Lord nd you in the latter circumstances-happy in the
consciousness of His love and power, ready to enter into the
joy unspeakable, and glory of your Lord. Amen.
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62508
Growth rough the Truth
1 Peter 2:1-6
IN one sense, as here taught us by the Spirit of God
through the apostle, the healthful position of the saint is
ever that of the “ new-born babe “; whilst in another sense
we are, of course, to be making progress so as to become
young men and fathers in Christ. As to practical position
of soul in receiving truth from God, it is that of the new-
born babe: “as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the
word, that ye may grow thereby.” is is the place in which,
as believers, we are set by the Spirit, in order that we may
grow up into Christ.
But if we are to grow by the sincere milk of the word, it is
not by the exercise of our minds upon the word, nor yet even
by great study of it merely; we need the teaching of the Holy
Spirit, and in order to this, there must be the exercising of
ourselves unto godliness-the “ laying aside all malice, and
all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings,”
so that the Holy Spirit be not grieved. Has the Christian
envy, guile, hypocrisies, allowed to work in his heart? ere
can be no growth in the true knowledge of the things of
God. erefore he is called upon to be ever a “ new-born
babe,” coming to receive, in the consciousness of his own
weakness, littleness, and ignorance, and in simplicity of
heart, food from the word of God.
e Lord always keeps His simple dependent ones
thus. “ Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the
knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord.” But then the
knowledge of God always humbles; the more we know of
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Him, the more shall we know of our own emptiness. “ If
any man think he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing
yet as he ought to know.” Just as the babe is constantly
receiving nourishment from the mother, so need we to
be constantly receiving spiritual nourishment from the
word of God. When the word is received by us in faith, we
become strengthened; we grow thereby in the knowledge
of God, and of His grace. e apostle Paul, having heard
of the faith of the Ephesians in the Lord Jesus, prays “ that
the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,”
would “ give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation
in the knowledge of him, the eyes of your understanding
being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his
calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in
the saints,” etc. Having “ tasted that the Lord is gracious,”
we come to His word and receive from Him that which we
need to comfort, nourish, and refresh our souls. e word
always comes with savor from Himself; it is known as “ the
word of his grace.” I may study the word again and again;
but unless I get into communion with Him by it, it will
prot me nothing-at least at the time.
God reveals not His things “ to the wise and prudent,”
but unto “ babes.” It is not the strength of man’s mind
judging about “ the things of God,” that gets the blessing
from Him; it is the spirit of the babe desiring “ the sincere
milk of the word.” He says, “ open thy mouth wide, and I
will ll it.” e strongest mind must come to the word of
God as the new-born babe.
And so too in speaking of God’s truth; whenever we
cannot “ speak as the oracles of God,” through the power
of communion, it is our business to be silent. We should be
cautious not to trie with unascertained truth. Nothing
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hinders growth more than this-triing with unascertained
truth: we then act as masters and not as learners. Our
position as regards the truth of God must be ever that of
new-born babes desiring the sincere milk of the word that
we may grow thereby.
But there is nothing so hard for our hearts as to be
humble- nothing so easy for them as to get out of this place
of lowliness. It is not by precepts merely that we are either
brought into this state, or preserved there; it is by tasting
“ that the Lord is gracious.” It is quite true that God is a
God of judgment- that He will exercise vengeance on His
enemies; but this is not the way in which He stands towards
the Christian. He is made known unto us as “ the God of all
grace “; and the position in which we are set is that of tasting
that He is gracious.
How hard it is for us to believe this, that the Lord is
gracious! e natural feeling of our hearts is, “ I know that
thou art an austere man.” Are our wills thwarted? we quarrel
with God’s ways, and are angry because we cannot have our
own. It may be perhaps that this feeling is not manifested;
but still at any rate there is the want in all of us naturally
of the understanding of the grace of God, the inability to
apprehend it. See the case of the poor prodigal in the gospel:
the thought of his father’s grace never once entered into his
mind when he set out on his return, and therefore he only
reckoned on being received as a “ hired servant.” But what
does the father say? What are the feelings of his heart? “
Bring forth the best robe and put it on him; and put a ring
on his hand, and shoes on his feet; and bring hither the
fatted calf, and kill it … for this my son was dead and is alive
again; he was lost and is found.” is is grace, free grace.
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So too in the case of the woman of Samaria (the poor
adulteress, ignorant of the character of Him who spake
with her, “ the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and
truth,” and therefore the suited one to meet her need): the
Lord says to her, “ If thou knewest the gift of God, and who
it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldest have
asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.”
Hadst thou only understood what grace is, thou wouldst
have asked, and I would have given!
It is not only when there is open rebellion against God,
and utter carelessness and unconcern about salvation, that
there is this darkness of understanding as to grace. Our
natural heart has got so far away from God, that it will look
to anything in the world-to the devil even-to get happiness;
anywhere but to the grace of God. Our consciences, when
at all awakened to a sense of sin, and of its hatefulness in the
sight of God, think that He cannot be gracious. Adam, had
he known the grace of God, when he found himself naked,
would at once have gone to God to cover him. But no, he
was ignorant of it; he saw his state, and he sought to hide
himself from God amongst the trees of the garden. And so
it is with us. e consciousness of being naked before God,
apart from the understanding of His grace, makes us ee
from Him.
Nay, further, as believers in Jesus, when our consciences
come to be exercised, and we feel that we must have to do
with God in everything, we may not have the distinct sense
of the Lord’s being gracious; and there will then be not only
a deep sense of our responsibility but at the same time the
thought that we have to answer to God’s requirements, and
shall be judged of Him according to the way in which we
do so. ere is a measure of truth in this: the requirements
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of God must be met; but then the wrongness is in thinking
that, if we do not nd in ourselves what will please God, He
will condemn us because of it.
On the other hand there is sometimes the thought
that grace implies God’s passing by sin. But no, quite the
contrary; grace supposes sin to be so horribly bad a thing
that God cannot tolerate it. Were it in the power of man,
after being unrighteous and evil, to patch up his ways,
and mend himself so as to stand before God, there would
then be no need of grace. e very fact of the Lord’s being
gracious shows sin to be so evil a thing, that, man being a
sinner, his state is utterly ruined and hopeless, and nothing
but free grace will do for him-can meet his need.
A man may see sin to be a deadly thing, and he may see
that nothing that deles can enter into the presence of God:
his conscience may be brought to a true conviction of sin;
yet this is not tasting “ that the Lord is gracious.” It is a very
good thing to be brought even to that, for I am then tasting
that the Lord is righteous, and it is needful for me to know
it; but then I must not stop there: sin without grace would
put me in a hopeless state. Peter had not “ tasted that the
Lord was gracious “ when he said, “ Depart from me, for I
am a sinful man, 0 Lord! “ and therefore he thought that his
sin untted him for the presence of the Lord.
Such too was the thought of Simon the leper, respecting
the poor woman who washed the feet of Jesus with her
tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Ah, if
this man had been a prophet (if he had known the mind
of God), he would have sent away this woman out of his
presence, “ for she is a sinner.” And why? Because he did not
know that the Lord was gracious. He had a certain sense
of the righteousness of God, but not the knowledge of His
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550
grace. I cannot say that God ought to be gracious; but I can
say (if ignorant of His grace), that He ought to cast me, as
a sinner, away from His presence, because He is righteous.
us we see that we must learn what God is to us, not by our
own thoughts, but by what He has revealed Himself to be,
and that is “ the God of all grace.”
e moment I understand (as Peter did) that I am a
sinful man, and yet that it was because the Lord knew the
full extent of my sin, and what its hatefulness was, that He
came to me, I understand what grace is. Faith makes me
see that God is greater than my sin, and not that my sin is
greater than God. “ God commendeth his love toward us, in
that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” As soon
as I believe Jesus to be the Son of God, I see that God has
come to me because I was a sinner and could not go to Him.
Man’s ability to meet the requirements of the holiness of
God has been fully tried: but the plainer the light came, the
more did it show to man his darkness; and the stricter the
rule, the more did it bring out his self-will. And then it was,
“ when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ
died for the ungodly “-” when we were yet sinners, Christ
died for us.” is is grace. God, seeing the blood of His Son,
is satised with it; and if I am satised with it, this is what
glories God.
But the Lord that I have known as laying down His life
for me is the same Lord that I have to do with every day
of my life; and all His dealings with me are on this same
principle of grace. Do I want to learn what His love is? it
is taught in the cross; but He gave Himself for me in order
that all the fullness and joy that is in Him might be mine. I
must be a learner of it still-a new born babe desiring “ the
sincere milk of the word that I may grow thereby.”
Growth rough the Truth
551
e great secret of growth is the looking up to the Lord
as gracious. How precious, how strengthening it is, to
know that Jesus is at this moment feeling and exercising
the same love towards me as when He died upon the
cross for me! is is a truth that should be used by us in
the most common everyday circumstances of life. Suppose,
for instance, I nd an evil temper in myself, which I feel it
dicult to overcome: let me bring it to Jesus as my friend,
virtue goes out of Him for my need. Faith should be ever
thus in exercise against temptation, and not simply my own
eort; my own eort against it will never be sucient. e
source of real strength is in the sense of the Lord’s being
gracious.
But the natural man in us always disallows Christ as
the only source of strength and of every blessing. Suppose
my soul is out of communion, the natural heart says, I must
correct the cause of this before I can come to Christ: but He
is gracious. And, knowing this, the way is to return to Him
at once, just as we are, and then humble ourselves deeply
before Him. It is only in Him, and from Him, that we shall
nd that which will restore our souls. Humbleness in His
presence is the only real humbleness. If we own ourselves
in His presence to be just what we are, we shall nd that He
will show us nothing but grace.
But though “ disallowed indeed of men “-of the natural
heart in every one of us-who is this that says, “ Behold, I
lay in Zion a chief corner stone, elect, precious; and he that
believeth on him shall not be confounded “? It is God;
He laid this corner stone, not man; and He says, is is
what I think of Christ. By learning of God, through His
teaching me by the Holy Spirit, I come to have the same
thoughts about Jesus that He has. Here I nd my strength,
Collected Writings of J.N. Darby
552
my comfort, my joy. at in which God delights and will
delight forever is now my joy also.
God says, “ is is my beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased “; “ mine elect in whom my soul delighteth “; and,
working these (His) thoughts into my soul, I too see Jesus
to be precious, and nd my delight in Him. us He who
was crucied for me-who “ bare my sins in his own body
on the tree “-is precious to God and precious to me. God
could nd no rest save in Jesus. We may look throughout
the world, we shall nd nothing which can satisfy our hearts
but Jesus. If God looked for truth, for righteousness, all He
could desire He found in Jesus; and He found it in Him for
us. Here is that which gives comfort to the soul. I see Jesus
“ now in the presence of God for us “; and God is satised,
God delights in Him.
It is Christ Himself in whom God rests, and will rest
forever; but then Jesus, having borne and blotted out my
sins by His own blood, has united me to Himself in heaven.
He descended from above, bringing God down to us here:
He has ascended, placing the saints in union with Himself
there. If God nds Jesus precious, He nds me (in Him)
precious also.
Jesus, as Man, has gloried God on the earth: God rests
in that; as Man, having accomplished redemption, He “ has
passed into the heavens,” “ now to appear in the presence of
God for us.” It is Jesus who gives abiding rest to our souls,
and not what our thoughts about ourselves may be. Faith
never thinks about that which is in ourselves as its ground
of rest; it receives, loves, and apprehends what God has
revealed, and what are God’s thoughts about Jesus, in whom
is His rest.
Growth rough the Truth
553
It is not by human knowledge or intellect that we attain
to this. e poor ignorant sinner, when enlightened by the
Spirit, can understand how precious Jesus is to the heart
of God, as well as the most intellectual. e dying robber
could give a better account of the whole life of Jesus than all
around him, saying, “ is man has done nothing amiss “; he
was taught by the Spirit.
Are we much in communion with God, our faces will
shine, and others will discover it though we may not be
conscious of it ourselves. Moses, when he had been talking
with God, wist not that the skin of his face shone; he
forgot himself, he was absorbed in God. As knowing Jesus
to be precious to our souls, our eyes and our hearts being
occupied with Him, they will be eectually prevented from
being taken up with the vanity and sin around; and this too
will be our strength against the sin and corruption of our
own hearts. Whatever I see in myself that is not in Him
is sin; but then it is not thinking upon my own sins, and
my own vileness, and being occupied with them, that will
humble me; but thinking of the Lord Jesus, dwelling upon
the excellence in Him. It is well to have done with ourselves
and to be taken up with Jesus. We are entitled to forget
ourselves, we are entitled to forget our sins, we are entitled
to forget all but Jesus. It is by looking to Jesus that we can
give up anything, that we can walk as obedient children: His
love constrains us. Were it simply a command, we should
have no power to obey.
e Lord give us thus to be learners of the fullness of
grace which is in Jesus, the beloved and elect One of God, so
that “ we may be changed into the same image from glory to
glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
Collected Writings of J.N. Darby
554
May we, beloved, in searching into the truth of God,
having “ tasted that the Lord is gracious,” ever be found as
new-born babes desiring the sincere milk of the word, that
we may grow thereby.
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