“You give me the following extract: — ‘When Jesus was crucified, and died, and was buried, God’s Church was crucified, died, and was buried in Him; and when He was quickened, arose, and ascended, she was quickened, arose, and ascended in Him. If you see Him, you are of His Church.’”
“Now this is altogether incorrect. It is like some Calvinistic doctrine, overstrained and misapplied. In the first place, the Church of God did not exist as a matter of fact at all, while the blessed Lord was doing the work of the cross, or while He was in death, or even resurrection. The Church did not exist until the Holy Ghost was sent down by Jesus from the Father (Acts 2). What is stated above is quite true of the individual, who is now a member of His Church, of His body, of His flesh and of His bones; and the Scriptures that might be adduced to further the ideas will be found, on examination, to apply to the sinner who has become, through grace, a member of Christ.”
“In Eph. 3 you will see that Paul has before him believers from amongst the Gentiles. Verses 1 and 2 speak of such; the ‘you’ and the ‘ye’ clearly applying to them, as the ‘we’ and the ‘us’ do to Jews (of whom he had been one) of verses 3 and 4. In verse 5 he joins both: first, by the ‘we’ and ‘ us,’ referring to the Jew in mercy,’ and the little parenthesis in the A.V. taking in the Gentile—as saved by ‘grace,’ a fine and lovely distinction of the Spirit; mercy must be showed to those who had sinned against grace, which the Jew had. I mean here that you will frequently find this distinction made in Scripture.
“All this part of Ephesians treats of individuals, whether Jews or Gentiles, and verse 11 proves the truth of this; while in the Church there is neither Jew nor Gentile, all time distinctions having vanished away. So that the expression when Christ rose we rose’ is incorrect, if applied to the Church, while true if applied and appropriated to the individual in whom faith has wrought. Hence also that of Col. 2:1313And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; (Colossians 2:13)-the ‘you,’ there, still being Gentiles; the last clause of the verse, the correct reading is ‘us’ (Jews), ‘Having forgiven us all trespasses.’ This is not the Church either, but the individual, whether Jew or Gentile. Indeed, the Church, as such, is not even named in Colossians, though individuals composing her are, unless in chapter 3:15, in the sentence, ‘to the which also ye are called in one body,’ and this even after showing that in the new man (v. 11) ‘there is neither Greek nor Jew;’ rather than in the Church, or in other Scriptures.
“Individual sinners, who are to become members of Christ’s mystical body, were dead in trespasses and sins-there was no movement of the heart going out towards God. The blessed Lord Jesus goes in divine grace into that place for sins, and was there made sin for us. As Man, God quickened Him, and raised Him up, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenlies (Eph. 1). Then God puts forth the same power—and bestows faith (the gift of God, ch. 2:8) on individuals—quickening dead souls, and appropriates in divine grace what Christ passed through to the individual, who is thus co-quickened and co-raised with Christ, and co-seated in Christ Jesus in heavenly places. Remark here that in Christ is resurrection, or new creation; while ‘in Christ Jesus’ is union on high and place.
“Remark, too, in the details of God’s working with souls, that a point here (largely developed in Epistle to Romans, chapter 7, which comes in between the quickening of the dead soul and union with Christ by the Spirit), which does not appear in Eph. 1 refer to the exercises passed through after the soul is quickened and converted to God, but before union takes place. This experience is needed, because of our state. Life is in the soul long, it may be, before the Holy Ghost dwells in us, thus uniting us to Christ. This is because Ephesians only treats of God’s operations in chapter 2, in carrying out the counsels of chapter 1; not that of the soul’s history when under these operations, which we find in Romans doctrinally, and in Acts historically. Hence all experiences of the soul (as Rom. 7) are omitted.
“Then again, time not being counted now, since Christ went on high (it has to do with the Jew and the earth), we can say, ‘When Christ died I died,’ &c., &c. His quickening and that of individuals who compose the Church, now going on, happens in what does not count as time at all. It is a timeless interval since the Cross, and the counting of times and seasons’ will commence at the taking up of the saints to heaven, and God’s fresh operations with the Jew and Israel. Hence Christ’s ascension and that of the Church is all looked upon as one thing. This is an interesting point, and worthy of some more special development.
“Of course, as you say, the Church is composed of living stones;” but this is looking at the Church as a temple or spiritual house, as in 1 Peter 2. If, however, we speak of her as the body of Christ, all individuality, as the thought of ‘living stones’ conveys, is lost in union with the Head in heaven—the body of that Head. This is Paul’s way of looking at her.
“Neither justification, quickening, raising up, or the like, happens apart from the exercise of faith in the soul. You are quite right, therefore, in saying that otherwise you would have been justified before you were born, which is not the case.”
“The thought you refer to as to our being in Egypt in fact, in the wilderness as to experience, and in Canaan as to conflict, is long current. Indeed, an old tract published years since, called ‘Fact, Faith, Experience,’ shortly developed these thoughts. I should say that it simply means, that the world being Egypt in type, we are there in our bodily presence as a simple historic fact. Then the truths of redemption having been applied to our souls, we find that while we were of it, now we are in it; but that it has changed its character as regards us, and we find it a wilderness, instead of being our home and portion. Then again, we are, by faith, in the land-seated in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.”
If, therefore, we realize our position practically, we find the conflict, which belongs to ‘such, our portion. I think it means no more than this. John 17:1515I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. (John 17:15), might carry out the thought; but John speaks morally of things, and does not take the believer to heaven, unless in one or two passages, as chapters 14:2; 17:24. Besides, all these thoughts are typical, and must not be strained too far.
“As to when a person is sealed-on conversion, or afterward? Does a soul believe before he is quickened? Does believing, quickening, and conversion all take place at the same moment of time, and then at some future period sealing takes place? A few words will suffice, I think. The sealing of the Spirit takes place, generally speaking, when the person has believed in Christ for remission of sins. Quickening takes place in the action of the Holy Ghost, through the Word of God, or the truths revealed therein on the dead soul. This action produces and imparts faith, which is simultaneous with the quickening. A soul believes in what has been directly revealed, though forgiveness and salvation may not be known for long after. The new life thus imparted, being in action, finds the incongruity of the evil within. It begins to find its sins, as measured before God, a burden it cannot bear; even when forgiveness of these sins is known, it finds an evil nature over which it has no power, and this leads to the exercises of Rom. 7 till deliverance is known. In fact the sinner requires two things for peace: forgiveness for what it has done, and deliverance from what it is. When it learns to look out of self at Christ for forgiveness, the sealing of the Spirit takes place. And at times there may be the experiences of Rom. 7 in a modified way, when forgiveness is known, and the Holy Ghost there. Still, to take up Rom. 7, pure and simple, it does not suppose that the Holy Ghost has been received; it is an abstract case that is assumed. Generally speaking, however, the Holy Ghost is given as a seal, when Christ is rested upon for remission of sins; this is never the case at the moment, when the soul is born again.”
“I find in the case of the younger son, in the parable (Luke 15), a happy illustration of the various divine actions of God with a soul.” When he “came to himself” he was quickened, and faith was in exercise. This produced a judgment of his state before God, and, as measured by His goodness, when he said, “I perish with hunger.” This was repentance-the action of the new life. Then came conversion, in, “I will arise and go to my father.” Conversion means simply that the heart is turned towards God, which had been turned away, from two Latin words, which signify to turn towards. Hence a man may be converted, according to its simple literal meaning, more than once; as Peter, to whom the Lord said, “When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren,” i.e., when his heart was turned back again after his fall. But while one could be thus converted more than once—the heart turned back to God when turned away (How blessed that it is so!), one can only be once born again, or born of God, and this never can be undone or redone.
Thus, when the prodigal was on his journey to meet his father, all the exercises of his soul present those passed through by the soul before sealing takes place. The father’s kiss would typify the time, probably, when sealing took place. This meets, I think, your question on that point.
“Christ is the expression of God’s righteousness, as having been set on high as Man, by God, acting in the full consistency of His nature towards One who had met all the claims of that nature as to sin. It is only meet that He should have this place, when God’s nature is considered. He should act consistently with it, and, in righteousness set Him on His throne; thus making Him the expression of His righteousness. We read, then, “He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might become the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor. 5:2121For 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 Corinthians 5:21)). When we are set on high in Christ, we also become this expression of His righteousness as in Christ; and thus Christ is our righteousness. If we look at Romans’ truth, it is rather our being justified by God himself, in virtue of Christ’s sacrifice, and acting in righteousness; we are thus counted righteous of God, rather than our being in Christ, God’s righteousness.
“It can truly be said that Christ took our nature upon Him, ‘if you mean our human nature. His incarnation is of living importance, and eternal. Of course He did not take it in its sinful condition, I need not say. He was ever that Holy thing,’ even when born of the substance of His mother, and by the power of the Holy Ghost. While the humanity of Adam was innocent in Paradise, and then came fallen humanity; His was holy.”
One has said, speaking of the manner of Stephen’s death, in Acts 7, “He was alive in death.”. A fine commentary upon that happy moment in the history of the Church; and a true commentary also. Jesus, I may say, died in death that we might live in death. He met death in all its horrors, made sin for us, suffering death as judgment, as the pouring out of righteous wrath on sin. But we speak of life in death, and though under the hand of murderers, the region of life and of glory is seen beyond and above it, and is seen as the home of our spirit. This is to be “alive in death.” “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
His victorious life we receive from the risen Lord. By death He destroyed him that had the power of death, and the life He imparts to us is life in victory—not life to be tested, as it was in Adam (Gen. 2:1717But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. (Genesis 2:17)), but life that has been already in the battle, and has won the day, as we speak. The display of this in Himself was sweet to Christ—the acknowledgment of it as in Him, by the faith of others was sweet also. In John 11 we see the first-that He delighted in the opportunity of displaying victorious life, and waited, therefore, till the sickness of Lazarus had ended in death, that He might then shine as “the resurrection and the life.” And in Matt. 16:17,1817And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. 18And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:17‑18), He lets us know with what delight He had listened to Peter’s confession, which owned Him as the Son of the living God, the One who was about to break the gates of brass asunder, and give His saints power over hell, and the power of death.
“I have been struck lately with the line of truth in the Acts of the Apostles. As you are aware, the Head takes His place in heaven in chap. 1 and in chap. 2 The Holy Ghost descends to form the Body. This work begins at Jerusalem and gradually spreads to the uttermost parts of the earth.” Of the Jewish believers, Jerusalem was the principal gathering; of the Gentiles, Antioch. At the former, Peter, James, John, Stephen, and Philip were the principal gifts. At the latter, Paul, Barnabas, Julius, Manaen, and Simeon.
“From Jerusalem, Philip evangelized Samaria; and Peter, Lydda, Saron, Joppa, and Caesarea. From Antioch, Paul and Barnabas were used to convert souls and form assemblies in Antioch of Pisidia (different from Antioch of Syria), Iconium, and Lystra—and subsequently Paul and Silas were used for the same purpose, and starting from the same point—in Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, Corinth, and Ephesus. Silas sometimes accompanied Paul, and sometimes not, and this until Paul’s active ministry was closed by his imprisonment at Jerusalem and Rome.
“As the Lord guided, they stayed in places, perhaps eight years at Antioch; eighteen months at Corinth; three years at Ephesus.
“But how manifestly different were God’s ways with the gifts and the ordinary members of the body. Never do I find the members moving about except when driven out by absolute persecution (Acts 8:11And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. (Acts 8:1)), but on the contrary I find Paul and Barnabas selecting the chief men amongst them and giving them the charge of the flock in their absence (Acts 14:2323And when they had ordained them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they believed. (Acts 14:23)), and the Holy Ghost most strenuous in rebuking the restlessness of the Thessalonian saints (2 Thess. 3) whom trial was inducing to throw up their employment. The laborers, as we have seen, moved about as the Lord directed.
“With these Scriptures before me you can well understand how uneasy I felt when I heard that you were again trying to leave your present home for America, and how grieved I was to hear
“I have therefore thought it well to bring before you the line of truth I have referred to, in the hope that it may lead you to accept cheerfully, even though with persecutions,’ the place the Lord has allotted to you. You will see from what I have said that the number of gifts in a place should be no hindrance to another gift going there—that the place of those converted and gathered together in the name of the Lord, is to stay and adorn the doctrine of God their Saviour in all things, in the place where they have been brought to Christ; and this the more especially if they in any way answer to the elder of the Acts and Timothy, and Titus; for though we have no power to appoint, we should surely recognize those who seem used to take the lead in the assembly, even though they be not gifted members. I feel sure you will take what I have said in good part as from the Lord. I desire only your sanctification. With much love, &c., &c.
“I spent the Lord’s day at C—, but the condition of the assembly is not such as to give one much encouragement. When saints are not ‘awake to righteousness,’ the Holy Spirit cannot fill their hearts with praise. It was a contrast to my last happy Sunday at S, but one must be prepared for the rough and the smooth. I have not time to write more, but desire to send our kindest love to all the dear saints with you. They are much on one’s heart in prayer.”