NOT long ago I called upon a lady, and, after some conversation, I asked her how long she had been a Christian. She replied, “I have been a believer for years, I might almost say from childhood; but I never knew ‘peace with God,’ or my place as a Christian, till this summer at one of your preachings, when I saw for the first time in my life that there was a real living Man in the glory of God, and that Man was my Saviour. I had been accustomed to think of Jesus as a Spirit, but never realized till then that He was a real living Man, alive in heaven.”
Are there not numbers in the same condition? Believers in Christ they undoubtedly are. Their hearts have really trusted Him. They believe He died for them; but there they stop; they have never seen Him alive in heaven. They often sing, ―
“Cling to the cross, the burden will fall;”
yet somehow the burden does not fall, in spite of their clinging to the cross; and time after time they are disheartened, and cast down in despair, and even doubt their conversion, and groan and sigh for deliverance.
I feel sure this is really the experience of numbers of believers in the present day; and what passes current amongst them as real Christian experience. Groaning in bondage, ―clinging to the cross, and longing for deliverance!
But is “clinging to the cross” the gospel? Does it rid believers of their burden, and give them “peace with God?” Does it bring them deliverance? Most certainly not.
It reminds me of a dear young Christian in Scotland, who was net one day by a very worthy man, who had long known her, but had not seen her for some time. After the usual salutations of the day had passed, he very kindly inquired, “Are you still clinging to the cross?”
“Oh, no!” replied the young woman. “I’m not doing that now, sir.”
“Indeed!” said he. “And can you do without the cross, then?”
“Oh, no, sir!” she answered. “I cannot do without it. It is the foundation of all my blessings. But the cross is nothing without Him, sir; and I have found out that Christ is neither on the cross, nor in the grave, but on the throne; and I’ve got my Saviour up there. It is only giving the cross its right place.”
Yes! Everything depends upon whether Christ is on the cross, in the grave, or on the throne. Where is He? “If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain: ... ye are yet in your sins” (1 Cor. 15:14-17). So said the apostle. “But now is Christ risen from the dead” (vs. 20). Then, believers are not in their sins.
When the blessed Lord hung on the cross, He bore the believer’s sins. He “bare our sins in his own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). He “was delivered for our offenses” (Rom. 4:25). At that moment Jehovah made to meet “on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6). Then the sword of divine justice awoke against Jesus, the Man who was Jehovah’s fellow. “He who knew no sin, was made sin for us,” and treated as sin. Darkness covered the earth; and the Son of God, in deepest, fathomless sorrow, cried out, “My God, My God, why halt thou forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46-52.) Christ at that moment was forsaken of God, and bowed His head and died.
Where is He? The resurrection morning dawned on the women at the grave, and the angel proclaimed the glad tidings, “He is not here; for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay” (Matt. 28:6). The vacant cross, and the empty grave, alike repeat the blessed news, “He is risen.”
Look up, believer; look up! Stephen “looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus” (Acts 7:55). See yonder throne, occupied by the Son of man, Christ Jesus! The glory of God shines in His face. Could He be there, if the sins were not gone? Could the glory light up His face, if the sins were still upon Him? No! No! A thousand times, No Mark, then, the contrast between Christ on the cross, in the distance and darkness bearing our sins and forsaken of God; and Christ on the throne, without our sins, accepted by God, “crowned with glory and honor,” the glory of God shining in His blessed face. Now say, Is it clinging to the cross, or is it looking up to the throne where Christ is? I know your heart replies at once, “It is looking unto Jesus.”
Why was He raised? Let Romans 4:25 answer. He “was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again four ow justification.” After Christ had glorified God at the cross about the question of sin, it was positive righteousness on God’s part to take Him out of the grave, and put Him up in the glory.
It was the divine answer to His work. And is it not due to Christ, who did that work, that God should give every one who believes in Him the same place as He has given Him? Certainly it is; for Christ died not for Himself, but for us; and God has raised Him for our justification. Therefore every believer is justified in a risen Christ. Christ in the glory, is the believer’s ever-subsisting righteousness.
The cross has closed the believer’s history as belonging to the first Adam, under condemnation, and exposed to death and judgment. For not only has “Christ died for our sins,” but we have died with Him. We can say, “I am crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20). And if crucified with Him, God sees us no longer as men alive in the flesh, but associated with a risen Christ, ― “the last Adam,”―in life and everlasting blessing.
This is the standing of every believer in Christ; and the knowledge of this, received into the soul by faith, gives not only peace about the question of sins, but deliverance from the power of sin; so like-wise from the world, and from law. For if associated with Christ in resurrection, united to Him in heaven by the Holy Ghost (and faith receives this on divine testimony), then we are done with the world in all its varied forms; our interests, and hopes, are all above, where Christ is (Col. 3:2). Meanwhile, our path through this scene is marked out by Himself, and we are set here for a while to display what His power can do for us, till He return to receive us to Himself.
Then, spread the news far and wide, there is a real living Man in the glory of God to-day. At the same time, He “is over all, God blessed forever” (Rom. 9:5). He is not finishing the work of salvation on the cross, but alive in the glory, as the everlasting witness of its accomplishment.
W. E.