I HAVE been asking myself a little whilst we have been together, how the truths that have been brought before us by the Spirit of God both this morning and this afternoon might be practically wrought out in our souls. I am sure we all know, each for ourselves, how many hindrances there are to prevent our true enjoyment of them, though hindrances are not enough to excuse our not enjoying them. We know a little what the flesh in us is, and we are not ignorant of the varied ways in which Satan works to prevent these blessed truths having their true expression in our lives. So that, with all this against us, it surely is not enough to have a mere knowledge of them in our heads.
I have been asking myself as to these things, therefore I trust I do not speak in any judging or unexercised spirit here about it; and I feel it is a question that we do well to consider, so that our coming together may not be unprofitable, but that we may go away with a deep sense of the responsibility connected with the place God has set us in; that, through His grace, our souls may be truly exercised as to it in His presence, and that the reality of this may be manifested in our walk and ways.
We all need to enter more into the great truth of what a Christian is; I do not say of what he ought to be. Not that we shall ever learn it from any experience of our own; it can only be from the deep grace of God displayed and known in our souls. But I believe that if we were to think more of what, through the deep infinite grace of God, we really are, it would have a great practical effect upon our souls, and we should in some measure seek to answer to it.
In this Epistle to the Corinthians, as we all know, there was great allowance of the flesh spoken of as amongst them. I have read these verses from it because in them the apostle brings before us this simple fact, that all human wisdom and all human power must be set aside in the things of God. If I were to go away from these meetings with the thought that I was competent to take up and use the truths that have been brought before us, I am quite sure that I should make a miserable failure of it directly.
This is just what the Corinthians did; and thinking themselves able as men to deal with what God had enriched them with, they did make a miserable failure of the richest endowments the church had. Why? Simply because, as our brother was saying,. they had not practical hold of the truth. It is not enough to know the truth; they knew it; it must be a practical power in our souls. They knew the truth of the cross of Christ; but, though the apostle had preached to them, and that not with excellency of speech, or enticing words of man's wisdom, "Jesus Christ, and him crucified," yet it had not been a practical thing with them; they did not know that " Jesus Christ and him crucified " puts to silence every single thing that is of the flesh.
In the second place, we read that the believer has, not ought to have, the mind of Christ. As it says in the first chapter: "Christ is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." There is the setting aside by God of self in every form as to the first man. The apostle brings all this before them, he establishes them, so to speak, in their position before God, he dwells upon what they are, before he begins to speak to them about their conduct, or to dwell upon what they are allowing. Then he can press upon them that, whilst they have the mind of Christ, whilst they have Him as wisdom, they are allowing the intelligence of the first Adam to come out in their ways.
What we need is not merely to have the cross before us, as that which has procured us the forgiveness of sins, and which has brought us to God; we need to realize that, in it, the first man has been set aside. The natural man cannot understand the things of God, and must be set aside, as must the carnal man, which we find in the next chapter, and which walks after the flesh.
There is then this great truth for every believer who has received the Spirit of God: he has "the mind of Christ." Are we bringing that mind to bear upon the things of God? God has made Christ unto us " wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." He has thus put aside the first man altogether and has brought in Christ. And I ask: Am I low enough, am I foolish enough, can I take the place of a fool, can I give up all my wisdom, can I allow that all mere human intelligence has been blown upon by the cross of Christ? As the apostle says: " We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness." And " I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." " That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God."
One is glad when one thinks of what an exchange one has made: that the blessed Lord Jesus, who knew no sin, has been made sin for us, and that, coming to God through Him, I am made God's righteousness in Him. I say this is wonderful when I dwell on it. But am I equally content day by day, because of this, to bring in the sentence of death upon everything for which He died here? Am I content to be a fool for Christ's sake? Am I content to take the place of being nothing in myself, of having no wisdom of my own, of having Christ made to me of God wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption?
Thus can we be taught, by the Holy Ghost, the hidden wisdom of God, ordained before the world to our glory, which no powers of nature can grasp, (" for eye hath not seen nor ear heard") but which God's Spirit alone can unfold, because in it are " the deep things of God," while nature can only know " the things of a man."
Oh, how wonderful to be fools for Christ's sake! To have the cross writing the sentence of death upon everything here, so that Christ may be all to us I am persuaded that, if we could only be content to take this low place, if we were day by day living up to it, putting aside self, and refusing all that is of the first man, we should find this our great joy, that Christ was everything to us. We should not then seek to bring our own wisdom to bear on this or that. If I am to get up in the morning and live a little for Christ through the day, then all my springs must be in God. Is there to be a little bit of allowance in me of that for which Christ died? No. Christ cannot be carried out in my walk and ways if self is not judged and set aside by His cross, so that He may be practically made righteousness to me.
What we surely all desire for one another is, that we may know better how to accept the cross of Christ as the end of ourselves; how to be fools for Christ's sake; and how to be little in our own eyes, so that Christ may be our wisdom, our strength, our all. Thus may we be able to carry out, in the power of the Spirit, what God has given us in Christ while we sojourn here.
(T. H. R.)