This standing before the throne is insisted on, not simply as our introduction, or means of entrance, into blessing, in which sense, if limited to justification, it might be allowed to pass, but as our proper and constant position here and hereafter; and, above all, it is taken as the standard by which to measure all our highest blessings. Not only are we told that there is nothing higher than this imaginary standing; but it is weighed in the scale by Mr. S. against them all, and in his estimate it equals “all of them together.” Again we reply, that Mr. S. gives us no authority but his own fallible judgment for such a sweeping and all-important statement.
Now he affirms that both Old and New Testament and Millennial saints have this standing before the throne therefore it is only what everyone out of hell must certainly have, or be eternally lost, though he has none of the high privileges pertaining to saints in this dispensation; so that Mr. Stuart has reduced these exalted privileges to the millennial or Judaic level. This is his estimate of them taken separately, or “all together.” We know by this one statement to what point his system of leveling down has brought him.
Mr. S.’s comparison does not seem a happy one, that is using height in this way in the things of God, for where all is so great and so blessed, even what appears to be lowest in the scale, is wondrous grace toward man; but if it be allowable to speak of height, in judging of our blessings, it is evidently rank or dignity or elevation of position in nearness to God that is in question.
For the true heart will find with thankfulness that as God’s word presents it, height and nearness are inseparable because that height is a fruit of His love and special favor towards us, and is always so expressed in scripture; and though, the Revelation being a scene of government, this does not come out in the same way there as in the Ephesians it is clearly discernible, when the saints on earth render their praise to Him who loves them and washed them from their sins in His own blood and made them kings and priests to God and His Father (Rev. 1:5, 65And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, 6And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. (Revelation 1:5‑6)).
We will proceed to examine the evidence of scripture on this subject.
What is the meaning of our being quickened, raised, and seated in heavenly places if it be not height {Eph. 2:66And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: (Ephesians 2:6)}? It is not merely resurrection that is in view, but ascension and heavenly places as our present position, and where we have our present portion. “The heaven for height,” we are told in the Proverbs. God has conferred blessing upon men on earth, and will do so again; but He is pleased, according to eternal counsels, to bless saints in this dispensation “with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ,” and this is by the manifestation of Himself in His blessed nature and in relationship, according to the place He has given Christ. He is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and we are looked upon as identified with Christ in His presence, for “He has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.” We have also the place of sonship, and are in all this, to the praise of the glory of His grace, of which we are favored recipients in the Beloved.
There is no mention of a throne here; it is the display of God’s nature in blessing of the highest order; the throne is not alluded to in this Epistle, any more than in the Epistles of John, where it would be quite out of place: to introduce it would mar the whole teaching of the Spirit of God in these Epistles.
It is what God is, as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; what He is towards Him as such, as He Himself said, “I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” The blessing with which He blesses Him as man, not as on the throne, but as “before him in love” in all that flows out as divine, as well as from the name of Father is unfolded in the richest way. God has His nature and character – relationship as a Father – quite apart from His formal position as Sovereign sitting on a throne. This is true even of an earthly monarch in relation to his family and household. Does he sit an a throne in his home? Was the Father on it when he “ran and fell on the prodigal’s neck and kissed him”! Has Mr. Stuart lost the sense of this and of its blessedness, or what becomes of his statement that “God is ever and always on the throne”?
We have it added, “In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches [not the glory] of his grace”; but this, all-important as it and corresponding with justification (see Rom. 3:2424Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: (Romans 3:24)) is here – the door by which we enter into the heavenly blessings. Are we to say that Christ then has no place as man, but a standing justified before the throne without fear of judgment overtaking Him, excepting of course His place on the throne which is exclusively His own? What is being “in Christ,” seated, favored, holy, and without blame, and blessed in Him, if it be not our having His position as man before God, in the precious life which He communicated?
And yet we are told that to be “in Christ” is no higher position than this standing before the throne, common to all saints as justified (pages 8, 9).
Mr. Stuart admits “nearness” as proper to our place as sons, and this he also speaks of as relationship rather than standing, to which no objection can be taken; but does sonship give no dignity, or height of position, or rank? Is there no standing arising from relationship? Have not the children of the sovereign a rank and position as such? Are not hereditary honors recognized both in scripture and the world, as well as those conferred for services rendered or the distinguished conduct? “If children,” says the apostle, “then heirs, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ” (Rom. 8:1717And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. (Romans 8:17)).
“I will make him, my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth”: as regards ourselves, “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matt.13:43). So exalted is the position in which we are seen as the children of God. Thus what Mr. Stuart speaks of as high scripture does not so speak of, and those things he weighs in the scale against this standing – as only equal to it “all together,” and therefore, of course, outweighed by it taken singly – are precisely what scripture does magnify, and exalt as positions of especial honor and high in connection with God, and the dignity He confers, and above all other creatures. That is, Mr. Stuart’s weights and measures are not only unknown to scripture, but directly the reverse of it.
This standing before the throne, also, is said to be owing to the value of the sacrifice of Christ; and anything that would give us the value of the position of Christ is excluded in a double way; not only because our being in Christ is denied to be “position,” but in the following terms.
Further, the great importance of keeping this clear will be apparent, when it is seen that the making the truth of being in Christ to be an essential part of the believer’s standing, would be really to add something to the value of the atoning sacrifice; namely, our receiving the Holy Ghost to perfect our standing before the throne.
For it is by the indwelling of the Spirit that we come to be in Christ. Into this we will look presently.
Meantime it will be sufficient to say, that in proportion as we add anything to that sacrifice to complete the ground of our standing, we necessarily detract from its value as God has set it forth. People may not be aware of this, yet that is the evil of it (page 12).
Could any system be more effectually devised for keeping us this side of death and resurrection for our place, standing and position before God? We are told, that to bring our being in Christ or the reception of the Holy Ghost, into our standing before God, is to add something to the value of the work of Christ or even to detract from its value; a statement not withdrawn but repeated in the second pamphlet (p. 28).
This is stated in a very solemn way, and with all the authority of a judge laying down the law, in a case of which he is supreme arbiter.
Mr. Darby thus replies to the same objection as used by Mr. Newton
There is another point connected with this, that I would not leave untouched; namely, that, making a difference of position in glory is setting aside the value of Christ’s blood and making our place on high depend on something else. Now I meet this difficulty in the face and I say there is a difference in glory; and that difference does not depend on the precious blood of Christ; and to say that it does, takes away value from that blood. . . . It is quite clear that the saints on earth during the millennium are redeemed by blood, and yet as to glory, are much farther off than the crowned elders. . . . These differences of dispensation are the displays of God’s glory; and therefore of all importance; and most essential, because a positive part of His glory. . . . The more you succeed in leveling them to one thing, the more you succeed in stifling divine affections, and active human responsibility –destroying, as far as may be, divine communion, and frustrating divine grace – the more the glory and energy of faith is null and hence God’s glory in us (Examination of Mr. Newton’s Views, pp. 32, 33).
But not one particle of scripture does the writer {C. E. S.} give for this astounding assertion, for such it really is. What makes this statement so dangerous and subversive of the truth of God, is that it severs “the indwelling of the Holy Ghost,” and our position “in Christ” and all consequent blessing from their connection with the work of Christ, and denies their being an expression of its infinite value. How could we be “in Christ,” or “receive the Holy Ghost,” save by the value of the work of Christ, though as a distinct effect of it, higher and different in its nature from justification (Mr. S.’s standing), and giving a share in heavenly glory, which that does not give us, as we have seen? How can intelligent Christians allow of such statements, which show beyond question that the writer must have lost the heavenly results of the work of Christ and the position He has taken for us, or he could never have penned them. If a monument stands upon marble pillars or columns, how can it detract from their value that there should be a beautiful superstructure, crowned with an exquisite figure? It is just the proof, of the value and excellence of those pillars.
Now if anything has been inculcated and commonly received among us, with incalculable blessing to souls far and wide, it is that scripture teaches exactly the opposite, namely that the position Christ has taken on high as man, and our place “in Him,” are alike by virtue (not only of the excellence of His Person but) of the wonderful work, not only “for us” (Mr. S.’s constant limit of it), but in which He glorified God on the cross, In proof of this, we give some extracts from Either in Adam or in Christ {by J. N. Darby}.
The Holy Ghost the Comforter is therefore given us as soon as Christ went up on high; and thus we know, not only that we are risen with Him, but that we are in Him and He in us. This sets our standing, and consciously so, through the Holy Ghost in Christ; sitting in heavenly places in Him, accepted in the Beloved (page 45).
We are justified through His blood. But there was a value in Christ’s work for God’s own glory, His righteousness, majesty, love, truth, all He is and according to purpose. This done for us (good and evil being known) and in the way of redemption, gives us a righteous and blessed place in perfect love in the presence of God and our Father, according to a life and nature and in a place which Adam innocent had not at all. Our place in heaven is founded on the glorifying of God. Ephesians 1 brings this fully out (pp. 45, 46).
His (the believer’s) place before God is in Christ risen not in Adam in the flesh. But as he is there by the death and resurrection of Christ, he is there according to the value of what He has there wrought (page 52).
In this work, wrought by Him as Man, He has reestablished the glory of God before the universe, upon a sure and abiding basis; sin being dealt with in a way that all the rights of God, which had been infringed or trespassed on have been reestablished in the death of that blessed One and in the depths through which He passed for the glory of God; whose character is displayed in the way He dealt with it, when His Son took it on Himself, as it never otherwise could have been.
All this has given Him a claim on the divine glory which has now righteously responded in placing Him on the throne of God, and soon will put all things under His feet, giving Him a title over the whole universe, as Head in blessing, for which He thus tasted death, gaining (as man) a title to have all things put under Him (Heb. 2:88Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him. (Hebrews 2:8)).
Inasmuch as this was done by Him as man, and for man as well as for the glory of God, He has also received the title to associate others with Himself, in the position He has taken in life, righteousness, and glory.
The apostle tells us “He who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we might be made [or become] the righteousness of God in him” {2 Cor. 5:2121For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)}. Our place before God “in him” is thus distinctly stated to be the result of His having been “made sin for us” and is the display of God’s righteousness in answer to His work – not only in giving Him this place in divine righteousness, “Of righteousness because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more” (John 16:1010Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; (John 16:10)) – but in making us “the righteousness of God in him.” He Himself tells us, “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth alone” (John 12:2424Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. (John 12:24)). This passage makes our association with Him, as risen, the distinct effect and result of His death, and the presence of the Holy Ghost in and with us, is constantly presented as another blessed consequence of His death and the title He has to share with us the blessings He enjoys as man, having the unction of the Holy Ghost for the kingdom; “anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows” (Ps. 45:7). It is the same oil of gladness in royal and priestly dignity; and He has His fellows, who are His companions, and partake with Him the joys and glory of that heavenly scene.
True indeed, that these wondrous results of His blessed work are not the same, as the value of His blood in clearing or justifying, in which all the redeemed participate; but though not the same in breadth or application, they throw in other ways a luster and glory on that work, and in the rights vested in Him as a consequence of it, and show how the eternal counsels of God repose on it for their fulfillment; counsels which existed in the mind of God before the world began and running on into eternal ages, “That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:77That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:7)). “To him be glory in the church throughout all ages, world without end. Amen” (Eph. 3:2121Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. (Ephesians 3:21)). That man can be in such heights of glory with Christ, linked to Him as His body, is what scripture again speaks of as height; the same power working in us that has set Christ in this exalted position, giving Him a place over everything created, a place which the body enjoys as complement of the Head, not part of what is put under Him, but as part of Himself and sharing in His supremacy. Height and depth are also again predicated (Eph. 3:1818May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; (Ephesians 3:18)), as belonging to this position, in which the church is placed with Christ; and not only so, but (Eph. 3:9, 109And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: 10To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, (Ephesians 3:9‑10)) as the means by which the most exalted beings are learning the admirable wisdom of God, in a way it never had been and could not be before unfolded, but was the deepest secret of His heart and mind hidden in the counsels of eternity. “That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man. That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye, might be filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:16-1816That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; 17That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 18May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; (Ephesians 3:16‑18)).
It has been noticed by Mr. Darby, that salvation or justification by blood, that is, clearing away of our responsibilities as fallen creatures, is never spoken of in scripture as the subject of eternal counsel or purpose, as the old Calvinists supposed, but that these are founded on another aspect of the work of Christ, namely, that of the accomplished glory of God, and connected with a special place and glory, given to saints with Christ. This is confirmed by another difference observable in scripture, in treating of justification and those who are the subjects of it and of purpose or blessing “in Christ” and those who are the subjects of it; namely, that the latter is always said to be before the foundation of the world, the former, as distinctly to be only from that event. And this is so often repeated in speaking of them, as to leave not the shadow of a doubt, that there is a divine meaning and intimation in it.
Twice it is recorded of those who do not wonder at and will not worship the beast, that they are “written in the book of life”: the words of “the slain Lamb” are added in one instance, clearly denoting justification by His blood but it is “from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8 17:8). These, moreover, are a special class who suffer for their faithfulness, and even have a share in the heavenly part of the kingdom (Matt. 24). Those also distinguished as the sheep in Matt. 25 are called to inherit the blessings of the earthly kingdom, but this also is “prepared for them from the foundation of the world.” Of those who are associated with Christ, on the contrary, it is said, they are “chosen in Him before the foundation of the world,” and His purpose and grace were “given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,” for we are predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He may be the Firstborn among many brethren (Eph. 1:4, 5, 11; 3:114According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: 5Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, (Ephesians 1:4‑5)
11In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: (Ephesians 1:11)
11According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord: (Ephesians 3:11) 2 Tim. 1:99Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, (2 Timothy 1:9); Rom. 8:29, 3029For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. (Romans 8:29‑30)). Now this purpose, involving conformity to Christ in glory, who was the object of the Father’s love and delight before the world was, dates not from time, as with those who are only justified (“no higher blessing, as we are told”), but before time, and all that relates to it existed. For in eternity these special counsels of love were planned {so to speak}.
What affection and adoration should the thought of such grace awaken in our hearts, and what lowliness and self-renunciation, it should produce likewise. This is always the effect of nearness to God.
The more Thy glories strike mine eyes
The lower I shall lie
Thus whilst I sink, my joy shall rise
Immeasurably high.
The elders, quitting their thrones, take off their crowns and cast them before the throne, whilst they prostrate themselves before Him who sits up on it; for the more they are honored, the more they delight to exalt Him who has conferred so much upon them, and to attribute all to Him and to His sovereign grace, in the sense of their nothingness and unworthiness. To bring souls, therefore more into the consciousness of the presence of God and nearness to Him, is the way to produce true lowliness and self-emptiness with real self-judgment. Man seeks to effect all this in his own way; a Calvinist, by his ideas about the throne; the Arminian, fearing to rely upon grace, by retaining souls under the law. Both alike, as with this system, keep them in the place of distance, and hinder the glory of God in His saints, and the results which flow, both from the affections being engaged and the sense of responsibility, which is deepened according to the blessing conferred and the love displayed in it.