HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED.
THERE are two great branches of the Lord’s work for us, the knowledge of which is necessary for the enjoyment of settled peace and the maintenance of communion.
1St. What He has done for us in atonement. 2nd. What He is doing for us in intercession and advocacy.
The understanding of these two will be the basis of settled peace and uninterrupted communion for the believer.
Many of the children of God are not clear as to the first, many more as to the second—many even, who, know the real truth of their condition and the place into which they have been brought. They have not got in the depths of their souls settled peace, they are clear in their intellectual perception of the fundamental truths of Christianity, but I am speaking of the enjoyment of settled peace which it is the privilege of the child of God to possess. Carelessness, worldliness, legality, indulgence in evil, are so many causes which operate to hinder settled peace and unbroken communion. Do not separate them if you would know practically what it is to be in the light—to walk in the light.
What has Christ done for us? Into what are believers brought through His work on the cross? The answer is that we are brought into the presence of God by the blood of Jesus, as purged, living worshippers. It is due to the excellency of the blood of Jesus—it could not be what it is—the blood of God’s Son, if it did not give a purged conscience. Were it not for this, where should we be? By the blood of a goat the intelligent Jew had his matters settled with Jehovah.
He would not say, “I hope it is, but I do not feel sure of it.” No, the sacrifice has been offered, and the blood has been taken in by the high priest before Jehovah. If the Jew could have certainty, can I have no assurance? The vain heart calls that humility. Humility to doubt! Presumption to trust! Is that the order, I ask you? A Jew can have confidence, and I can have none at all! I ask, is that the gospel? Shall the believer in Jesus wander through the dark corridors of legal gloom, along which are re-echoing the groans and sighs of so many who have trod that way before? The whole soul rises in indignation to repudiate the insult to the value of the blood of Christ! I start on my career of personal holiness with a purged conscience.
Many confound two things that are obviously distinct—sin and sins. Because they feel the working of sin within, they do not fully understand “No more conscience of sins” (not, consciousness of sin). Because Christ had all my sins on Him when He died upon the cross, He put them away and they are gone. Not three-quarters, not nine-tenths, not my sins up to my conversion—all put away. God says they are put away, and I believe Him. Is it presumption to believe God? Remember that all my sins were future when Christ bore them on the cross. There is no such thing as past, present, and future with God. All is now with Him. An eternal sacrifice gives eternal peace. It breaks upon the heart in all the power of a truth that flows to us from the bosom of God. If you have a single doubt, fear, or misgiving, come and see that you do not any longer dishonor Christ. I have got a risen Christ, and I am justified before God—Christ did it all for me. He bore my sins, all my sins.
In John 13 the Lord says to Peter, “Ye are clean—every whit.” If Peter had looked within, could he have found reason for that word? or back on his career, could he see a single basis for such a statement as that? But where is the basis. He tells me, “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.” Do not suppose for a moment that it is a matter of attainment: it belongs to the babe, to the veriest babe in Christ, as fully as to the apostle himself—there is no difference. Our capacity, our attainment, our experience, may differ; but the title is the same.
And mark! it enhances it exceedingly to know that the very one on whose ear those words fell was upheld by that same Jesus, when in the weakness of flesh he denied the blessed One who had said, “Ye are clean every whit”— “clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.” In terror of his life, before a maid, Peter denied his Master, and the enemy takes advantage of such a condition to sift the soul. You are a nice Christian! You don’t mean to say that you are a Christian! You, clean every whit! You are under a delusion; it’s a mistake, a mere imagination. What sustained Peter? “I have prayed for thee,” Jesus said, “that thy faith fail not.” Christ’s advocacy kept Peter fast when in that awful moment he was sifted by Satan, and so thoroughly was his conscience purged that he could afterward say boldly to the unbelieving Jews, “Ye denied that Just One.” But did not Peter do the same thing under the most aggravated circumstances? It is not that he forgot. As eternity rolls on its course through countless ages, it will only lead Peter to sweep with more vigorous hand the chords of that harp of praise, as he remembers how much he has been forgiven, and knows how much he owes to the precious blood of Christ.
The ordinary evangelical teaching is astray on this point. It is a mistake to plead it in this way—that when we have committed sin, we must come again to the blood for cleansing. The light is the very place where you want the blood. The very same light which, were it not for the blood, would only reveal my unfitness to be there, now makes manifest the inestimable value of that which has brought me into it. I could not be in the light if there was a spot on my conscience, if my eye were not on the blood.
I know that “whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever.” If Christ has purged me, it is forever. A deeply practical point with your soul is this. If you have something on your conscience, what are you to do with it? “If any man sin,” it does not say, go to the blood of Jesus to be washed again. The blood of Christ brings me into the light; the advocacy of Christ keeps me there. Then what am I to do? “If we confess our sins” (not if we pray for forgiveness), “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.”
Christ died to make me clean; Christ lives to keep me clean; and I am made as clean as the death of Christ can make me, and I am kept as clean as His life can keep me.
If, however, you say you have something on your conscience, confess it, judge it. If my child breaks a pane of glass, it comes to tell me of it. I want you to have your conscience clear, never to know what it is to groan for a year or a day under the agony of a bad conscience. You may pray for forgiveness for a month, and never know that you have it. God’s way is different. “He is faithful and just.” To whom? To Him who was judged for all when on the cross, and who is now in the heavens. It is in faithfulness and justice to Christ that God forgives us. We might have written “merciful and gracious,” but God’s thoughts are not as our thoughts. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” Thus our communion is unbroken, and our peace undisturbed.
Christ is the material of my communion, the Holy Ghost is the power, and it is with the Father.
C. H. M.