IN THE MIDST OF FIRE, LOOSE
Did we not east three men bound into the midst of the fire P Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God."—Dan. 3:24, 2524Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonied, and rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king. 25He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God. (Daniel 3:24‑25).
AS I stood at my window one fine spring morning I saw two birds which were fluttering about in the greatest agitation. First they perched on the branches of a tree just in front of me, then they flew down to the earth, and without resting there an instant, they winged their way up again, twittering and fluttering all the time. I was wondering what could be the matter with them, when I observed two little brown fledglings crouching on the earth beneath the tree, and hiding themselves as best they could under the shelter of the fence. They had been startled from their nest by the gardener who was at work upon the ivied wall, and had fallen helplessly to the earth without the strength to fly. The parent birds, who knew that they wore in a place of danger, were doing their utmost to induce them, to make the effort to use their wings, and make their 'escape; but they could not fly. They had wings, it is true, but they had not as yet the strength to use them; yet all the while they were safe, though not as yet saved, because I, who had both the will and the power to deliver them, was watching them where they were; and I soon lifted them up, and put them in a new place—a place of safety. A strength not their own had to do it.
And now this evening we have come to that stage in our journey when the soul is conscious of deliverance from judgment on Self. But it would be of little use to it to know that its link with Adam was broken through the condemnation of sinful Self in Christ "made sin" unless it could rise up and live. The young man, of whom I told you, who was lost in the Australian bush, sank down and died, and there was an end to his weakness; the young officer who could not undo the act that had disgraced him, died broken-hearted, and there was an end of his sorrow and his shame. But he who looked on the Brazen Serpent lived, and the soul that beholds Christ "made sin for us" by God,—lives.
Do you ask how? By a power not its own. "For the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and of death" (Rom. 8:22For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:2)).
Your soul's journey of experience through the sea of Death that surrounds the Land of Loneliness is drawing to its close, for the fullness of the grand work done on the Cross of Christ is now being made good in your soul by the Holy Ghost. The idol Self, whom you so fondly thought could live before a holy God, has been dropped at last from your weary arms, and is buried from God's sight in the death of Christ. You have proved now by painful experience that in you, that is, in your flesh, there dwells no good thing, nothing that even God can improve, and you see that the Fire of judgment alone could free you from the idol which had made your soul solitary. Now you understand how, with the sound of rushing wind and the light of glowing fire, the Holy Spirit of God could come down at Pentecost to dwell within mortal bodies, not to consume them, but to energize the soul, and to shed abroad in the heart the warm glow of the Love of God. God had seen the end of man in the flesh long ago. He knew what the Fire had done for you; the Holy Spirit has now made it good in your soul, and by His indwelling power you now live unto God. Very, very near the end of the journey are you; very, very near to the God you love, to the Home for which you yearn.
"Spring up, O well," sang the children of Israel, after they had seen the Brazen Serpent; and now the mighty Power within you is free to lead your soul into deliverance by Power, that is, into Liberty. "There is therefore now no condemnation,—or judgment,—to them that are in Christ Jesus; for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and of death" (Rom. 8:1, 21There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 2For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:1‑2)).
What does it mean: "The spirit of life in Christ Jesus"? It means a new power and a new place. Like those little birds who had wings but could not yet fly, you have now to enter into the enjoyment of a new place by a new power. You have to learn your origin, and that you are at liberty to rise to your Home.
I remember hearing some years ago the account of an eagle's escape from captivity, and as it now comes before me, I will tell it to you as something of an illustration of this last stage of our long journey from Loneliness to Relationship. The eagle is, as you know, a royal bird. He lives among mountain peaks, and builds his nest upon the crags, where foot of man can rarely climb. This eagle, whose story I am about to tell you, lived among the wild, free hills of Donegal, upon the north-west coast of Ireland. How he had been tempted down from his home among the mountain crests to the lower earth, I do not know, but he had fallen into a snare, and at the time when my story opens he was living on the plain, chained by the leg to a heap of stones, which was placed in the grounds of a large house, situated in Donegal. He was kept there as an ornament to the place, but he did not belong to it. His captors fed him and admired him, but he was not happy with them; he did not love them. Ile was a free bird of the hills, and he pined for his native heights. Their dainties had tempted him down, but they could not satisfy him, and day by day he turned his wistful eye upwards, and night by night he crouched to rest upon his pile of stones, with drooping wings and fallen crest,—a sad-hearted, despairing captive.
Now, so it was that one day, after months of captivity, this eagle found out a secret. How he found it out I cannot tell you, but certain it is that he had done so, before he actually made use of it, for on that day, his captors coming round as usual to admire him and to feed him, were astonished at his beauty. "What has happened to the eagle?" they cried in wonder; for they beheld his eye full of new light, turned upwards to the sky, his crest raised, his large wings half spread, quivering with excitement. "How beautiful he looks!" they cried, little dreaming that down, far down in that captive's breast, a wonderful secret was hidden. "The chain can't hold me; I am free." He wanted not their dainties; he cared not for their company; it was for his home he was yearning—for his home among the crags. And even while they watched and wondered, with one swift bound he left his clanking fetters behind him, and sped along the mountain road.
He was free, but he was not safe. It is true that his fetters were powerless to hold him, but his long wings could not raise him from the level surface of the ground; he must reach some mound or rock before he could get air enough below them for the mighty strokes that should raise him upward to his native heights. It was a desperate race, a race for liberty. Beating the dust with his long wings, he rushed along the mountain road, while after him in hot pursuit ran his breathless foes. Little chance of escape would the bird have had, had not a mound of rock beside the road caught his eager eye. Up its rugged sides he fluttered, and as he reached its summit, flight and pursuit were over. Well he knew that on that rock he was free indeed; for it gave him the power to use his wings, and well did his pursuers know also, that once there, no power of theirs could retake him. The day was wild and stormy; masses of dark clouds were sweeping across the sky, swathing, in their volumed folds, the mountain peaks where was the eagle's home; but so it chanced, that, just as he paused on the top of that friendly rock, the wondering onlookers beheld a sudden gleam of sunlight stream through the drifting cloud-rack, and bathe with a golden glory the mountain road, the jutting rock, the eagle's dusky form upon it. Up that ladder of light they looked, up through the drifting storm, up through the rift in the volumed clouds, and there bathed in perennial sunshine, poised on its outspread wings, half seen, half lost in the blaze of light, floated another eagle's form, watching with piercing eye its comrade's gladsome escape. Not another instant paused the bird, but away and away up that pathway of light it sped, to its friends and its home among the crests of the mountain.
Oh, that secret! the eagle's wonderful secret! Is it yours? Has it dawned upon you, as you see yourself freed from the doom of indwelling sin,—of all that you are, of all that you have done as a child of Adam, that "greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world?" (1 John 4:44Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. (1 John 4:4)). If so, I am sure a gladsome sense of liberty at hand has flooded your soul with a new-found joy. No vows that Self has made, to do, to live, can bind down the free-born soul, for it lives in a life beyond the reach of Self's death and doom. "Because I live ye shall live also," cried the Deliverer. No had habits that Self has allowed, strong as iron though they be, can bind down the soul that the Fire has freed from the doom of sin, for then the Fire itself consumes all that has bound the soul. The chains won't hold, glad soul; you are free. "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free" (Gal. 5:11Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. (Galatians 5:1)).
"I am free," cries the soul; but then begins the race for liberty.
I was reading this morning the words of the Lord Jesus, "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself; and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever will lose his life for My sake, the same shall save it" (Luke 9:23, 2423And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. 24For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. (Luke 9:23‑24)).
What does this mean? it means a living death to Self. But you say, "A living death to Self. We thought Self was gone in Christ made sin for us.'" So he is, in God's sight, but after you gaze on the Brazen Serpent you have to tread through Jordan. For it is soon very plain to us that though Self has gone from before God, and can no more bring us into judgment, yet while we are in our present mixed condition he is always ready to assert himself, and strive to regain the throne in our hearts, upon which the Holy Spirit has set Christ. Do you ask what is meant by our present mixed condition? It means that although our souls are alive unto God in Christ Jesus, our mortal bodies still link us to Adam's fallen race. We have not bodies yet suited to the life in Christ. Therefore death to Self has to be made good in us day by day; that is, we have to deny Self, to disown his authority and his wishes, and to keep him down in the place of death, where God has put him.
Ah! what a sound of battle rises upon our ears at this stage of our journey. Have you not read how Abraham" had to cast out Ishmael? Ishmael was the son of Abraham's Self-will. He thought to get God's promise of a son by the plannings and the wisdom of Self. But the child of sinful Self-will was born in bondage, and could never become free-born; he could not be joint heir with Isaac, the child of promise, given by the power of God. Abraham grieved for Ishmael; we none of us like disowning the fruit of Self, but Self and Christ cannot dwell together. Have you heard Christians speak of the "Galatian conflict 9" This is the struggle that they mean, "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would" (Gal. 5:1717For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. (Galatians 5:17)). The Apostle said, "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh"; that means, let the Spirit of God have His own way with you, and He will keep Self down in death. All the workings and the counsels, and the plannings and the fruit of Self have to be disowned. Nothing whatever of Self, even his beauty, or his talent, or his wit, or his eloquence, will do for God. How could it? have we not seen Christ the Holy Son of God "made sin" to free us from our link with sinful Adam? The Fire of God had to fall upon it. "Away with it," cries the soul that has seen the Brazen Serpent in the Light of God. "Away with Ishmael, he must be cast out." The glow of heat, the new Power within the heart burns for the God who so loved us, as to give up Christ to bear our doom. The Fire of God and the Power of God are resting there.
Now, sometimes it is years after the soul has seen the condemnation of sin in the flesh before it reaches its next stage in this solemn journey, which is liberty. Shall I tell you why? Because it only too often allows Self to rise up and pretend to help in this desperate contest. It is the great enemy's device to keep believers in Christ occupied with their own state, and he stirs up self-effort to overcome Self, and thus the, Spirit is grieved because He is not allowed to carry on the battle in victory. "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption (Eph. 4:3030And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. (Ephesians 4:30)). Sony, people will tell you that this struggle is to go on while you are on earth. It is plain they have never learned deliverance by power.
There is not only a moment when the soul is brought to see sin in the flesh, i.e, Self condemned, but another moment when it comes to the very end of its own efforts to walk in the Spirit, a moment when it learns experimentally that "the battle is the Lord's," and that it may "stand still and see the salvation of the Lord." Then and then only is Deliverance by power wrought, and you become suddenly conscious, as one has said, that there is "a Power in you superior to all opposition, internal or external" "greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world" (1 John 4:44Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. (1 John 4:4)). Oh, that moment! that never-to-be-forgotten moment! the soul sees Christ seated on the throne of its being as Lord in reality. It cries "I am free," for "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (2 Cor. 3:1717Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. (2 Corinthians 3:17)). Nothing short of the conscious enjoyment of this is liberty. It is the gift of God, "you are called unto liberty." People who do not know it may say what they like, but be assured that nothing short of liberty is sod's purpose for the believer. Isaac the child of promise was free-born. The Holy Spirit of promise has set you free in Christ.
But if I go on with my simple illustration of the eagle's story, you will remember that the bird, though free, could not mount away to his friends and his home, until he stood upon the rock. It is now your soul's new place, or new origin, which you need, to realize "in Christ Jesus."
This phrase "in Christ" used to be a great puzzle to me. I thought it meant being in the ark like Noah, as if in some way I was inside Christ, and how that could be I did not understand at all, but I used to try and explain it to people as being inside a place of shelter from judgment. I am sure I puzzled them very much, for I had not seen God's meaning in the words. Oh those two little words "in Christ." They mean so much. They mean to your soul, in its escape from the Land of Loneliness, all and more than the rock meant to the eagle in its escape from captivity. It could not have gone home without the rock, nor can your souls enter into the joys of Relationship without enjoying the truth in those two words "in Christ." It is the fact of your soul's new origin that you need to realize. Let me try and explain it more fully to you.
It was on a lovely summer's afternoon, when the shadows of the trees were making cool shady places here and there in the garden, that a lady who was visiting at my father's house said to me, "Let us go out into the garden and enjoy the air." "By all means," I replied, and we were soon seated under the trees talking together upon various topics; but the conversation soon turned to the subject which was, I think, uppermost in her mind. It was the history of her own sad life. She had been left an orphan when very young, and had never known either a mother's tender care, or a father's sheltering love. Her life had been spent in wandering hither and thither, from situation to situation as a poor lonely, homeless governess. As she went on with her history she suddenly brightened up, and spoke in glowing terms of the kindness she had received in one of her situations. She had not only been well remunerated for her labors, but she had been cared for, and loved, and her poor heart had gone out in answering love to her kind employers. But at that point of her narrative she stopped abruptly, and then after a moment's pause resumed in a tone in which sorrow and bitterness were painfully blended. "But after all, you may do what you will, you may study them to your utmost, you may slave away your life to please them, but you are only the governess ' still. You may come in, and you may go out, but you do not belong to them. Your services are needed— and you stay; your services are at an end—and you go. Do what you will, you remain one alone. You are not—you never can be—one of them."
Ah, that sad lonely orphan heart had found there was no way for her into a father's affections, or a family circle on earth—none. No efforts of hers could make her one of the stock. "One of the stock"; that is what the soul needs to understand. No law-keeping, no service, however faithful, could make it one of the stock, could give it a birth-right to the joys of Relationship. But the truth is, it has been freed from its Adam link by the judgment of Fire that fell on Christ "made sin" by God, and that it has been linked with Christ risen from the dead—free of sin, and death, and judgment—by the indwelling of the Holy spirit of promise, which came down like wind and tire at Pentecost. You see you have a new origin, a new tart, a start from Christ in glory, so that your glad soul can never come under the power of death and judgment more. "As He is, so are we in this world" (1 John 4:44Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. (1 John 4:4)). You are "in Christ." It will make it plainer to you, I think, if you add the word "race" after "in Christ," and say "In Christ's race." That poor governess, work as she would, could never be one of the family she served. She could not be of their race; she could have no inheritance with them; she could claim no father's love, no father's care. It was impossible. But the loving heart of our God in eternity sought not to make us servants standing afar off in the Land of Loneliness, but to create in Christ a race of sons, who should draw nigh and worship in a Father's home. Do you see it?
Once sprung from Adam sinful, outside of Eden, gazing with fear at the Flaming Sword that righteously guarded the way to the Tree of Life on earth,—now sprung from Christ, the last Adam,—a life-giving Spirit—the Tree of Life in the paradise of God. "In Christ." "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; obi things are passed away; behold all things are become new" (2 Cor. 5:1717Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17)). And priceless are the privileges which this marvelous new creation that has put your soul "in Christ" confers upon you. It is indeed a change of place. Clothed in a righteousness that can stand the Fire we walk at liberty, the blessed liberty of the Spirit of God; and we walk as unconsumed by the searching flames as He who is with us, whose form is like unto the Son of God. "For both He that sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified are all of one; for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren" (Heb. 2:1111For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, (Hebrews 2:11)).
Wisdom 1 Ah! what wisdom. Christ was the wisdom of God, ere the world was, and by Him God purposed to place us "in Christ" as a race of sons, in eternity's changeless sphere. Righteousness! Ah! Yes, now you can see how in Christ we no longer live like the poor signalman, the same man who had failed, or like the traitor nobleman—a forgiven rebel—but in Christ we have justification of life; we live as men of a new order altogether before God, "clean every whit." We see, as one has said, "the man that was under judgment, is gone in judgment." Sanctification Yes, for as Christ has sanctified Himself, or set Himself apart as a Man of a new order, the Head of a new race, so as getting our new origin from Him we too are set apart, or sanctified to God. "For both He that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one" (Heb. 2:1111For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, (Hebrews 2:11)).
Redemption! Yes; even these poor bodies, still mortal, still corrupt, will be redeemed, and because of the Holy Spirit, which dwells in them, they will be changed, when Christ comes forth, into bodies like His own. That will be "the redemption of the purchased possession." "Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God, and not only they but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption—or sonship—the redemption of our body" (Rom. 8:21-2421Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 22For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. 23And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. 24For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? (Romans 8:21‑24)).
Not long ago I climbed a steep hillside, and when at its summit I paused and looked behind me. "What a beautiful view!" I cried as I beheld the heaving waters of the mighty ocean rolling beneath me, as far as I could see. So now your soul in its experience is climbing Jordan's brink, and stands in its experience where it has ever been seen in God's purpose, on the Red sea-shore of victory. "What a beautiful view!" it cries, as it beholds behind it the great sea of Death that once shut it righteously in its prison in. the Land of Loneliness. "In Christ" it looks back on His death and judgment, and beholds its idol Self buried from God's view in Jordan's rolling waters, judged by Fire and left behind like the twelve stones graven with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel who had fallen in the wilderness. And well may it cry as it basks in Zion's shade-less light of grace, and looks back on Calvary's cross of shame, "What a beautiful view! What hath God wrought!"
But there is more. Death has become the servant. I read once the story of a French Count whom Napoleon the First shut up in prison. He was quite a young man when the sentence was passed upon him, which made him a prisoner in one small room of an ancient fortress, and years passed over him while he led his sorrowful life in solitary confinement. Day by day and night by night, the gaoler, under whose hands he was, visited his cell, and day by day and night by night, shot the bolts again and left him to his misery. But gradually the man grew to love his captive, and did many kindly acts to relieve the monotony of his prison life. At last the Count became very ill, and the gaoler had to become his nurse. With tender care he nursed him through his sickness, and got leave for him to walk every day in a little yard beneath his prison. "What would you do," said the Count to him one day, "if you were to see me escaping over these walls?" "I should shoot you instantly," replied the man. "I am your gaoler; it would be my duty to shoot you, and I should do it." A few years later, and Napoleon, at the intercession of Josephine, set the prisoner free. The bolts were withdrawn for the last time, the bars were removed, the doors were thrown open, the Count was at liberty. "Now, sir," said the gaoler, "if you will take me with you, I will be your servant until I die." So, now the soul "in Christ" beholds a strange new servant at its side. Death, who was once its righteous gaoler, has become its servant. He waits as its servant-friend to hand it in to the actual presence of its Deliverer. Death as the penalty of sin is gone; "or life or death, or things present, or things to come, all are yours, and ye are Christ's and Christ is God's"(1 Cor. 3:22, 2322Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; 23And ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's. (1 Corinthians 3:22‑23)).