WE must ask our readers to recall some papers, which have already appeared in this year’s issue of our Magazine, in order that the voice from heaven, of which we are about to speak, may have its place distinctly in the mind; for assuredly it has its definite place in the ways of God, and in the word of God.
Each of the four occasions on which voices from heaven were heard during the lifetime of our Lord upon earth, marked the special pleasure of God in His Son as a man. The four occasions were those of His lowly birth, the commencement of His gracious ministry, His coming glory as Man, and His prospect of death, even the death of the cross.
The last of these four voices was uttered only a few days previous to the death of out blessed Lord; before another was heard, Jesus had died, risen, and gone up on high. The four related to Himself; the last three to Him as the beloved Son of the Father—a Man upon this earth. The voice of which we would now speak fell from heaven to the earth, where He no longer was, and the Lord Himself was the speaker, and His own upon earth the subject of His words. “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” What a contemplation for our souls is the fact of the absence from this world of the Son of God’s love, over whom heaven was opened, and the Father’s pleasure was expressed! Can we be insensible to the fact that the death, the resurrection, and the ascension of Jesus necessarily, alter all things, morally speaking, not only in the attitude of God towards the world, but also in His relationship with His people? “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself” (2 Cor. 5:19), but Christ has been rejected by men (Isa. 53:3); and now, since the world has cast out the Son of God, God in perfect grace associates His people with the Lord in a way that never before was known.
As for the world, we remember the Lord’s words very shortly before He left it for heaven: “Yet a little while, and the world seeth Me no more.” (John 14:19) He had come into the world, and it had not known Him. (Chapter 1:10) He had spent some time in it—the great and the small of it had seen Him—but the world, which He had made, was ignorant of Him. Being about to leave it, we read, in the seventeenth chapter of the gospel by John, He asked not for it at the hands of His Father, for other desires were in our Lord’s heart. True, the time will come when He will ask of Jehovah, and He will give Him the heathen for His inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession (Psa. 2), but up till now other desires, we say, are in His heart.
The absence of the Son of God from this world convicts it of its crime. “Where is Abel thy brother?” inquired Jehovah of the first murderer; Cain; and he lied, saying, “I know not.” (Gen. 4:9.) Abel was absent from the earth. Why? He was slain! And now the question for this world is, “Where is Jesus?” and its heedless reply is, “I know not,” and as said Cain, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” so are men today careless as to the fact of an absent Jesus, and ready to shake off the sense of their being part of this world which has slain Him. But, beloved reader, Jehovah, who said to Cain, “What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto Me from the ground” —has His controversy with this world, and the question, “Where is Jesus?” must be answered, though judgment tarry.
The presence of the Holy Ghost upon this earth, testifying to the absent Jesus, the Father’s beloved Son, in whom He was well pleased, convicts the world of righteousness, because the slain One has gone to His Father. (John 16:10). The presence of Christ as Man in heaven is proved by the presence of the Holy Ghost on earth, testifying to Him there. And now the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness.
There is nothing left for the world, which has cast out the well-beloved Son of the Father, but judgment. The world will never see Him again until it sees Him coming in judgment. This fact is of the utmost solemnity, and it forever bars out all prospects of progress in goodness for this world, and leaves it with this terrible question to answer, “Where is Jesus?”
On the other hand, the absence of Jesus from this earth and His presence as a Man in heaven affects the relationship of God with His people. The seventeenth of John, to which we have referred, opens to us the thoughts of Jesus and the Father respecting the people of God. If He did not ask for the world, He asked for His own, who were in it but not of it. He looked at them as distinctly not of the world, as He is not of the world, and so the Lord looks upon His people still. The Lord’s thoughts now are upon His own: He asked for them. And as the Lord’s own are not of the world, so they are in the Father, and in the Son. In the world, but not of it, even as Christ is not of it. Loved as He is loved, and of heaven as He is of heaven.
The people of God now are directly associated with the world-rejected Christ where He is. They are not simply “forgiven all trespasses” (Col. 2:13), redeemed to God (1 Pet. 1:18), “delivered from this present evil world” (Gal. 1:4), and “delivered from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10), they are also “in Christ,” and His portion in heaven as a Man is theirs. (Eph. 1:3.) The Scriptures unfold to us this all-important truth—a truth so important, we may safely assert, that, if it is not apprehended, true Christianity is unknown—for Christianity runs upon the great truths of Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension. Christians have been crucified with Christ to the world (Gal. 6:14), are risen with Christ (Col. 3:1), and are in Him, who is ascended into heaven, and seated on the right hand of God the Father. (Eph. 2:6.)
We cannot too earnestly press upon our readers the consideration of these truths, for much that is for their own joy in Christ, and much that issues out in their lives for the glory of their God, results from these truths being consciously theirs by the power of the Spirit of God. Note, dear reader, that we say consciously yours, for what is needed is that the heart and the affections, and not simply the understanding, be filled by the Holy Ghost with the truth of God.
In the absence of the Lord, the Holy Spirit, the other Comforter, has been sent from the Father and the Son to this earth, to dwell in the hearts of the people of God, and to lead them into intelligent relationship with the Lord in heaven. It is by His gracious work within us that we really lay hold of the truth, or, we might more appropriately say, that the truth lays hold of us. We read, “Having your loins girt about with truth” (Eph. 6:14), that is, having the affections encircled by it, braced up and strengthened for our conflict. This, beloved reader, is what we should most earnestly long for and seek after in getting the truth, that the truth should get hold of us.
When our Lord was crucified, the career of humanity came to its judicial end. The world can do nothing. worse than it has done in the crucifixion of the Son of God’s love, and no progress that it can make, can ever efface its deed. It may, indeed, add to its guilt, but it cannot perform any act which will exceed that awful crime, The cross of Christ also proclaims, concerning each individual sinner, that God has “condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom. 8:3), therefore, whatever human thoughts may be of human reformation, the divine truth is that, so long back as eighteen hundred years ago, man as man, good or bad, as to his nature—whether religious or heathen is not material—was by God regarded as condemned in the cross of His Son, “who was made sin for us.”
After the death of the Lord, and His ascension to glory, the course of the world ran on to all appearances as before. The rulers of the world and the religions of the world continued their way uninterruptedly. This proceeded for a short and given period of time, even in the very city where our Lord was crucified, where the religious people rejoiced that they were no longer troubled with His presence. But, suddenly, Jerusalem was aroused and shaken by the mighty energy of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, and the testimony from heaven to Christ in heaven on the day of Pentecost, made the stout hearts of the impenitent tremble. Some were cut to the quick, and fearing the wrath of God, consequent upon the slaying of His Son, repented and believed, and then it was that Christianity was formally established upon the earth. It was built upon the facts of Christ’s rejection by the world, His absence from it, and His presence in heaven, to which the Holy Ghost on earth was witness.
The leading thoughts in the hearts of the early Christians were the death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord, and also His coming again to execute judgment upon the wicked who had cast Him out. The Holy Ghost was the power for this testimony to Christ, and the heavenly walk of those primal times.
There was no such idea prevalent in those days in the minds of true believers as that the world is not so bad as the death of Christ proves it to be; and as the early Christians lived in the expectation of the Lord’s return, they could not settle down into the ways of the world which He is coming to judge. As God gave His people more instruction, as He unfolded by His apostles the truths now familiar to us in the New Testament the heavenly. privileges and joys—the portion and inheritance of believers—the fact of His own being one with Christ above, and the world which had crucified Jesus being reserved for judgment, became more and more distinct to faith.
We have thus enlarged in order to place definite considerations before our reader’s mind, so that he may give more weight to the meaning of the words of the voice from heaven which was heard after the crucifixion of our Lord.
(To be continued.)