IF God is dealing with sin, looked at in my relationship to Him as a sinner, He must deal with it in death. There is no forgiveness for the sinner, looked at as guilty before God, without the real work which deals with it according to God's nature; and it was dealt with thus in the cross. He hath appeared once to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. But that is not all. Having thus put away sin, He has done with the old thing altogether, and has got into a new one, that very nature left behind in which He was responsible, and suffered for sin, and now He is the heavenly man in the presence of God; and there we are set in Him. “As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.” Therefore it is that in the Epistle of John we get the same truth brought out. First of all we have there (chap. iv. 9.) that “the love of God was manifested toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.” There I see divine love that visited this world in the person of the Son of God. There were two things that were needed. That He should be the propitiation for our sins, because we were guilty, was one; but besides that, he goes on to say, “Herein is love with us made perfect,” &c. There is the perfectness of love—not merely that God's love visited us in this world, in all our need and sorrow, to leave us there; but herein is the love of God “made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world.”
How can I have boldness in the day of judgment? Why, I am the same as my Judge,—and in this world too; “As he is, so are we in this world.” Just what I get here, “As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.” It is the same truth. What a thing that is! What a salvation it is! not merely mercy that forgives sin. It is a real perfect salvation; a deliverance which has taken us, as in Christ, out of the condition in which we were and has put us into another, and that other is Christ. It is true that we shall all be manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ; everything must be brought out there. But even so, why, I am like Himself. What is He going to judge? How do I get there at all? Because Christ has come and fetched me. I am going, He said to His disciples, “to prepare a place for you. And if I go,... I will come again, and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.” So that when I come to appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, it is because Christ has so loved me that He has come to fetch me there! and in what condition? I am in glory before I get to the judgment-seat. Everything will there be brought out, and with immense profit and gain to us. We shall know right and wrong then, as we are known. We shall be manifested, but manifested before Him who is in the presence of God as the warrant of our salvation. We shall not thoroughly bear the image of Christ till the time of glory. But even now, as to our standing before God, “As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.” Now as regards my soul and my eternal life, He has come and brought us into this condition, making Christ to be my life, and in Christ my righteousness and life. He has brought me in faith, and in the truth of my new nature, into this wondrous place in Christ. The realization of it is another thing, and may be hindered through failure or infirmity. You begin to search, perhaps in yourself, and find such and such a thought contrary to Christ. But I say, that is the old man If you take yourself by yourself, there is not righteousness for God, and therefore you cannot stand an instant in God's sight. I must look at Christ to see what I am, and I say, “As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly;” and that is what I am in the presence of God. There is no veil: we are to walk in the light, as God is in the light.
Now, the measure of the judgment of the working of my flesh, and of everything else, is according to this love and grace. The moment I have got Christ, and I can say, I knew a man in Christ, (and so thoroughly was this the case with Paul that he could say, “I knew a man in Christ, whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell” —he is not thinking of himself at all,) then everything is judged according to what I am in Christ. It is not there I glory of Paul. Paul knew what infirmities and distresses, &c., were. But “I know a man in Christ,” and I am glad of such an one to glory. I will glory with all my heart in it—because he is not looking at himself and at his righteousness— “of myself,” he says, “I will not glory, but in mine infirmities.” Here I get to the true reality of what my condition, as a poor feeble creature down here below, is. But then God has put me in Christ, and now whatever passes in my mind must be judged according to Him. “He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.” I may come short, but this is the only measure. In 2 Cor. 12 he takes this very ground. “I will glory,” he says, “in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” It is not that he was always in the third heaver}, or that we shall be in the full enjoyment always of our position. But this is true, that the Christ in whom we are is in heaven. He is not here, He is in the presence of God, and we are in Him there; and even though we do not realize always our place in Christ, yet, I say, that Christ is never inconsistent with what He is in that presence, and Christ dwells in me; and this is where I get the perfect rule of life that I need. The power of Christ dwells in me, even upon earth. If Christ walked upon earth, His walk was perfectly consistent with a heavenly man I find Him to be the perfect expression of the love and grace and holiness that He was in the Father's house.
It is true Paul says, “I know a man in Christ,” &c. But does that mean that the Christ he had then was a different Christ from the one he had known in the third heaven? No; he had got the very power that was suited to a Christ in heaven. We get the principle of all holiness of walk from the fact of our position being in Christ. I must know that this is my place before God, if my walk is to be according to Christ. “For their sakes,” said our blessed Lord, “I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified through the truth.” He is set apart to God as this pattern-man in heavenly places, that the Holy Ghost may take and apply it to us here. I see this perfect Christ set apart for me in heaven, and I say I must walk according to that pattern. I will walk in love, because Christ also hath loved us, and given Himself for us. I get there, “Be ye imitators of God.” And in another place, “Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” He sets before us, as walking through this world, the kindness of God even to His enemies. The starting point of all my measure of conduct is the place in which I am already set in Christ.
Since the fall of man, since our judgment has been a fallen one by sin, our thought of obligation and duty is always as a means of gaining something. People often fancy that if there is not the uncertainty attendant upon this responsibility to get life, there must be carelessness. But supposing you have got children—they are your children, and never can cease to be your children. But does that destroy their responsibility? Their relationship to you is the very thing that forms their responsibility. The principle of a real responsibility, till sin came into the world, was a blessed one. It was this—-I am to act up to the condition that I am in.
The Christian responsibility is not that of a man hoping and trying to be a Christian. It is not at the time of the difficulty and danger that we get the capacity of walking according to Christ. The way to walk in a time of difficulty is not by valuing Christ for the temptation, but for His own sake. If we live in the constant valuing of Christ for His own sake, we shall assuredly have Him delivering us from the temptation. If my heart is full of Christ, the things that are contrary to Him do not attract me. I may feel my failure and weakness all the more; but the God that, by power, has brought us into this place in Christ, can sustain us in it. The whole of our relationship with God upon the ground of the old man is closed in the cross; and then in a risen Christ all is begun afresh in perfect blessing in the power of the deliverance in which we have been brought in Christ. The place in which we are thus set begins from the cross, where I see my old nature judged and set aside. And therefore it is that the apostle can say such a thing as “when we were in the flesh.” There are multitudes even of true believers that say, What are we but in the flesh now? But the apostle says, “When we were in the flesh,” evidently implying that we are not in the flesh now. It is what we were in the first Adam. The standard of our walk gets its real power and blessedness when once we see that we are no longer in the flesh, but are set in Christ before God. The government of God comes in, and that is another thing; but we are brought into that blessed place in the light, in the perfectness of the grace which has brought us there. We ought to be able to come, our hearts set at large by God, and, as we deal even with the world, say, What we have to talk to you about is a salvation that we have got. I have found God, and I am come to tell you of a salvation that I have got through the delivering power of God.
Bridgewater, June 17.