PE 1:1-21{It is a great point for our hearts, and an immense cheer and help, to get hold of what the "thought of Christ is about, us at this moment.
There are different ways' of carrying out this thought. You get in the fifth of Ephesians, that "Christ loved the church and gave himself for it "; but then comes another thing: " That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word." I do not know whether our hearts enter sufficiently into the fact of what He is thus occupied with now-of what He is securing for us now. It is not glory He is now securing; He has secured that. All His service on earth consummated in this, that I am placed before the Father's eye as He Himself is-" accepted in the Beloved." Therefore sanctification cannot come in properly until I know that " Christ loved the church and gave himself for it."
It is important to make the foundation sure with souls. To clear the ground, I will first say a few words upon the fact that we are given " all things that pertain to life and godliness." Christ has cleared away everything that was against us in the sight of God, so that now " there is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." The adding of the latter part of that verse in our version shows the ignorance of souls generally about this. As a rule, people know that Christ's blood has washed away their sins, but what they are slow to learn is, that God has crucified on the cross the thing that did the sins. There are the two things that I have alluded to already: one, the blood of Christ -" without shedding of blood there is no remission "; the other, the death of Christ-" in that he died he died unto sin once; but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God "; " death hath no more dominion over him."
I sometimes think, that while some of the evangelists are very clear in showing that the blood of Christ has atoned for sins, they are not so clear in showing that the thing that did the sins is crucified. You may act in the flesh, but you are not in it. God put both my sins and the flesh that did them on the cross of Christ. If I act in the flesh, I must, when I go to God, put it where God put it; and that is repentance. I am not merely sorry for the sin, but I abhor that which did it; and " godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation, not to be repented of." People are generally sorry for the wrong things they have done, and try to conceal them, and this is just what I often find with saints-that they are sorry for what they have done; but that is not the question. Are you sorry for the thing that is in you? Do you repudiate that which did the sins? God sees me acting in the flesh, but He never sees me in it. I am as dead in the sight of God this moment as if I were in my grave; otherwise it would be my death that would free my soul and not Christ's. This has led to a great deal of confusion in minds To me there is nothing plainer in Scripture than the doctrine of purgatory; but man puts purgatory in the wrong place. God does punish a man for sin after he is dead on the cross, but that does not mean after his body is in the grave. "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore will I punish you for your iniquities." God does deal with souls for their sins. If you judge yourself-and it is not an easy matter-you will have to put your flesh where God puts it, and out of which place He never sees the old man. There is no repentance without this. The moment I believe in Christ I find that God has cleared away all my sins in the death of Christ, and not only my sins but my old man; the nature that did the sins is ended in His sight. Do I act in the flesh? I quite admit it; but, if I do, I am reviving what God has put to death; I have done two wrong things: I have done what was wrong; and I have revived that which God put an end to in the cross of Christ. I am speaking now of the place where the soul would find itself as to what Christ has done for it before God-clear of sins and sin too. The work has been finished according to God. He meets the mind of God; we could not meet it. In speaking of the woman of Samaria He says: "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work." And then again: " I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do." He was sent of the Father to clear everything away, and He has done it.
And now I come to another point. There was not a single thing that He did from Calvary onwards that He did not do for me-I mean for the believer. There was not a thing that He did for Himself, and in all He glorified the Father. He did not die for Himself; He died for me, He rose for me; of course He did not need to rise for Himself; He got the resurrection for believers. He went in to discharge the debt for me; and He not only discharged it so as to let me go free, but discharged it in such a way as to win glory for me as well.
I think the resurrection of Christ is a great deal more than the receipt for my debt; that is the word that is familiarly used for it; but that is only its aspect towards you. The question is, What is the resurrection to God? Our side of it is quite true. If you pay into a bank a sum due there, in whose name do you get the receipt? Of course, in the name of the person who owed the debt. So we read: " To whom it shall be imputed if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead." He has cleared all for the believer. But He discharged the debt in such a way-He glorified God so under the judgment of sin, that God's satisfaction must be expressed. I say the resurrection of Christ is a great deal more than the receipt for the debt; He is raised from the dead by the glory of the Father; so Peter says here, He "has called us by glory and virtue," for glory is the expression of the divine satisfaction in that man who, having descended from the Mount where He culminated as the perfectly righteous One upon earth, glorified God under the weight of the judgment due to my sins, and God has glorified Him So I have got my Savior in glory, and that is the " gospel of the glory." I look at the glory as the expression of the divine satisfaction in that One who paid my debt. If I may use such an illustration, it is as if the bank were so satisfied at the wonderful way in which the debt is discharged, that it not only gives the receipt, but it illuminates, and keeps up a perpetual illumination to display forever the sense of its satisfaction at the mode and manner in which the debt was discharged.
Immense time is lost as to growth, if you have not learned that God has dealt with Christ about the thing that did the sin. I do not deny that flesh is there still, and that is the very thing that I have to come to sanctification about; but I say that I stand perfectly clear as to it before God, and that, when I do sin, the very place of all others that I can go to is God himself. When I get to Him the light makes manifest. I feel it there, I put the sin where God put it, and I never get liberty till then. As Paul says to the Galatians: " Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith -Christ hath made us free." When did he gay that? When Ishmael had been put out. He is talking of sins in Romans, but in Galatians of that which did the sing.
So I start you with the fact that you are clear in the sight of God. The moment you stand in His presence there is nothing at all against you there, neither the thing that is done, nor the thing that did it. " We are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit." " Now, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of' his." I trust that everyone of you accepts that, and the more you insist upon it, the more you glorify God. I say you cannot improve your acceptance, you cannot alter it, and you cannot lose it; three things surely that ought to establish the heart in perfect comfort. I believe in the One who knew what was the hindrance to the love in the heart of God, who knew what hindered it from traveling out to reach the prodigal, and who says, I take it away so perfectly that that love can flow out in all its mighty volume to the greatest wretch on earth-can take hold of him and lead him up to the glory. That is the first point: " To them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ." These are the ones whom the apostle is addressing, and if this be not known, there is no use in talking about sanctification.
Now I come to the second point: Christ's present thought about us. If " He loved the church and gave himself for it," it is " that he might sanctify it." His present thought about each of us is sanctification. If I say, What is Christ thinking about me to-day? the answer is, He is thinking about sanctifying me. Well, what is that? I think it is most important to know. Sanctification does not add one bit to my acceptance, but it does to my acceptability. Acceptance is what Christ has gained for me; acceptability is what the Spirit of God is working out in me. The more simply I admit my acceptance, the more I glorify Christ; and the more anxious I am about my acceptability, the more I honor His grace. There are the two things-grace and responsibility.
I turn to the seventeenth of John, first, to see what sanctification is in its character, before I look at its practical bearing on ourselves. Here the Lord is expressing His desires to the Father, and there are two ways in which He speaks of the sanctification being produced. One is, " Sanctify them through thy truth." The truth here is the revelation of the Father. The other sanctification is quite a different thing. " For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth." That is, I have left the place altogether, that they may in heart follow me. Now if you understand these two verses, you will see the effect they will produce on you. One is what you have here; the other is what you have not here; and this is not difficult to understand.
First, 'it is " Sanctify them through thy truth." I will explain how that is done. I am of the Father now, and not of the world.. I am in this new relationship-in a new dependence. Supposing a man knocks me down in the street; if I call a policeman, then I am calling the world. But suppose I say, God is my Father; He will undertake for me, and I will leave it all with Him; then I am sanctified by the truth. I do not turn to the world because I have the Father, and I know what the Father's love is; that is what sanctifies me. And you will find you have lost your place as a sanctified man the moment you turn to the world for help, or are of it. It is curious how people are tried about this. I have lost the world, but I have got the Father. And this is what Christ had; therefore, He begins by telling them, " I have overcome the world; " and thus I have the Father's love down here, His love to the Son; "the love wherewith thou hast loved me " is my portion.
Some may say, I wonder, if God is your Father, He does not interfere more on your behalf. But I answer, I know His love, and the more I know it, the less I need demonstrations of it. Christ had little or no demonstration of that love, but he never lost the sense that He was ever the object of it; and it imparts the greatest dignity to be in His path-to be nobody to man, but to be an object to God. And often in the very place where we have been made little of in the eyes of men, there God makes us remarkable. At Philippi, where Paul and Silas were made so little of before men, they are made much of as God's men, not as the world's men. God says, I will have you acknowledge that man; he is a man of God. " There is a God that judges in the earth." God thus comes in to maintain the cause of His people, though not always at the time.
It is an immense thing for the heart to get hold of-" Sanctify them through thy truth" the knowledge that I am of the Father. But can you walk through the world and say, I do not appeal to it? It is just the difference between a man in the wilderness and a man in Egypt. In Egypt I turn to the world, but in the wilderness I have not got anybody but God. If I am of the world, of course I can claim its protection. And yesterday I might be in it-a man in Egypt, but to-day I am in the wilderness -in the same town, in the same business, in the same house. What is the difference? Why, to-day, in the wilderness, I have none but God; and it is this knowledge of the Father that sanctifies: me; it has the most wonderful separating power; through it I escape " the corruption that is in the world through lust." I am not dependent on the world for any one thing here, for I have a Father outside and apart from it all.
The second thing is, that my heart is gone out of the place altogether. Christ says: I go out of the place altogether, and the consequence is they will all come after me. How could I stay in a world where He is not? How could I be attached to a place whence He has gone? " When the bridegroom is taken away from them, then shall they fast in those days." It is a wonderful weaning from all things here, knowing that He is gone. If I am looked at as here, I am separated from anything I might in nature want here-I am separated from the action of the world in every sense-because I know the Father. And then, on the other hand, I am taken out of this scene altogether, because He is gone away. And this is enough for every heart surely.
Now I come to the third part, which will occupy us more elaborately. What is this sanctification to produce in us? " For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth." The measure of my sanctification-of my separation from things here-is His. I am speaking of the mode by which it is accomplished. First, He has accomplished redemption; the thing that is to be accomplished now is sanctification. And what is Satan doing now? He is pressing it in the wrong way; he is setting up a fictitious thing, because saints have not taken the right ground about it. But let us defeat him by maintaining the right thing. Never contend with the wrong thing, but press the right. No person ever knows evil but by knowing good; you judge evil by the amount of good you know. Man lost good by doing evil, and now I must know good to-be able to discover evil. The person best able to tell me what is wrong is the one who knows best what is right. I must get the divine idea of what is right. The spiritual man judges all things; he can distinguish between things where there is the least apparent difference.
Christ, having accomplished everything for us as to redemption, then, is now thinking of us as to our sanctification. " The very God of peace sanctify you wholly," is His thought for us. I think we are not enough occupied with sanctification. I can measure my sanctification, because the measure and the principle are one; even that I have got the Father and not the world; and I have to be as separate from the world down here in which I remain, as Christ is up there where he is gone.
You are very far from it, one may say. Truly it is so; but I cannot accept anything lower. Many are seeking sanctification in order to win thus a better standing before God. That I cannot accept. I can neither alter, improve, nor lose my standing. It is not that my heart does not condemn me; but the moment I go into God's presence, I know He has nothing against me. Peter, if he had known what was coming, would not at all have liked the thought of that interview with the Lord. Peter was made sad apart; he was grieving because he had done wrong. But when he is probed to the root, it is Christ only which is before him.
I come now to the practical effect of what we have been speaking of. I am sorry to say, that, instead of seeing more sanctification, I see less. The character of the world in itself is seductive; and besides this, Satan is very adroit in they in which he manages to bring the world home to each one, as it is most ensnaring to him He knows very well what your tastes and likings are. You may have great tastes and capacities for enjoying certain things, and you had better watch those tastes and capacities, for they are the avenues to your heart, and Satan knows them as well as you do, and a great deal better too. Consequently, the thing a man is most distinguished for in nature, is the thing he must be most guarded about. God will make it evident to you that He can do entirely without that for which you are most distinguished. God will clear all away that is only nature in you; He will get rid of everything that is contrary to Himself. God grant you may understand this. If you do not judge yourself, He will judge you.
You are perfectly without spot, as to standing, by the work of Christ, and there your ground or state before God is. There is another thing now to be accomplished, and that is, your state down here; for the Spirit always brings us to our standing or state above, in order to produce practical state here. Show me a single passage in Scripture where standing is brought out without a state being consequent on it. In the epistle to the Ephesians, where we get the highest standing, we get in the third chapter that most touching prayer, the servant in the attitude of the greatest earnestness appealing to God to produce state here in keeping with it.
Now I turn to the chapter I have read, and here I find practice. We accept these two points-one, accomplished, the other in the course of accomplishment. There are two things that mark the saint, and these two are put together in Scripture. One is, he believes with his heart; the other, he confesses with his mouth. One is inside, the other outside. If I take Jonathan as an example of this; he sees that Goliath is gone, and he is no longer occupied with Goliath and his fear of him, but with David, and owning him as his deliverer. I see at once if a soul is devoted to Christ; many an earnest person is not devoted because he has not got clear of Goliath-he has still fears: But the moment he sees the dead man's head in the hand of the living man, his fears are gone, and he is taken up with David. " With the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." It is the same thing in the seventh of Luke. The woman there at first stood behind him weeping. Afterward, with her as with Jonathan, comes the public confession; he stripped himself to make much of David. This was confession. And what I want now to dwell upon is the perpetuity of confession.
I believe no soul is safe that does not keep up perpetual confession; safe for heaven he may be, but not for earth. It is " If ye do these things ye shall never fall." Three things come out in practice. First: You increase in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Second: You never fall. Third: An entrance is ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
How many pass out of this scene like a full-freighted vessel, having abundant entrance into His kingdom and glory? Every soul that does not, I say, he has not been confessing. Do you think Jonathan would have fallen on the mountains of Gilboa if he had gone on with perpetual confession-if he had kept on owning David? if he had not gone back to the sword? Are you all perpetuating the confession you made at your first start?
And it is not merely perpetuating, it is adding. I am to seek to add to what I have. It is the lack of the present day that there is little or no confession. Often with the children of saints, and indeed with others too, there is not even any beginning to confess. It is not that their hearts are not touched, but they will not confess; and are they then safe from the world? Not they! Indeed, I cannot speak of anyone as being safe from the world; this is the work that is now going on-saving us from it. But what does save from it? It is " working out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." Is that to get to heaven? No! It is that I may be saved now from the order of things in which I am down here. I would not talk to a person of sanctification who was not clear as to his perfect acceptance with God. I am left here to represent Christ as we see in the seventeenth of John. There is nothing in that chapter about works; it is all sanctification, and you left in the scene here.
At the close of the Lord's ministry, in Luke, there is the cleansing of the ten lepers, of whom He says: " Were there not ten cleansed; but where are the nine? " All were cleansed; but there was only one able to overleap all the trammels of system-only one able to clear every barrier, and come right upon the simple ground of confessing His name and leaving the world. Thus the end of the ministry of the Lord, as often, foreshadows the end of the ministry of the church. Many saved, but little confession; very few give any testimony to His name.
You are kept as a saved person from the circumstances here by the very maintenance of what you are. Just as travelers do in a strange country; they light a fire to keep away the wild beasts: so you are to keep up such a glow of divine power about you that you will keep the wild beasts off. It is the simple confession of Christ. It may expose you, truly, to greater dangers-to more of the shafts of the enemy; but what if it do? If I have got a greater enemy, I have greater forces to meet him with, and a difficulty is nothing when I have power to meet it. I do not mind any difficulty, I am standing here for Christ; I am maintaining what He is, and I am increasing in it.
Thus Peter sets it before us. " Beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue." It is "all diligence." I have to deal with myself about this. People do not like to be asked, Are you more out of the world this year than you were last? Have you added anything since last year? You have if you have been exercised. Not that I mean that you know what it is that you have added, but you have certainly been going on. Or have you added little bits of the world since this day twelve months? I knew a man once amongst us most exemplary in devotedness until his father died, and he gained wealth and position. If your circumstances-your position in life-were to change through inheritance or gift, would it alter your course as a saint? How many have I seen drawn aside! how many times have I been carried away myself by offers of one kind or another. God may recover the saint, and often does, for He carries out the purpose of the heart, even though the feet have gone in another direction.
I put it to you plainly: Are you adding little bits of the world'? or are you adding that which carries you out of the world? Are you giving all diligence to add? Are you watching to add, in the vitality of the new life? I am made a partaker of the divine nature, and I am to work it out, and what do I get? I get " grace and peace multiplied unto me through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord." I am increasing in the knowledge of God. The bad thing is gone; I must not touch it. If' you do you will have to repent; and if you do not repent, you will suffer for it, and dearly too. I could give you histories of the closing scenes of saints that would make you shudder; all because they would not walk with God; they would add the world; they would not add the ways of Christ; and they went out of the world a spectacle of misery. That was not abundant entrance! And all because they refused to add I know how difficult it is. One has to watch. know what it is in a family: one wants to bring in a little thing here.; another one there; " only a little picture, or a ribbon, or a book; there cannot be any harm in it." No, but you are not adding, and you are losing if you are mot adding. What are gymnastics? Learning to use your muscles. What is growth? " Solid food belongs to them-that are of full growth, to those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." Are your senses exercised to discern good and evil? To do this you must get the good first; you must begin above. It is because you do not know what is good that you are unskillful in the word of righteousness. I see it coming out in all sorts of ways. People say, We must have r, larger house, and new furniture, and so on. I say, That is adding the wrong way; you are going against what the Spirit of God is set on. God wants to bring out in you a. deeper knowledge of His blessed Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, Who walked about clown here, and was so peculiar that He was not understood even by His friends. It was not a question of love, but they did not understand Him. He says, " I was an alien to my mother's children." It goes on: " Add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance." Temperance means separation; renunciation of things hem Are you temperate? -really more separate from all things here than you were?
And then " To temperance patience." Patience must come next; for most surely if you -refuse you will have to endure. But when you have got patience it is all easy work afterward, for patience is the greatest Christian virtue. Can I bear up, no matter -what is the state. of things? In 2 Cor. 6 the first mark of the minister is " much patience." And again We, read: " Strengthened with all might according to his glorious power "-what for?-" unto all patience." There is nothing that so proves a man qualified for eminence in the church of God as patience. Some men you cannot say a word to without their being offended. Such a man is not under control; he is like an unbroken horse. " You have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise." The way God prepares any servant for service is by trying his patience. I must be like the ivy; put a stone upon it, it will grow round it. I will not give up; I will hold out; as Job says, " Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." I am not going to give in a bit. That is patience, and it follows temperance. I refuse the offers when I am temperate, and then I get the pressure, and can bear up-against it.
From this I get on to godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity. I have reached the practical ground of all Christian fruits. " He that lacketh these things is blind, and Cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins." One who does not add will lose all the comfort of what he has.
Adding brings out the vitality of grace. This is taught in a wonderful way in that passage in Zec. 11. " Woe to the idol shepherd that leaveth the flock. His arm shall be clean dried up, and his right eye shall be utterly darkened."' Now this is remarkable in the human system. If I were to tie up my arm for three weeks, and at the end of that time remove the bandage, could no longer use it. That which ceases to be used ceases to be useful. Whilst if instead of this you have been using your arm regularly according to your strength, it will get stronger and stronger. The idol shepherd did not use his arm to feed the flock, and so it is dried up. And this is exactly what you find in people: They have not been adding, so they lose all the brightness they have.
You will never get out of the sense of being besieged so long as you are here. It is marvelous the different forces that Satan contrives to bring against you at the same time, like a host of locusts eating up every green thing; one -time, politics; another, something else. But I stand against all this; I belong to Christ; He is the treasure and delight of my heart, and I -want to increase in the knowledge of Him Otherwise you will become blind, and you will forget that you were purged from your old sins; it does not say God forgets. I am sure I have known people who for years have been like animals that hibernate; they have not moved one bit-not made the least progress; and at last they have Waked up and started off again exactly where they were years before. They have lost the time forever.
Life is a wonderful thing, but health is still more wonderful. Health is sanctification; and it is the health of the saints I want-the happy unimpeded activity of every organ working in harmony for the good of the whole system. That is health.
" If these things be in you and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." I am getting, to understand that blessed One better. You ask, Are you making progress?-I say, I cannot answer for that, but I know I am watching the enemy, and I am giving all diligence to add. I am conscious that I am increasing in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And next, " If ye do these things ye shall never fall." God lets saints fall so that they may find out what they are and what they are trusting to, as He did Peter. But if they make their calling and election sure, He says they " shall never fall."
I need not say more. The heart meanwhile can rejoice that the coming of the Lord draweth nigh; the Daystar is at hand. He will then " present us to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing." -When Eve was presented to Adam there was net one single thing to be done to her; she was all ready; she had not a thing to give up. He should be able to walk into this room and have us all for Himself. We know that when we go to glory we shall drop off everything that is unsuited to Him, thank God. But let me tell you, the person who is fit to ask Christ to come, is the one who can say, " I have a desire to depart and be with Christ." That is the person who is both ready to be left here, and ready to welcome the Lord when He comes -the one who can say: "
This world is a wilderness wide!
I have nothing to seek or to choose;
I’ve no thought in the waste to abide;
I've naught to regret nor to lose."
The Lord lead our hearts to understand the -perfection in which Christ has placed us before the Father, that we are made the delight and the joy of His heart, and that now the joy of His heart is to sanctify us-; and as we understand what this sanctification is, it is for us to give all diligence to add. And the effect of this adding-" increasing in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." We are here to-day to add -to increase; so that whether He come, of whether He call us to go to Him, we may be like a full-freighted vessel coming in to shore, "an entrance ministered unto us abundantly " into His everlasting kingdom.
(J.B. S.)